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LibGuides: G5: Reading - Argument and Advocacy: Discover

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In Australia, it'd be pretty weird to find a job that was only open to boys. In fact, most of the time it's illegal to not let someone do something just because of their gender but there are a few exceptions.

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In 2019, our Women in business campaign will focus on the real world and seeking solutions to leadership diversity. What is holding back women in leadership? How can we put in place a blueprint for action?

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SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: These days we tend to think of boys and girls as being pretty much equal. You can both get an education. When you turn 18 you'll both be able to vote. You'll both be able to work in just about any field you want. And either one of you could become the prime minister. But it wasn't that long ago that the scales weren't nearly so even.

If you were a woman in the 1800's you couldn't have done the same things as men. Your main job would have been seen as getting married and having children. Then, everything you had would belong to your husband. You wouldn't even be allowed to vote. And it was in the late 1800's that many women started to demand change. They called them suffragettes.

REPORTER: Suffrage means the right to vote for politicians to represent you. In a democracy every vote counts and it means your opinion is just as important as anyone else's.

Some argued that women shouldn't be allowed to vote because they were too emotional and not smart enough to understand politics and that their place was at home. But the suffragettes fought hard to change their minds. They debated, wrote articles and petitions, protested, even faced arrest. And eventually it paid off.

REPORTER: It was in this building 119 years ago that the Government of South Australia became one of the first in the world to give women the right to vote and the first anywhere to also give them the right to run for parliament.

It was the first tip of the scales towards equality. The first and then the second world wars had a big effect on the role of women in society. With so many men called off to fight, women were asked to do all sorts of jobs they ever done before. Many enjoyed what they did. And they were good at it.

But when the war was over they were expected to go back to being housewives. They could learn, they could vote and they could work but women still weren't equal. They faced discrimination in the workplace and the media. They were generally paid less than men for doing the same job and were expected to stop working when they got married.

LINE FROM THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN: Just about an hour ago I had you fired. What? Why did you do that? I thought being my wife would take up all of your time.

In the 60's and 70's women again fought for their rights. There were some big revolutions like the birth control pill which meant women could control when they had children. Women protested for equal pay, equal opportunities, even the right to drink in bars with men.

And the world kept changing. Women led countries and businesses. They went to space and they were ordained as religious leaders. Australia got female judges and a governor general and three years ago the country elected its first ever female prime minister.

So do women now have equal rights with men? Some say yes. It's now against the law in Australia to discriminate against women. But others say not quite. On average women still earn less money than men. Fewer women run big companies and fewer sit in parliament.

And some reckon women are still judged differently to men. But at least in Australia the scales are definitely more even than they were and you can enjoy your equality thanks to the efforts of the many Aussie women who went before.

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There's been a lot of talk in the media recently about whether women are treated equally to men. It's called sexism and it's something even the Prime Minister says she's been a victim of. But while people disagree about how fairly women are treated today there's no doubt they weren't treated equally in the past.

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The Global Gender Gap Index 2015 ranks 145 economies according to how well they are leveraging their female talent pool, based on economic, educational, health-based and political indicators. With a decade of data, this edition of the Global Gender Gap Report - first published in 2006 - shows that while the world has made progress overall, stubborn inequalities remain.

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The Global Gender Gap Index 2015 ranks 145 economies according to how well they are leveraging their female talent pool, based on economic, educational, health-based and political indicators. With a decade of data, this edition of the Global Gender Gap Report - first published in 2006 - shows that while the world has made progress overall, stubborn inequalities remain.

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Five Gender Gaps Women In Singapore Still Face

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Five Gender Gaps Women In Singapore Still Face

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Equality is represented twice on the Singapore flag. First, in the colour red, symbolising the equality and universal brotherhood of man. The second, as one of the five stars standing for ideals that also include democracy, peace, progress and justice. Though the definition of equality is complex, it encompasses gender equality - the equal rights of both men and women.

The transformation of Singapore in the last 50 years has occurred on two distinct and equally important planks - physical landscape and people. Without the transformation of Singapore's people - both men and women - entering the workforce, the physical landscape would not have been so remarkably transformed.

So the equality of Singaporean women - their equal access to education, jobs, equal pay, health care and protection from violence - was, and continues to be, vital to Singapore's economic progress.

According to Singapore's labour force statistics last year, the employment rate for women is at one of its highest levels - 76 per cent for the prime working ages of 25 to 54.

Many who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s can still recall how most mothers stayed at home, but occasionally worked by helping to look after the family shop for no pay.

Today, the Singapore woman is often viewed as a finished product equal to her male counterpart. Women doctors, lawyers, bankers, entrepreneurs, office workers and legislators abound.

The Singapore woman is cosmopolitan, her destiny shaped not just by local culture but influenced also by an ever permeating global culture, augmented by Singapore's open economy.

And yet, there still exist gender gaps.

First, some women are still not equally paid as their male counterparts for the same job. In the 2014 Labour Force Statistics, women earn less than men in all occupational categories except clerical and support. In most categories, this differential is more than 10 per cent.

Second, although a roughly equal number of women enter tertiary institutions as men, there is a fall-off of employed women in their 30s because of child-rearing and caregiving.

Could a mindset shift of men taking on more household duties help?

For Asian households, this could be a difficult ask. But this is no ground-breaking idea. Some 25 years ago, then prime minister Lee Kuan Yew said: "It is not possible to have a man continue to treat his marriage as if a wife's role is the same as that in his mother's generation... Wives cannot alone carry the burdens of managing the home and bringing up the children."

Even as more Singaporean women become wage earners, and breadwinners in some cases, our Asian values-based society has to evolve and become more accepting of modern life choices - that men can stay at home and be the primary caregivers of families.

Third, women are still under-represented at senior management levels.

To some extent this is due to point two, which results in the dwindling of the available pool of female candidates for higher positions. Companies and bosses must, therefore, be open-minded, consultative and creative in considering alternative work plans specifically targeted at female work-life balance.

At the highest corporate level - board seats - progress has been dismal. The topic of gender quotas continues to be divisive. Most women still prefer to be elevated for merit-based reasons. However, the lack of progress bears re-evaluating this organic strategy.

According to BoardAgender, in Singapore in 2013, only 8.3 per cent of SGX-listed companies have women on their boards. We are still behind our regional peers and at about half the percentages of the European Union, United States and Australia.

Fourth, gender equality should also extend to women who come to work here. The at-times awkward and unspoken truth is that for many working women, having a maid is imperative in allowing them to go to work and earn a living. Domestic helpers should be duly recognised, not just within the family - such as through better working and sleeping conditions - but by society, with stronger legal rights in the case of exploitation for overwork, unpaid wages or physical and mental abuse.

Fifth, according to Central Provident Fund statistics, older Singapore women do not accumulate as much in CPF savings as older men. In 2013, the median CPF savings for women aged 51 to 54 was about $90,000, and for males, $130,000.

Bear in mind also that almost a quarter of women would have left the labour force in their prime working age primarily for caregiving reasons, further affecting CPF savings.

Anecdotally, many women have less control over their own or their family's finances than men.

With Singapore women living longer than men, financial education over a woman's lifespan, particularly in her golden years, will become more crucial.

As we celebrate International Women's Day and as Singapore turns 50, my hope is that women here will continue to fight for their equality and will not be afraid to ask and confront tough gender questions and environments. For only with gender equality, will the other Singapore ideals - democracy, peace, progress and justice - be fully realised.

The writer is president of the Singapore Committee for UN Women and past president of the Financial Women's Association.

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Five gender gaps Singapore women still face in 2015

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Equality is represented twice on the Singapore flag. First, in the colour red, symbolising the equality and universal brotherhood of man. The second, as one of the five stars standing for ideals that also include democracy, peace, progress and justice. Though the definition of equality is complex, it encompasses gender equality - the equal rights of both men and women..

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Women Are Really Stronger Than Men, According to Study

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Women Are Really Stronger Than Men, According to Study

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New research suggests the female advantage in life expectancy has fundamental biological roots

Tomasz Frymorgen

Women really are the stronger sex.

No doubt many of you will have long suspected this is the case, and now you have fresh scientific findings to back up your suspicions.

A recent academic study has shown that under extreme conditions such as famines, epidemics and enslavement, women are able to survive for longer than men.

