All posts tagged: gender

ACLU Sues NEA over ‘Gender Ideology’ Funding Policy

ACLU Sues NEA over ‘Gender Ideology’ Funding Policy

Published by skeptic

A branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has sued the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federal organization that provides funding to many major arts centers across the US. In a lawsuit filed on Thursday, the ACLU’s Rhode Island offshoot filed a suit on behalf of several theaters, claiming that the NEA’s new policy that applicants not “promote gender ideology” will limit what kinds of works can be shown. The NEA adopted that policy was adopted after an executive order issued in January by President Donald Trump. Related Articles Filed in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island, the complaint says that the executive order was an “unlawful and unconstitutional exercise of executive power that has sowed chaos in the funding of arts projects across the United States.” Although the lawsuit refers mostly to theatrical productions, its allegations could also impact art exhibitions featuring work by nonbinary and transgender artists. Most major art institutions in the US, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Museum of Modern …

How schools can improve gender equality in Latin America

How schools can improve gender equality in Latin America

Published by skeptic

In Latin America, deeply ingrained cultural beliefs about gender roles – what women and men should and shouldn’t do – persist. This is despite increased involvement by women in traditionally male spheres, such as business and politics. And these ideas are held among young people, too. A study in 2020 found that only 32% of adolescents in Latin America fully support gender equality. My past research has found that in Mexico, 63.6% of teenagers believe women should not be involved in politics. In Chile and Colombia, however, teens’ support for gender equality is much higher. This disparity suggests that gender attitudes are shaped by broader social and political contexts. My recent research with colleagues suggests that schools have the power to shape students’ beliefs about gender equality. We found that there is a link between classes in which open discussion takes place and students with a strong grasp of civic topics and support for gender equality. We also found that schools with supportive and inclusive environments are linked with more positive attitudes among students towards …

‘Every Carnival Has Its End’ | Nathan Shields

‘Every Carnival Has Its End’ | Nathan Shields

Published by skeptic

“With blondes, he praises their gentleness; with brunettes, their faithfulness…. The large ones he calls majestic, the little ones charming.” So Don Giovanni’s manservant, Leporello, tells the jilted Donna Elvira. Then the knife twist: “But his greatest passion is the young virgin.”  The exchange neatly captures the ambivalence and amorality of Mozart’s seducer. Don Giovanni, it suggests, has a way of being all things to all people. Throughout the opera, he is repeatedly confused with someone else. When he and Leporello switch outfits, not even their lovers see through the disguise; when he tries to rape the noblewoman Donna Anna, she mistakes him for her fiancé. The audience is hardly clearer about his identity. Alone among the opera’s major characters, he has neither soliloquies nor moments of introspection. His flights of lyricism, like the seduction duet “Là ci darem la mano,” are means to sexual conquest. His great showpiece, the Champagne Aria, “Fin ch’han del vino,” betrays no signs of an inner life—only a relentless, superhuman energy.  Leporello tells Elvira that Giovanni has seduced 1,003 women …

Neurolinguistic priming reveals contrasting gender biases in Republicans and Democrats

Neurolinguistic priming reveals contrasting gender biases in Republicans and Democrats

Published by José

A recent study provides evidence that political ideology shapes how people evaluate moral violations based on gender, with Republicans and Democrats exhibiting contrasting biases. Republicans judged authority violations by women and girls more harshly, while Democrats tended to judge such violations by men and boys as worse. These findings, published in The Journal of Social Psychology, shed light on how implicit biases can differ significantly across political lines. The study aimed to explore how implicit gender biases influence moral judgments differently among Republicans and Democrats, given their distinct moral priorities and social values. By manipulating the timing of gender information in moral violation scenarios, the researchers sought to uncover how political ideology and framing effects shape evaluations of authority violations. “When I was teaching biology in rural Kansas, I got really interested in how people maintain beliefs in the face of counterevidence. Since then, I have been looking specifically at how in-group membership influences cognition and beliefs,” said study author Brandon L. Bretl, an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Tyler. The researchers …

Women in strength sports confront gender norms and find empowerment

Women in strength sports confront gender norms and find empowerment

Published by José

A recent study published in Sex Roles highlights the experiences of women athletes and coaches in traditionally male-dominated strength sports like Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, CrossFit, and strongman. Researchers found that women in these fields confront societal expectations about femininity and strength while navigating challenges related to body image, relationships with male athletes and coaches, and underrepresentation in the sport. Despite these obstacles, the women expressed empowerment through their participation. Strength sports remain predominantly male-dominated, with limited representation of women as athletes, coaches, and leaders. Women face societal stereotypes that label muscularity and physical strength as masculine traits, perpetuating barriers to participation and recognition in these fields. Previous research has shown that women in male-dominated sports are often subjected to discrimination, exclusion from key networks, and systemic bias, particularly in coaching roles. The researchers aimed to explore how women athletes and coaches experience these dynamics in strength sports, which have been slow to integrate women into their traditions. “I’ve always been interested in why and how people participate in sport. As a weightlifter myself, my own …

Green Party Spend £1m on Legal Fees In Four Years As Gender Rows Continue

Green Party Spend £1m on Legal Fees In Four Years As Gender Rows Continue

Published by Sam

4 min read14 October The Green Party has spent £1m over four years fighting legal battles against its own members, as divisions over gender continue to threaten the party’s finances. The Greens have faced at least four legal cases since 2022 – the majority relating to members claiming they have been discriminated against over their gender critical beliefs. The most prominent case was brought forward by former deputy Green Party leader Shahrar Ali, who received a £90,000 payout from the Greens after he claimed senior party figures had “collaborated” to remove him from his post as policing spokesman over his “gender critical” views. He was also paid £9,100 in damages in February by the party. The party’s financial auditors had previously noted Ali’s case left ”uncertainty” about its ability to keep running normally. In consequence, party members voted to increase membership fees from £3.33 a month to £5 a month at their conference last year. The amount spent by the party on legal fees has infuriated party members. One member, who preferred …

Colorado Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over ‘Gender Transition’ Cake

Colorado Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit Over ‘Gender Transition’ Cake

Published by skeptic

Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times, The lawsuit against a Christian baker who refused to bake a “gender transition” cake was dismissed by the Colorado Supreme Court on Oct. 8 in a ruling that left open core questions about discrimination and free speech. In a 4-3 decision, the court said that it “cannot answer” the underlying constitutional question “because of a threshold issue of administrative law and statutory interpretation.” The majority held that Autumn Scardina, who requested the cake, should have challenged the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s handling of the dispute in an appeals court rather than bringing the underlying discrimination claims to a federal district court. Complainants, the court said, cannot “jump” from one legal path to another in bringing claims under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA). The decision offered respite for the baker, Jack Phillips, who has been on a 12-year legal journey that started when he was sued for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a narrow holding that the …

Iraq: Child Marriage Returns? | Dunya Mikhail

Iraq: Child Marriage Returns? | Dunya Mikhail

Published by skeptic

Ten years ago, I started interviewing women and girls who had escaped ISIS captivity. From 2014 to 2017, that terrorist organization swept through northern Iraq, tore girls and women from their families, took them to the Caliphate, and forcibly married all those who were nine or older. Under the group’s perverse laws, all this was deemed legal—including subjecting a minor to sexual assault. In fact, the ISIS fighters insisted they were performing God’s will.  The Iraqi government is at war with the Islamic State. Yet members of Iraq’s parliament are now pushing a law that parallels ISIS’s practices. The proposed legislation, an amendment to the 1959 Personal Status Law (PSL), would effectively legalize child marriage, endorsing the same brutal patriarchy under which the captives I spoke to had suffered. It would betray their courage and be a profound step backward for the rights and dignity of Iraqi girls. When the leftist nationalist leader Abdul-Karim Qasim passed the PSL, it was considered among the most progressive civic codes in the Arab world. The law was designed …

Gender inequality varies widely across U.S. states, linked to differences in #MeToo engagement

Gender inequality varies widely across U.S. states, linked to differences in #MeToo engagement

Published by José

Gender inequality remains a significant challenge across the globe, affecting all aspects of life from health and education to political representation and economic opportunities. Within the United States, a recent study published in PLOS ONE has introduced a new tool that enables researchers to compare gender inequality between different states, shedding light on the relationship between regional disparities, well-being, and participation in feminist movements like #MeToo. While the Gender Inequality Index (GII) is widely used to compare gender disparities at the national level, there was a lack of tools specifically designed to measure these disparities within a country, such as between different states in the United States. The researchers sought to adapt the GII to a state-level version, termed the state-level Gender Inequality Index (GII-S), to provide more granular insights into how gender inequality varies across the United States. “My interest in this topic stems from the pervasive issue of gender inequality and its broader implications. While much of the discourse around gender inequality focuses on its detrimental impact on women, I wanted to explore …

Going Beyond the Gender Binary

Going Beyond the Gender Binary

Published by skeptic

Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon This book is a deconstruction, demystification, and reimagining of how we think about gender in the West. I am deeply impressed with the amount of substance and depth the author is able to reach in such a short book while also remaining accessible to the folks for whom thinking about gender beyond the binary, or even at all, is brand new. Alok Vaid-Menon is gender non-conforming and transfeminine and writes from a place of both knowledge and love. They make it clear that gender non-conforming people are not the issue and that the real issue, which is indeed political, is the criteria used to define and evaluate gender. Throughout the book, they weave in anecdotes of their own experiences of gender and moving through the world as a gender non-conforming person with larger discussions of society, power, and discrimination. The rules of gender and the gender binary are arbitrary and do not serve us as whole people. The author talks about how these rules are meant to control …