Across modern populations, women outlive men in almost all instances, with life expectancy for English women being 83.1 years, compared to 79.5 years for men (the figure for Scotland is 81.2 years for women and 77.1 years for men).

Now, academics from the Southern University of Denmark have looked at data from seven historic cases when populations were exposed to extreme hardship, in order to gain new insights into the gender mortality gap.

Case studies included the Irish famine of 1845-1849, the Iceland measles epidemics of 1846 and 1882, and the experiences of freed Liberian slaves returning to Africa from the US in the early 19th century, where they encountered a very different disease climate which killed many.

These situations saw dramatic decreases in life expectancy. During the 1882 Iceland measles epidemic, for example, life expectancy dropped from 43.99 to 18.83 years for females and from 37.62 to just 16.76 years for males.

The researchers found that, in all the populations, women had lower mortality across almost all ages, and with one exception, women lived longer on average than men.

The study noted that gender differences in infant mortality "contributed the most" to the gender gap in life expectancy, indicating, "that newborn girls were able to survive extreme mortality hazards better than newborn boys".

Based on these findings, the academics concluded, "The hypothesis that the survival advantage of women has fundamental biological underpinnings is supported by the fact that under very harsh conditions females survive better than males even at infant ages when behavioral and social differences may be minimal or favor males."

They did however note that, "Our findings also indicate that the female advantage differs across environments and is modulated by social factors."

The academics referred to existing research that suggests hormonal differences might further explain the gender mortality gap. For example, oestrogens, found in larger quantities in women, have anti-inflammatory effects, whereas testosterone, found in larger amounts in men, may actually suppress the immune system.

The new study's lead author, Professor Virginia Zarulli, wrote in the journal PNAS: "The conditions experienced by the people in the analysed populations were horrific. Even though the crises reduced the female survival advantage in life expectancy, women still survived better than men.

"We find that even when mortality was very high, women lived longer."

That is some serious girl power.

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Women really are stronger than men, according to study - BBC Three

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N/A New research suggests the female advantage in life expectancy has fundamental biological roots Tomasz Frymorgen Women really are the stronger sex. No doubt many of you will have long suspected this is the case, and now you have fresh scientific findings to back up your suspicions.

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DinoSearch.com Results Page - All results are screened by our adult filter as well as being filtered by Google Safe Search technology. Child safe search engine which is powered by Google Custom SafeSearch

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Women Respond Better Than Men Under Competitive Pressure

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Women Respond Better Than Men Under Competitive Pressure

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I n analyzing more than 8,200 games from Grand Slam tennis matches, Alex Krumer of the University of St. Gallen and his colleagues found that the male players' performance showed a larger drop in high-stakes games (relative to low-stakes games) than the female players' performance did. Their conclusion: Women respond better than men to competitive pressure.

Dr. Krumer, defend your research.

Krumer: We looked at the performance of servers-who normally have an advantage-in every first set played at the 2010 French, U.S., and Australian Opens and at Wimbledon, and we found that the men's performance deteriorated more than the women's when the game was at a critical juncture. For example, in sets that went to 4-4, the number of men's serves that were broken rose more than seven percentage points after the players had reached the tie. Among women, we saw barely any difference between pre- and post-tie performance. And even when female athletes' play did deteriorate as pressure increased, the drop in performance was about 50% less, on average, than that of their male counterparts. So my coauthors-Danny Cohen-Zada and Mosi Rosenboim from Ben-Gurion University and Offer Moshe Shapir from NYU Shanghai-and I feel we can confidently say that in the world of elite tennis, women are better under pressure than men are. They choke less. Whether that translates to other competitive settings remains to be seen.

HBR: Why look at only tennis, and only first sets, and only Grand Slams?

Tennis is a sport in which it's very easy to measure performance and competitive pressure. There's a clear winner of every point, game, set, and match, and you can assess the extent to which victory in a particular game-when the score is, say, 1-1, 3-1, or 5-0-affects the probability of winning the match. We looked at only first sets because we thought asymmetry, fatigue, and momentum might become factors in later ones. Also, winning the initial set provides a huge advantage: In our data, 85% of women and 77% of men who won the first set also won the match. And we focused on Grand Slams because their monetary incentives and ranking points are the largest, and they're the only tournaments that give the same prize money to men and women. Men do play more sets in those matches-five, compared with three for women-but if anything, that makes it even more important for women to take that first set.

So Grand Slam-level money and points increase the pressure even further?

There's a lot of research on the inverse relationship between performance and incentive-induced pressure. Dan Ariely at Duke University and his colleagues published a paper called "Large Stakes, Big Mistakes," which described experiments with villagers in India and college students. In them, subjects who were given very large performance-related incentives did worse on tasks than subjects given relatively small incentives. Other studies have shown that Australian basketball players sink more free throws in practice than in games, and that professional golfers are more likely to miss a shot on the final hole of a high-stakes tournament.

Did you expect to find differences between the sexes?

We weren't sure, because the evidence on gender, pressure, and performance is limited and mixed. Some studies have found no difference between men and women. Some have found that men do better when the heat is on; others have found that women outshine men in certain environments. M. Daniele Paserman at Boston University actually looked at this Grand Slam data before we did and found that both sexes play more conservatively on key points, making fewer unforced errors and hitting fewer winning shots. But he didn't directly assess the effect of competitive pressure on the likelihood of winning. We thought it would be interesting to look at those unambiguous, objective results and ask: Which group choked less when it mattered?

But wait. You were looking at women playing women and men playing men. If one player was underperforming because of the pressure, wasn't his or her opponent-a person of the same sex-outperforming in the same circumstances?

That's why we focused on the server. There's wide agreement among tennis experts that any given point depends more on the performance of the server, who has complete control over the first shot of the point, than of the receiver, who simply reacts to it. On average, the person serving wins 72.6% of the time. So when a server loses a critical point, it's more often because he or she choked than because the other player came through in the clutch.

Isn't there more parity in men's professional tennis, though? Maybe the male servers were just up against tougher competition? Or Federer's and Djokovic's stellar returns skewed the results?

Our estimations controlled for player characteristics within a given match, including world ranking, body-mass index, height, and home-court advantage.

Still, what if you looked at mixed doubles Grand Slam games-high-stakes competition involving both sexes? Do you think you'd get different results?

It's certainly possible. At least one lab experiment has shown that women respond more positively to increasing pressure in a single-sex environment than they do in a mixed-sex one, while men perform better in the latter. So we do have to be careful about making generalizations. And in most real-life arenas, including the labor market, women obviously have to compete with men.

We're not all Serena Williams either.

I get your point. Our study looked at the best of the best in tennis. Perhaps these elite female athletes have something that most women don't, which enables them to be more clutch than men at the same high level. But think about other roles in which you'd want people who stay calm under pressure-CEO positions at large companies, for example. You don't generally see average Joes or Janes filling them. You see a different type of elite, experienced performer. And still only about 4% of Fortune 500 chief executives are women.

Even if we stick to the narrow finding-in Grand Slam tennis matches women choke less than men do-how do you explain it?

We don't know, but it could be biological. If you look at the literature on cortisol, the stress hormone, you'll find that levels of it increase more rapidly in men than in women-in scenarios from golf rounds to public speaking-and that those spikes can hurt performance. We weren't able to get blood samples from the tennis players, but I wonder if we might have found similar evidence. Danny Cohen-Zada, Ze'ev Shtudiner, and I have also published some research suggesting that men are more affected by psychological momentum than women are. We looked at bronze medal judo fights from 2009 to 2013 and found that men who had prevailed in their previous contests were more likely to win in bronze medal rounds than men who had just lost, whereas female competitors' prior-fight record had no effect on their probability of victory. Again, that makes sense biologically because we know that testosterone, a proven performance enhancer, spikes after triumph and ebbs after defeat in men, but not in women. While winners who keep winning might sound like a good thing to you, outside the athletic world, there's a risk it leads to overconfidence.

So we're not the weaker, more emotional sex after all?

It's funny: I'm from Israel, where everyone is required to serve in the national military, and we're having a big debate right now about whether women should take on combat roles. In a recent televised discussion of the issue, one speaker cited our study to justify a shift to gender equality in the military. Physically speaking, men are still stronger than women, on average. But if you're talking about mental toughness, maybe in certain circumstances it's women who have the edge.

A version of this article appeared in the November-December 2017 issue (pp.34-35) of Harvard Business Review.

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Research: Women Are Better Under Pressure Than Men

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I n analyzing more than 8,200 games from Grand Slam tennis matches, Alex Krumer of the University of St. Gallen and his colleagues found that the male players' performance showed a larger drop in high-stakes games (relative to low-stakes games) than the female players' performance did.

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Women in Business: Building a Blueprint for Action

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Women in Business: Building a Blueprint for Action

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Women are More Productive Than Men, According to new Research

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Women are More Productive Than Men, According to new Research

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This Black British hiker is tackling exclusion from the outdoors

Countryside pursuits can be white-dominated activities in many societies. In the UK, one walking enthusiast founded Black Girls Hike, encouraging Black women to explore the countryside.

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Women are more productive than men, according to new research

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Countryside pursuits can be white-dominated activities in many societies. In the UK, one walking enthusiast founded Black Girls Hike, encouraging Black women to explore the countryside.

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7 Surprising and Outrageous Statistics About Gender Equality

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7 Surprising and Outrageous Statistics About Gender Equality

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Gender Inequality

Women are 47% more likely than men to be injured in a car crash. Image: REUTERS/Vincent West

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7 surprising and outrageous stats about gender inequality

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On International Women's Day, here are seven statistics worth taking a stand against - from child brides to domestic burdens to unequal pay.

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Walk into a toy store, and you are likely to see toys specifically designed and marketed for boys or girls - without very much overlap. With pink and blue color coding, and princess and action-hero designs, manufacturers seem to be using more and more gender messaging to sell their toys.

Should toys be more gender-neutral?

Room for Debate asked the question, " Why Should Toys Come in Pink and Blue? "

Elizabeth Sweet, a postdoctoral scholar and lecturer in sociology at the University of California, Davis, argues that toy marketing reinforces gender stereotypes:

In my research on historic toy advertisements, I found no period during the 20th century when the gender based marketing of toys was anything near what we see today. In the 1975 Sears catalog, for example, toys came in many hues, and science kits and kitchen sets showed boys and girls working together.

But with the growth of the consumer economy, toy companies worked to stimulate demand by honing their appeal to kids. Gender categorization provided a handy tool for toy companies to define target markets, and gender stereotypes drew the interest of young children forming their own sense of identity.

There was also a shift in cultural understandings of gender: Belief that men and women are fundamentally different, and stereotypes about women, grew in the 1980s and 1990s despite broad support for gender equality.

Today, the pink-washed versions of toys that had been marketed solely to boys for decades are promoted as a shift toward gender neutrality. But while these toys may broaden the offerings within segregated toy aisles, they do nothing to challenge the underlying fact that the aisles are still segregated. And rather than busting stereotypes, such toys reinforce the idea that gender is the primary determinant of interests and skills.

On the other hand, Jim Silver, the chief executive and editor of TTPM, a website publishing reviews for toys, writes that toy makers are listening to parents and children:

Since I've been working in the toy business for more than 25 years, I am often asked, "What should I buy my daughter or son?" My usual response is something like, "Does your daughter like Hot Wheels? Or does your son like activity or cooking toys?" The days of applying a gender to a toy are declining.

Toy manufacturers have noticed this trend and are making changes on some of their traditional "boys or girls" toys that they feel will make them attractive to the opposite gender. For example, after some controversy, the Easy-Bake Oven introduced a black and silver version - although I would like to debate with whoever declared the purple oven a "girl" color. Lego introduced its Lego Friends line to attract more girls, to resounding success. Initially, the line was criticized for trying to appeal to girls by using pink and purple - a color palette associated with a "girls" toy. Was it successful by using these colors? Yes. But there's more to it - the line succeeded because Lego Friends incorporated interests that girls found attractive, such as a horse stables set.

Students: Read the entire Room for Debate feature, then tell us ...

- Should toys be more gender-neutral? Would more gender-neutral toys help boys and girls discover their own unique interests, rather than be boxed into gender-specific expectations? Or, does the growing number of toys marketed specifically for boys or girls simply provide families with more choices? Why?

- Do gender-directed marketing efforts actually diversify the types of toys boys and girls play with? For example, do they get girls to play more with archery sets and construction kits that they might otherwise not like?

- Or, does color coding toys pink and blue based on gender stereotypes reinforce gender biases? Do gender-specific toys perpetuate the notion that interests and skills are inherently gender based - that boys and girls naturally like different things?

- Do you think parents and children appreciate gender messaging in toys? Does pink and blue color coding in toys make toys more appealing for boys and girls? Or, does it turn off some families and children?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Walk into a toy store, and you are likely to see toys specifically designed and marketed for boys or girls - without very much overlap. With pink and blue color coding, and princess and action-hero designs, manufacturers seem to be using more and more gender messaging to sell their toys.

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LibGuides: G5: The Exhibition of Learning - We Can Make a Difference: Gender Equality

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The University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History celebrated 100 years of inspiring people to care about life on Earth in 2017. To mark the closing of an era and the beginning of a new century, UF News profiled three Florida Museum women who are shaping the research institution's future and breaking the cycle of stereotypes and misconceptions in the world of science. With modern tools like social media and podcasts, they continue the work of past and current museum women, who have fought for equality in their fields and for the visibility of women in science.

In this Becoming Visible video series and site, we meet Fossil Hunter Michelle Barboza, above, a Los Angeles native and graduate student who 'accidentally' became a scientist because of her love for the outdoors. Her podcast Femmes of STEM celebrates women who are scientists in the past with women who are scientists in the present.

Graduate student and museum collections technician Adania Flemming, above, studies life in water-based ecosystems. As the only woman in her lab, she's making herself as visible as she can through social media and museum events so that other aspiring scientists of color can "see that scientists come in all genders and skin tones." She also wants to bring hands-on training in marine biology, ichthyology, and island ecology to schools in Trinidad and Tobago from where she hales.

Verity Mathis is the mammals collection manager for the museum, a job in which she loves to share how and why museum collections are so important: "Without records showing when and where species occur and how they can vary across their range or between sexes, scientists can't say anything about their evolution, their distribution or their interactions with other species..."

Next, watch more videos about women working in STEM fields, including Dr. Mae Jemison, Dr. Sylvia Earle, research fellow Jane Lucas, biologist Sally Warring, volcanologist Carolyn Parcheta, and many, many more.

Plus: 33 Million Things and Six Ways To Prepare a Coelacanth, two Shelf Life episodes from AMNH, and Sir David Attenborough explains why museum collections are so important.

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Becoming Visible: Shattering stereotypes & misconceptions in science | The Kid Should See This

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The University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History celebrated 100 years of inspiring people to care about life on Earth in 2017. To mark the closing of an era and the beginning of a new century, UF News profiled three Florida Museum women who are shaping the research institution's future and breaking the cycle of stereotypes and misconceptions in the world of science.

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Mr. Silverthorn
Mr. Edwards
Head of HR
HR Department

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Creating, Sharing and Celebrating the World's Visual Language.

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I. When did gender equality become important for your organisation/school, and how has it changed over time?
II. Why was it important for your organisation?
III. How did it impact the school/organisation?- positive outcomes
IV. How would you want to improve on gender equality?
V. If there is one message you want to give to the whole world about your experience and learning with/about gender equality, what would it be?

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HR Departments
VMLY&R
Johnson & Johnson
Space Matrix

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Mercury Reader - Clear away the clutter from all of your articles. Instantly.

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Yes, we got in touch with her, by the way

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Yes, we got in touch with her, by the way

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Emma Watson

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SANTA: Hohoho Merry Christmas. I'm Santa. What would you like for Christmas little boy? How about a nice dinosaur?

BOY: I really like cooking so an oven is what I really want.

SANTA: An oven? Santa doesn't think so. How about a nice truck?

SANTA: What about you little girl?

GIRL: I'd like a chemistry set

SANTA: A chemistry set? How about some nice make-up. Look, it's got glitter.

GIRL: Thanks.

REPORTER, SARAH LARSEN: All kids are different and any half decent Santa knows that not all boys or all girls will want the same thing for Christmas.

But some are worried that the people selling toys are acting like this guy

SANTA: And what would you like for Christmas little girl?

GIRL: I want a bike.

SANTA: A pink bike.

GIRL: Actually, my favourite colour is yellow

SANTA: Yes. One pink bike. Pink.

If you walk into a shop it's pretty easy to see which toys are meant for boys and which ones are for girls (just a hint, they're the pink ones). And if you turn on the TV you'll see something similar. There are a whole heap of toys that are sold as being for boys and others that are pretty obviously meant for girls. But does it have to be that way?

OLD AD: Boys love Remco toys and so do girls.

There have always been toys that all kids love to play with - girls and boys - and in the old days many ads included both.

REPORTER: But quite a long time ago some companies realised that you could sell more toys if you made separate ones for girls and boys.

The trouble is, some people reckon, that toy makers are selling their products with old fashioned stereotypes. They say girls toys are more likely to revolve around fashion, beauty, shopping or housekeeping. While boys are encouraged to build, fix things, fight or save the world. And while its only play, some experts reckon that it can help to shape kids attitudes about what women and men should be doing.

YOUTUBE CLIP: The companies who make these trick the kids into buying the pink stuff instead of stuff that boys want to buy right?

This four year olds rant about toy stores went viral a while ago.

RILEY: Some girls like superheros some boys like superheros some boys like princesses some girls like princesses.

A lot of people agreed with what little Riley had to say.

Around the world there's been a push to make more toys unisex; ditch the old pink and blue and include boys and girls in advertising. Overseas some toy big toy stores got rid of their separate girls and boys section and recently a group of Aussie parents started a campaign asking for local shops to do the same.

They say toys should be more like the real world where men and women have all sorts of different interests and can do any job that they like. But not everyone thinks the way we play changes the way we think.

There are some natural differences between boys and girls and some reckon that's why they play with different things. They say toy companies are only giving kids what they want and people shouldn't take child's play so seriously. So what do you think?

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Lately there's been a lot of talk about toys and not just because Christmas is coming up. A group of parents want toy shops to stop dividing their products into stuff for boys and stuff for girls. They think the toys we're encouraged to play with as kids often reflect old-fashioned ideas about the roles of men and women.

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Who can we interview?
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- G5 Teachers
- G5 Students

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To Achieve Gender Equality We Must Tackle Our Unconscious Biases 

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To Achieve Gender Equality We Must Tackle Our Unconscious Biases 

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People often argue that most Western societies have achieved gender equality - women have all the same legal rights as men, and workplace discrimination based on gender is illegal. Despite this, feminists continue to argue that the battle for gender equality is not yet won.

So what do we mean when we talk about gender equality, and how will we know when we have it?

What does the evidence tell us?

There is evidence of widespread prejudice against women and girls from decades of psychological research. For instance, an experiment was conducted in which participants watched an entrepreneurial pitch video of images relating to a new venture, narrated by the voice of the entrepreneur. Participants were randomly assigned to a group in which either a male or female voice narrated the pitch, which was otherwise identical. When a male voice pitched the venture, 68% of participants thought it was worthy of funding, compared to only 32% when pitched by a female voice.

Read more: The evolutionary history of men and women should not prevent us from seeking gender equality

Such effects occur even when gender is presented only on paper. In an experiment in which participants were asked to rate an applicant for a laboratory manager position, an identical application was provided in two separate conditions. However, in each condition, the application was randomly assigned as belonging to either "John" or "Jennifer". Participants who were led to believe the applicant was male rated them as more competent and hireable, as well as offering them a higher starting salary and more career mentoring.

Even children show this gender bias. One study asked children to guess whether a "really, really smart" protagonist in a story was a man or a woman. By the age of six, girls were less likely to guess that the protagonist was a woman than boys were to guess that the protagonist was a man.

This scientific evidence demonstrates that people do in fact discriminate based on gender, despite denials that gender inequality persists in modern societies. This research demonstrates that even when all else is equal, women are at a disadvantage to men in many domains. This might be because men are perceived as being more capable in general, even in the absence of evidence to suggest superior skills.

Equal does not mean identical

One might object that there are meaningful differences between males and females, and these in turn are the source of gender inequality. Some believe that equality is the wrong word to use, because males and females can't be equal if they are different.

But when feminists refer to gender equality, we are not arguing that males and females are identical or indistinguishable on all behaviour, preferences and abilities. Nor does it mean all gender differences must be eliminated, or that we must have equal gender representation in every field.

For instance, there are many more male firefighters than female firefighters. Part of this is likely due to gender differences in work preferences. But it is also partly due to the physical strength tests used in recruiting firefighters. These include being able to lift a 72kg mannequin and drag it for 45 metres. Many fit men can achieve this feat, but substantially fewer fit women can.

Even in the absence of gender discrimination, we might always have fewer female firefighters simply because of such physical requirements. But as long as these requirements are reasonable for the job and no woman is excluded because she is a woman, then gender discrimination is not a problem. Gender equality doesn't mean we must have a 50:50 balance of men and women in every profession purely for the sake of equal representation.

Equality or equity?

Gender equality also does not mean that males and females must always be treated the same. Given the existence of biological sex differences, it is reasonable for males and females to have different legal rights in some instances. For example, only females can ever require maternity leave specifically for pregnancy and birth.

In cases such as these, what is required is not equal treatment, but equitable treatment. Equity means recognising that differences in ability mean that fairness often requires treating people differently so that they can achieve the same outcome. At times equity is necessary to achieve gender equality, but there are many instances where this is not the case.

Read more: How the Liberals can fix their gender problem

Most of the time, women and girls are at no inherent disadvantage due to a lack of ability that warrants differential treatment. Gender equality can often be achieved just by holding everyone to the same standard. The problem, as highlighted by the evidence reviewed above, is the irrational gender bias that women and girls are routinely subjected to.

The purpose of affirmative action policies to increase female representation is to counteract systemic discrimination against women. Affirmative action creates gender equity by overcoming the barriers women face simply because of their gender. If we can eliminate this gender-based discrimination, no such action will be necessary.

Achieving gender equality

So if gender equality does not mean that males and females must be identical or always require the same treatment in order to achieve fairness, what does it mean?

Gender equality is seeing males and females as being of equal status and value. It is judging a person based on their merit, and not viewing them as inferior or superior purely based on their gender.

Unfortunately, the evidence reviewed above suggests this prejudice is still widespread, and we often aren't aware of our own biases. We cannot say that we have gender equality until this prejudice is overcome and we have eliminated the irrational bias that people have against somebody just because they are female.

Equal rights are not enough. Inequality exists in our minds, in our biases and prejudices, and that remains to be fixed.

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To achieve gender equality, we must first tackle our unconscious biases

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People often argue that most Western societies have achieved gender equality - women have all the same legal rights as men, and workplace discrimination based on gender is illegal. Despite this, feminists continue to argue that the battle for gender equality is not yet won.

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Gender Equality Is Not Just a 'Woman Issue'

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Gender Equality Is Not Just a 'Woman Issue'

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Gender equality is often framed as a responsibility of women, and that they ought to be more outspoken or assertive to climb the career ladder, but men too benefit from a more egalitarian society, says one observer from AWARE.

(Updated: )
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SINGAPORE: According to a survey of 809 teenage boys that AWARE published last year (a collaboration with Ngee Ann Polytechnic's Diploma in Psychology Studies programme), nine in 10 teenage boys reported facing pressures to be "manly" through experiences of harassment, bullying, teasing, social exclusion, and psychological and physical violence.

The most common forms of such pressure are being told to "man-up" and to "take it like a man".

Many of us accept that this pressure which boys and men so regularly face is one way gender inequality manifests.

Yet when we actually talk about gender equality, many mention visions of greater female representation on boards and in government, or something basic, like women's rights to education and work.

In thinkpieces and social discourse, gender equality is often framed as a responsibility that is largely in the hands of women and girls - that women ought to be more "outspoken" or "assertive" to get that promotion at work or muscle their way up the career ladder.

It too easily becomes a conversation about women's "shortcomings", and how women should behave, participate and contribute to right this deeply-entrenched imbalance.

Where are the men in this picture? It's clear that men also have a stake in gender equality.
CHALLENGE GENDER ROLES EARLY
Indeed men may have a greater responsibility to work towards it, as a group with collectively more power, influence and capital than women. But striving for equality won't just improve society's treatment of women and girls: Men, too, benefit.

A society that prioritises gender equality would start teaching boys and girls about the harms of gender roles early.

In Singapore, this can be done through implementing mandatory gender equality and comprehensive sexuality education in the school curriculum, which encourages young men and women to strive for more healthy and equal relationships.

If Singapore had such a curriculum in place, we probably would hear fewer stories about the gender stereotyping and sexist beliefs that young people are often subject to or reinforce - some examples in recent years include officially-distributed pamphlets telling young people about "female doublespeak", and university orientation games that make light of sexual violence and gender-based violence.

MEN ARE ALSO AFFECTED
These unhealthy messages would have less room to grow if young people are taught values of gender equality, respect and diversity, the same way they are taught racial and religious harmony in school.

Boys and men are directly affected by narrow ideas about gender. Through the survey cited above, we found that 54 per cent of respondents have hit, punched, shoved or spat on another boy, while 74 per cent have experienced some form of physical violence.

"If (the bullied) said how they felt when someone insulted them, (the bullies) would say to "take it like a man" and "stop being such a girl", one respondent said. Some reported how boys seen to be "weak" or "girly" were even sexually abused.

The harms of pressures to conform seem fairly obvious. Everyone should be free to behave in ways that feel comfortable without the threat of violence. By reforming traditional ideas about gender, we can start to move away from real or implied threats of violence, and leave more than just overt gender-based violence behind.
CAREGIVING SHOULD NOT BE ONLY A WOMAN'S RESPONSIBILITY
After all, gender inequality doesn't only lead to violence - it restricts individual expression, contributes to economic inequality, and limits men and women's role in their households and communities, among others.

Let's take the issue of caregiving in the family - a big part of many people's lives in Singapore, especially with our ageing population. Myths about how women are more naturally nurturing and caring than men seem to shape our national policies.

For instance, mothers receive 16 weeks of maternity leave, while fathers receive only two weeks of paternity leave. Fathers are allowed to share maternity leave, though only up to four weeks.

Might this be the reason for why women assume a heavier caregiving burden?

According to Ministry of Social and Family Development's survey of informal family caregivers of older adults, 60 per cent of caregivers were women.

The message is unfortunately loud and clear - childcare and eldercare remain primarily "women's issues". We see this translate into women's inability to fully participate in the labour force, which result in their financial stability and livelihoods suffering.

78 per cent of prime-age working women who were out of the labour force two years ago in a survey by the Ministry of Manpower cited "family responsibilities" as their main reason for not working, compared to 9.6 per cent of men.
A STRONGER, AND MORE EQUAL, SINGAPORE
This ripples into old age: Women have 11 per cent less CPF savings in old age than men do, an analysis by the Central Provident Fund found last year.

What would Singapore look like if men were equal contributors to care and household labour? We would see greater economic growth, with women returning to the labour force after being freed up from unpaid care responsibilities that otherwise would fall entirely on them.

Dual-income households generally fare better in an expensive city like Singapore, so the pressure for men to be sole income earners is likely to lessen. In parallel, we would hopefully see national institutions improve at a greater pace to support this progress.

We already see a thirst for flexibility and more family-friendly policies in workplaces. There is a slow but growing normalisation of flexi-work arrangements among more progressive companies.

Employers are recognising their staff as more than just workers, but as individuals with care, domestic and personal responsibilities and needs as well. Employment policies that support family life and promote gender equality would enable all workers, including men, to better juggle work and care.

It's no wonder, then, that there are higher rates of retention and greater job satisfaction when employees feel like their contributions are supported and valued, beyond their office doors.

So it's not just women who would benefit from initiatives like paid caregiving leave or equalised parental leave. Many fathers are starting to be more active parents, and healthy workplace allowances are encouraging egalitarian family structures, rather than one that is determined by gender.
DON'T TAKE TOO LONG
After all, the underlying assumption that men are simply not interested in playing a bigger role in their children's lives, or caring for their own family members, is unfair to men.

It sounds like an all-around win, for men and women to strive towards gender equality. So what's taking us so long to get there?

For gender equality to truly be achieved, much has to change. Individual attitudes and beliefs about gender need to be reformed, of course, but this would do little unless there are also accommodations made in our workplaces, educational institutions and communities.

Our laws and policies need to also address gender-based barriers - for instance, by increasing paid paternity leave to encourage equal caregiving.

Gender equality is not a pipe dream. But for it to be a reality, men need to recognise how gender inequality creates unfair, narrow and even toxic versions of themselves and their roles in society; and they need to see it equally as their responsibility, too.
Nabilah Husna is communications manager at AWARE.

And then they, as allies working alongside women, need to act.

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Commentary: Gender equality is not just a 'women's issue'

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Gender equality is often framed as a responsibility of women, and that they ought to be more outspoken or assertive to climb the career ladder, but men too benefit from a more egalitarian society, says one observer from AWARE.

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Gender Defenders Student Exhibition Group Portfolio

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This padlet has an anti-typecast policy ;)

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Michael Kimmel: Why Gender Equality is Goof for Everyone

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Michael Kimmel: Why Gender Equality is Goof for Everyone

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Emma Watson to United Nations | I'm a Feminist

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Emma Watson to United Nations | I'm a Feminist

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Emma Watson to United Nations: I'm a feminist

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Playlist of Ted Talks on Gender Equality

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Playlist of Ted Talks on Gender Equality

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For the best experience, please turn JavaScript on. Here's how

These essential talks delve into the intricacies of feminism, examining everyday realities in the pursuit of equality.

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You have JavaScript disabled For the best experience, please turn JavaScript on. Here's how These essential talks delve into the intricacies of feminism, examining everyday realities in the pursuit of equality.

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How Gender Stereotypes are Built Into Mandarin

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How Gender Stereotypes are Built Into Mandarin

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GENDER bias in language is exercising Europe's linguists. A French grammar book published last year ignited debates about an old grammatical rule that holds that masculine forms of words trump the feminine. In similar vein, Spanish politicians have proposed editing the constitution to include a reference to female workers ("workers" in the masculine, and therefore universal, form are already mentioned). And German grammarians are mulling an update to dictionaries to include new genderless versions of words. In China, however, the debate is rather quieter. Yet Mandarin-spoken by 70% of Chinese people-has gender bias, too. It shares some issues with other languages: female bosses, for example, are typically identified as such (eg, woman-boss), whereas male ones are not. But unlike some European tongues, Mandarin does not assign genders to nouns. It has a different-and inaudible-issue: some of its written characters ascribe negative stereotypes to women.

Chinese characters are made up of smaller components, called radicals, that come in two forms. Phonetic radicals give clues about a character's pronunciation; semantic ones give clues about its meaning. For example, the radical for "speech" (讠) is semantic and is found on the left side of characters associated with speech: "language" (语), "words" (话), "to request" (请), "to chat" (谈), "to thank" (谢) and so on. Chinese dictionaries are often sorted by radical, so these characters are listed together. Similarly, the Chinese radical for "woman" (女) is found in the characters for "mother" (妈), "sister" (姐), and "aunt" (姑).
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But the "woman" radical is also found in the characters and words for "jealousy" (妒), "suspicion" (嫌), "slave" (奴隶), "devil" (妖) and "rape" (强奸). It appears in some more positive instances, such as "good"（好）and "safety" (安), but even these characters rely on stereotypes: "good" depicts a woman next to a child, and "safety" is represented by a woman under a roof. The woman radical itself (女) is throught to derive from an image of a woman bending over with her hands clasped together. The word for man (男), by contrast, is made up of radicals meaning "field" (田) and "power" (力). Chinese grammar, especially word order, can also be said to favour men. The word for "parents" is "father and mother", in that order; "children" is sometimes depicted as "son and daughter". Most ironically, as one linguist has noted, the phrase for "gender equality" (男女平等) puts the male character before the female one.

Progress is possible. In 2015 curators used the traditional character for illicit sexual relations (姦-three women radicals, one on top of two others, to suggest multiple affairs by a man) as the name of an exhibit on violence against women. A year later a group of female typographers published a book of characters that they had made up. One put the radicals for "walking" and "woman" together to convey the idea that women's roles can be outside the home. Inventing new characters is rather easier than abolishing existing ones, though. China's written language is a source of national pride, persisting despite the difficulty it imposes. Anyone who spends hours learning Chinese characters will also learn the stereotypes built into them.
Correction (September 6th 2018): This article has been amended to make clear that the exhibition referred to in the final paragraph took its name from the traditional character representing illicit sexual relations

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How gender stereotypes are built into Mandarin

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GENDER bias in language is exercising Europe's linguists. A French grammar book published last year ignited debates about an old grammatical rule that holds that masculine forms of words trump the feminine. In similar vein, Spanish politicians have proposed editing the constitution to include a reference to female workers ("workers" in the masculine, and therefore universal, form are already mentioned).

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It's Time to Talk About Robot Gender Stereotypes

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It's Time to Talk About Robot Gender Stereotypes

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Robots are the most powerful blank slate humans have ever created. Want a helpful robot? No problem. Want a mean one? Sure, if that's what you're into. A robot is a mirror held up not just to its creator, but to our whole species: What we make of the machine reflects what we are.

That also means we have the very real opportunity to screw up robots by infusing them with exaggerated, overly simplified gender stereotypes. So maybe robots aren't simply a mirror. "I think of it more as a funhouse mirror," says Julie Carpenter, who studies human-robot interaction. "It's very distorted, especially right now when we're still being introduced to the idea of robots, especially real humanoid robots that exist in the world outside of science fiction."

Perhaps the biggest issue-yet most subtle- is gender. How gender biases manifest in the design of voice assistants is well-worn territory. Research shows that users tend to like a male voice when an authoritative presence is needed and a female voice when receiving helpful guidance. Scientists are just beginning to consider how these gender biases materialize in physical robots.

Robots don't have genders-they're metal and plastic and silicon, and filled with ones and zeroes. Gender is a complicated mix of biology, which robots don't have, and how we feel about that biology, feelings that robots also lack. Yet we are already finding ways to mirror our social problems in our robots. One study, for instance, found that participants judged a robot programmed to perform security work as more masculine, while they judged the same robot instead programmed for guidance to be more feminine (echoing the gender preferences toward voice assistants). The danger is that robot makers, consciously or not, may exploit gender stereotypes to try to make their machines more effective-designing a receptionist robot to be more feminine and therefore more "welcoming," or a security robot to be more broad-shouldered and therefore more "authoritative."

It doesn't have to be this way. Robots could just as easily be used to confront, and begin changing, those stereotypes. "It'd be great if somehow we could use robots as a tool to better understand ourselves, and maybe even influence some positive change," says Carpenter. "Globally, the social movement we're moving towards is equality. So why go backwards? Why refer to gender norms from the 1960s?"

The struggle is against capitalism's tendency to gender every product it can. Are you a woman who just can't find the right kind of pen? Bic has you covered. Or a man who's been struggling with the embarrassment of using regular tissues? Easily solved..

With human-like robots, even subtle design choices can telegraph gender. A recent study found that when shown images of humanoid robots, people consistently chose a particular pronoun to go along with them: They referred to a robot with a straight torso with a male pronoun almost 90 percent of the time, but robots with a more pronounced waist were deemed more feminine. Big shoulders, on the other hand, were classified as more masculine.

So if you wanted to design a robotic greeter for a department store, you might want to consider what message the body shape is sending. Or maybe it's a robot that works in a hospital. "If people are afraid of approaching it, if the arms are too big or the shoulders are too big, they might be afraid of the force of the robot," says Gabriele Trovato, lead author on the new study and a roboticist at Japan's Waseda University.

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It's Time to Talk About Robot Gender Stereotypes

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Robots are the most powerful blank slate humans have ever created. Want a helpful robot? No problem. Want a mean one? Sure, if that's what you're into. A robot is a mirror held up not just to its creator, but to our whole species: What we make of the machine reflects what we are.

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European Institute for Gender Equality | European Institute for Gender Equality

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Welcome to the website of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) - Making equality between women and men a reality for all Europeans and beyond.

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75% of Singapore Women Feel They are Under-Represented in Business leadership Roles

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75% of Singapore Women Feel They are Under-Represented in Business leadership Roles

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SINGAPORE - It appears that women in Singapore feel that companies here still have some way to go in achieving gender equality in the workplace, a new paper by recruitment firm Robert Walters has revealed.

The paper showed that three-quarters of female employees in Singapore feel that women are not adequately represented in leadership positions at the workplace.

Moreover, nearly half (49%) of women feel that their organisation lacks fair and equal representation of female business leaders, while only about a-third (37%) think that their current employer has clear and enforced policies on gender diversity, equality and inclusion.

Titled " Empowering Women In The workplace", the white paper is based on a January 2016 survey of over 4,400 clients and active jobseekers from both sexes across 10 Asia Pacific markets.

In Singapore, 37 per cent of all respondents cited family pressures or commitments outside of work as reasons for female under-representation. 32 per cent believed that it is due to a preference by management to promote men over women, while 30 per cent highlighted workplace cultures that do not actively foster diversity, inclusion and equality.

Meanwhile, just 21 per cent of Singapore respondents agreed that women held more than one-fifth of leadership positions in their companies, and just 45 per cent believed that there are strong female leaders within their organisations.

However, the white paper reveals differences between men and women in their perceptions of gender diversity in leadership roles.

More than half (56%) of male respondents in Singapore stated that they think women have sufficient standing in business leadership roles. By contrast, 75 per cent of women respondents feel that they are inadequately represented.

Men are also more likely to feel there are strong female leaders and that there is a fair and equal gender balance in leadership positions.

The city-state appears to be doing slightly better than the region as a whole at perceptions of gender equality, however.

Overall, 80 per cent of women in the region surveyed think that they are under-represented in business leadership positions, while only 39 per cent feel that female leaders are fairly and equally represented.

But there are significant differences between the 10 markets involved in the study. For example, just 38 per cent of Vietnamese women, 43 per cent of women in Indonesia and 48 per cent of women in Thailand feel that they are inadequately represented in leadership roles.

seanyap@sph.com.sg

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75% of Singapore women feel they are under-represented in business leadership roles: Survey

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SINGAPORE - It appears that women in Singapore feel that companies here still have some way to go in achieving gender equality in the workplace, a new paper by recruitment firm Robert Walters has revealed. The paper showed that three-quarters of female employees in Singapore feel that women are not adequately represented in leadership positions at the workplace.

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Who can we interview?
- Class
- G5 teachers
- G5 students
- G4 students

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In 2019, our Women in business campaign will focus on the real world and seeking solutions to leadership diversity. What is holding back women in leadership? How can we put in place a blueprint for action?

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Survey of Gender Equality in the Schools of Clinical Sciences and Molecular, Genetic and Population Health Sciences.

To better understand how individuals experience their working environment, to highlight existing good gender equality practice in the Schools and identify areas where improvements are needed to ensure equality of opportunity for women and men we carry out Gender Equality Surveys in our Schools. Below you can find some of the data from our first survery. [Note that since August 2015 our Schools have become Deaneries within the greater Edinburgh Medical School. This makes very little difference accept for their names] In May 2014 we received an Athena SWAN Bronze Award and we applied for a Silver Award in November 2015. As part of this application, we conducted a second Gender Equality Survey in January 2015. For a summary of the results from this second survey, see our 4th Newsletter from December 2015. The first Gender Equality Survey was conducted between December 2012 and February 2013 of all staff and postgraduate research students. The survey generated 722 responses across all Centres, 459 responses from females, 233 responses from males and 22 responses from individuals who preferred not to reveal their gender. Participants included 63 Professors, 16 Readers, 32 Senior Lecturers, 23 Lecturers, 41 Independent/Senior Research Fellows, 106 Postdoctoral Research Fellows, 31 Research Assistants, 165 Postgraduate research students and 175 members of support staff and 57 'others', including those who elected not to disclose their current role. The survey was divided into sections addressing 'Equal Participation', 'Culture', 'Information and Awareness', 'Management', 'Social responsibility and gender equality', 'Career development', 'Promotion', and 'Support and encouragement'.

For the purposes of deeper analysis 'agree' and 'strongly agree' responses were combined, as were 'disagree' and 'strongly disagree' responses, and any 'not applicable' responses were discounted.

Results

Equal participation

Over 80% of both males and females agreed that staff and PGR are treated equally on merit regardless of gender, and that meetings and seminars are generally held within core hours. A number of free text comments highlighted instances of seminars/meetings occurring outside of core hours and the disadvantage this caused people with caring responsibilities. ACTION: Feedback to institutes/Centres, request and collate specific examples, discuss possible solutions (provision of slides on intranet, alternating times for seminars)

However, significantly fewer females than males agreed that staff and postgraduate research students who work part-time are offered the same opportunities as those who do not (p<0.01). Even when the gendered differences in 'don't know' responses are taken into account this difference

A few free text comments expressed the view that promotion prospects are limited for part-time workers and fewer job opportunities. Lots of free text comments throughout the survey suggested that part-time staff are expected to work/produce the same amount as full-time. ACTION: PI training will address the issues surrounding flexible working to raise awareness. We will highlight on the webpage the way REF took into account part-time working and other E&D issues.

Culture

Staff perceptions of the workplace culture were extremely positive with over 80% of males and females agreeing that unsupportive language and behaviour are considered unacceptable and over 90% of males and females in agreement that social activities are welcoming to both men and women. However, although 77% of females and 82% of males agreed that inappropriate images that stereotype men or women are unacceptable in their workplace, a number of free text comments identified the existence of such images. ACTION: The relevant Heads of Centre have been made aware of this.

Information and awareness

The responses to questions in this section highlighted a need to improve staff awareness and provide clear information on policies and legislation relevant to gender equality such as flexible working, parental leave, 'keeping in touch' days etc. Less than 20% of males and females have visited the University's Equality and Diversity website. Of those that have, almost all found the information they were looking for. ACTION: Information to be provided on Schools' Athena SWAN webpages and in the newsletter. These topics will also be covered at a series of lunchtime fora for all staff and at PI training courses.

More than 90% of females and over 80% of males reported that they have not undertaken any training in gender equality or in understanding unconscious bias during their time at the University. A free text comment praised the University's online E&D course and suggested that wider uptake should be encouraged and a further respondent said that they would have taken up the training had they been aware of its existence. ACTION: Promotion of Online E & D training and unconscious bias training for all, including students, as recommended by recent UK Government report. These issues will also be covered at PI training workshops.

Management

Staff perceptions of their line management were extremely positive. Only 7% of both males and females did not consider their line manager to be supportive of requests for flexible working. A number of free text comments highlighted how flexible working and more formal arrangements such as compressed hours had benefitted them.

While over 80% of males and females were confident that their line manager would deal effectively with any complaints about bullying or offensive behaviour, there was a significant gender difference with males more likely to agree than females (p=0.04).

Despite a positive view of management, two respondents explicitly expressed the view that training in gender equality and understanding unconscious bias should be mandatory for managers, and many more hinted at the need for it. ACTION: PI training course.

Social responsibility and gender equality

Over 80% of females and over 90% of males believe that senior women as well as senior men are visible role models in their workplace. These figures were fairly consistent between centres with only CIR lagging behind.

However, there were significant gender differences in responses for some questions in this section as follows: 71% of females but 82% of males agree that senior managers understand the need to engage with gender equality, and 70% of females but only 54% of males believe that positive action is required to promote gender equality.

There was uncertainty on how the Schools take positive action with 50% of males and females stating that they didn't know if females were encouraged to apply for posts where they are underrepresented. ACTION: Text in job adverts will be amended to make this clear

There were a number of free text comments about lack of gender balance in selection and appointment of Chancellors Fellows in particular Institutes (notably IGMM).

Another respondent said that they experience more gender discrimination at the hands of students than colleagues and that this should be an area to address. ACTION: Unconscious bias training should be considered for all, including students, as above.

Career development

Both male and female responses to all questions in this section were extremely positive with no gendered differences in perception. Over 75% of males and females agreed that they are encouraged to take up career development opportunities and over 80% are aware of the range of training opportunities available within the University. A number of free text comments complain of fewer training/career development opportunities for support staff. ACTION: Implementation of universal PandDR should start to address some of these points.

Although over 80% of male and female respondents believe their workload to be fair compared to their peers, free text comments highlighted the difficulty in finding time to take up training opportunities.

There were lots of free text comments about workload, workload, workload - and little reduction in it (if any) for part-time workers. One respondent has to come in and teach on non-workdays! ACTION: introduction of workload models for non-clinical staff will increase transparency and line manager awareness of workload. PI training and PandDR should also help.

One comment stated that "Clinical academic appraisal process is now so focussed on revalidation and the NHS paperwork required for that, that review of academic performance /career advice risks becoming lost". ACTION: College actively lobbied the NHS for the reintroduction of the academic appendix into the clinical appraisal, and were successful.

Promotion

There were significant gender differences in responses to the first two questions in this section.

80% of males but only 64% of females perceive that men and women are equally encouraged to apply for promotion (p=0.000002), and 67% of males but only 49% of females believe they clearly understand the promotions process and the criteria (p=0.0001). ACTION: A series of lunchtime fora on the promotions process will be held

Only 50% of females and 59% of males believe that a full range of skills and experience is taken into account when considering promotion. A free text comment summed this up by saying "the current system is still highly biased towards measurable outputs like publications and funding, and hasn't found a way to incorporate things like career breaks for family into its calculations". Many other free comments made similar points, particularly that teaching is undervalued. ACTION: introduction of workload models should make teaching contributions more visible to line managers.

One respondent believes that women with flexible working arrangements are not encouraged to apply for promotion and another said that those who work flexibly would have difficulties in meeting the criteria for academic promotion. (Note: it is unclear whether these comments really relate to flexible working or whether they might be addressing part-time working).

A number of respondents felt that promotion should be explicitly discussed in appraisals. ACTION: the P&DR form has been amended to prompt a discussion of promotion.

Support and encouragement

Responses in this section highlighted areas of good practice such as networking opportunities and support and encouragement to become involved in internal and external activities such as committees and conferences. However improvements are needed in opportunities to be mentored, and the helpfulness of annual review. Between 22-28% of males and females disagreed that their School provides them with useful opportunities to be mentored. ACTION: the mentoring program had only just been launched (piloted in our Schools) at the time of the survey; there has been another round since and almost all people seeking a mentor have been matched. Only 57% of females and 74% of males (significant gender difference p=0.00005) agreed that the School provides them with a helpful annual review. In addition 30% of females and 21% of males feel that they are sometimes overlooked when it comes to being considered for profile-raising activities. ACTION: we will adjust the question in the next survey to try and establish whether people are not having annual reviews (PandDR), or if they are having reviews but are not finding them helpful. We are aware that some reviews are far too short, and will continue to back up the recommendation from HR that each meeting should be scheduled for at least one hour.

In response to the free text question "What factors do you think hinder you in your job/career?" the overwhelming responses were short term contracts/ lack of permanence and a heavy workload.

Other relevant comments:

Issues around grant funding and maternity leave e.g lack of maternity pay, reluctance of PIs to employ those likely to start a family while on grant funding, time lost from funding means less time to produce work and publish etc. ACTION: publicise support available from School

"Lack of time/resources for work when balancing demands of a young family. Support from the school during this window to minimize impact on productivity" ACTION: we are actively contributing to the UoE's efforts on this, which are likely to be central to their bid for an institutional Silver award

In response to the free text question "What more could your workplace do to support you in your job/career?" the overwhelming response was the need for mentoring as a source of advice ranging from combining an academic career with having a family to providing support when grants/papers are rejected. ACTION: further calls for mentoring scheme, lunchtime fora combining specific advice on promotion and so on with networking opportunities

Other comments:

Increased opportunities for postdoctoral researchers to raise their profile and better support to become independent researchers.ACTION: PI training, mentoring, networking events

Support for those returning to work after maternity leave and providing cover for those on maternity leave (including postdoctoral staff).ACTION: support from School

Compulsory annual appraisal to include discussion of promotion prospects.ACTION: this has now been included in the wording on the form

On-site childcare.

Better training and promotion opportunities for technical and professional support staff. ACTION: this should be covered at PandDR which are now compulsory, PI training

Encouragement and assistance with identifying funding opportunities and developing bids.

"More investment in staff training and development including funds to attend conferences"

"Don't give all of the pastoral roles and jobs with heavy admin loads to women" ACTION: Workload models should be reviewed on a regular basis

"I feel that although everyone wishes that advancement came purely based on merit, the reality is that women "of merit" may require extra support and encouragement at a critical stage in their early careers which overlap with certain biological events. The University is still very poor recognizing this challenging, but temporary, window where outputs may be affected."

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Survey of Gender Equality in the Schools of Clinical Sciences and Molecular, Genetic and Population Health Sciences. To better understand how individuals experience their working environment, to highlight existing good gender equality practice in the Schools and identify areas where improvements are needed to ensure equality of opportunity for women and men we carry out Gender Equality Surveys in our Schools.

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LibGuides: Our Earth, Our Future! - G5 Exhibition 2019: Gender Equality

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LibGuides: Our Earth, Our Future! - G5 Exhibition 2019: Gender Equality

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LibGuides: Our Earth, Our Future! - G5 Exhibition 2019: Gender equality videos

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LibGuides: Our Earth, Our Future! - G5 Exhibition 2019: Gender equality videos

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Gender Typecast | Tell us What You Think

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Gender Typecast | Tell us What You Think

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Practice of ascribing to an individual woman or man specific attributes, characteristics or roles on the sole basis of her or his membership of the social group of women or men.

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What are the Roots of Gender Inequality?

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What are the Roots of Gender Inequality?

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Newswise - Throughout history, women have faced intense discrimination-from a lack of legal rights and very little independence from their husbands, to being thought to have inferior brains. In many societies, women have long been viewed as less than fully human.

American society has come a long way in recognizing and protecting women's humanity and human rights. However, women will always be fundamentally different than men because of their ability to bear children. We are reminded of this by current political debates concerning abortion and contraception, which some have called a "war on women."

What are the roots of gender inequality? How have the challenges faced by women changed over time? Sally Kitch, an Regents' Professor of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University, has spent many years exploring the reasons why the world sees men and women so differently. To find answers, she has explored questions ranging from the gendered origins of race to American utopian communities.

The intersection of race and genderKitch, who is also the director of ASU's Institute for Humanities Research, a research unit in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, covered 300 years of history tracing the connection between gender and race in her book, The Specter of Sex: Gendered Foundations of Racial Formation in the United States (State University of New York Press, 2009). She discovered that gender inequities have been central to societies for centuries, but race is a very modern idea.

"One thing we know about race is that it doesn't exist. It's not a biological category," Kitch says. Some believe that groups of people who share similar physiological characteristics constitute races, but race is really a system imposed by historical, cultural and political processes, Kitch says. Genetically speaking, a black and white person may have more in common than two people of the same race. How, then, did race become so significant?

European explorers of the sixteenth century noticed differences like skin color when they encountered natives of other continents, but they were even more interested in the unfamiliar sexual and reproductive practices of other cultures, Kitch says.

"The Europeans thought that cultures in which men and women weren't that different in terms of their behavior or appearance were uncivilized," Kitch says. Marriage customs, sexual practices, and even whether or not women experienced pain during childbirth (it was considered more civilized to feel pain) were all important distinctions used to disparage certain groups and, eventually, define races.

"That gave me the insight that racial characteristics really evolved on the basis of comparative gender characteristics," Kitch says. "My work provides the backstory of the concept of intersectionality by showing how race and gender judgments evolved together and influenced one another."

Differences in gender behavior also served as Europeans' justification for using slavery to further their own economic interests. "When Europeans began to enslave Africans, they didn't start with their skin color to explain why," Kitch says. Instead, they used observations on sexual behavior and religious practices to decide the African culture was inferior.

A history of discrimination To understand how gender continued to influence race over time, Kitch traced five racial groups in the U.S. from the Colonial period to the mid-20th century - American Indians, African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and European whites. After exploring the roots of racial formation, she focused on the categories of bodies, blood and citizenship, finding evidence that gender and sex were foundations of racial judgment throughout the centuries.

For example, before race meant anything more than a person's geographic location, European settlers in Virginia made distinctions between English and African women based on the work they did. The work done by African women was considered labor and was taxable by her employer, while work done by English women was considered domestic (and therefore more civilized) and could not be taxed.

"It disadvantaged one group over the other, but it was entirely arbitrary because both groups of women did all kinds of work," Kitch says. These kinds of distinctions provided a foundation for the belief that Africans were culturally inferior and should be enslaved.

Gender distinctions were also involved in the process of granting U.S. citizenship. While American women achieved the right to vote in 1920, their citizenship was still vested in a father or husband until 1934. Up until then, a woman would lose her citizenship if she married a man from another country.

"If you had offspring outside of the U.S. with a non-American husband, your children wouldn't have been seen as American because a woman couldn't transfer her citizenship to her children," Kitch says.

Perhaps one of the most powerful factors affecting women's social power and status, however, is their ability to bear children.

"For some reason, societies have decided that there's something inherently inferior about having a female body and producing offspring," Kitch says.

Utopian solutionsThroughout history, and especially in the 19th century, the U.S. witnessed the formation of several "utopian" communities that attempted to overcome gender inequality. Kitch has written three books on the subject of utopianism and gender, including Higher Ground: From Utopianism to Realism in American Feminist Thought and Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2000). She wanted to explore whether these communal societies could achieve gender neutrality, and what that would look like.

"What I discovered was that the only communities that managed to achieve gender equity of any kind were celibate societies in which sex and reproduction were just taken out of the equation," Kitch says.

One such community was the Shakers, a religious group that came to the U.S. from England. Officially called the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, they advocated for gender equality more than a century-and-a-half before American women were granted the right to vote.

"Reproduction, as these people rightly saw, was a way that women were kept subordinated and kept from achieving other things in their lives. So they would prohibit sex and raise children collectively," Kitch says. The community often took in orphaned and homeless children in lieu of bearing their own.

Modern challenges While the Shakers and other experimental utopian communities lost traction over the years, their ideas about women's freedoms and social status eventually caught on. Today, women vote, own property, have custody rights, and pursue careers. However, holding down a high-powered job usually involves sacrifices to family life.

A recent State of the World's Mothers report by the Save the Children Foundation found that maternity leave policies in the U.S. are among the least generous in the developed world( http://bit.ly/ILqcDj). Unlike families in other first-world countries such as France, which provides free 24-hour childcare for working parents, Americans receive little support in caring for their children. Because women still shoulder the majority of child-rearing responsibilities, they are most affected by these policies.The United States was ranked 25th of teh best places for mothers, trailing that of many developed countries. Norway was ranked first in the report.

"We do see women empowered, but when we start studying who these women are and what their lives have been like, you discover that marriage and family and high-powered careers are still extremely difficult to navigate," Kitch says.

In addition, political debates over access to family planning services are raising fears that women in the U.S. may face increased obstacles to balancing work and family. An example of this is the Blunt Amendment, which was narrowly defeated in the U.S. Senate, but would have allowed any employer or health insurance company to deny coverage for contraception.

"We've been reminded again recently about how sex and reproduction work in terms of social status in the United States," Kitch says. "It certainly feels right now like we're back to the place where some men in power are willing and eager to make decisions about women's bodies and reproductive rights, without women's consent or participation. It's coming out in some pretty aggressive ways."

Women and Gender Studies is part of the School of Social Transformation, an academic unit in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

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What Are the Roots of Gender Inequality? Women's Rights, Race and Reproduction

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What are the roots of gender inequality? How have the challenges faced by women changed over time? Sally Kitch, an ASU Regents' Professor of Women and Gender Studies, has spent many years exploring the reasons why the world sees men and women so differently.

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How's Life? 2013 Measuring Well-Being: Can women and men have it all?

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How's Life? 2013 Measuring Well-Being: Can women and men have it all?

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Every person aspires to a good life. But what does "a good or a better life" mean? The second edition of How's Life? provides an update on the most important aspects that shape people's lives and well-being: income, jobs, housing, health, work-life balance, education, social connections, civic engagement and governance, environment, personal security and subjective well-being.

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Health and Wellbeing | Men, Boys and Gender Equality

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Health and Wellbeing | Men, Boys and Gender Equality

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Health and Wellbeing | Men, Boys and Gender Equality

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Discussions on gender equality and women's empowerment within the context of health and wellbeing in development have for many reasons focused traditionally on women and girls.

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Google Scholar: Gender Equality Statistics

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Google Scholar: Gender Equality Statistics

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Gender Inequality Damaging The Economical Growth of a Nation

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Gender Inequality Damaging The Economical Growth of a Nation