Kruse Kronicle

Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top

Time: Workplace Salaries: At Last, Women on Top

... But now there's evidence that the ship may finally be turning around: according to a new analysis of 2,000 communities by a market research company, in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more. This squares with earlier research from Queens College, New York, that had suggested that this was happening in major metropolises. But the new study suggests that the gap is bigger than previously thought, with young women in New York City, Los Angeles and San Diego making 17%, 12% and 15% more than their male peers, respectively. And it also holds true even in reasonably small areas like the Raleigh-Durham region and Charlotte in North Carolina (both 14% more), and Jacksonville, Fla. (6%).

Here's the slightly deflating caveat: this reverse gender gap, as it's known, applies only to unmarried, childless women under 30 who live in cities. The rest of working women — even those of the same age, but who are married or don't live in a major metropolitan area — are still on the less scenic side of the wage divide. ...

As Mark Perry points out, I think this is strong evidence that the difference in wages has less to do with discrimination in the workplace and more to do with life choices men and women make. Men work on average 10% more than the average women. That factor explains half the gap in the aggregate wages. Women frequently take trade offs in less pay for more flexible hours, often to raise children. We can debate whether the gender roles in society are valid but it still suggests that job place discrimination is not the driving issue.

Levi Johnston Is an Insult to Working-Class Men

Slate: Levi Johnston Is an Insult to Working-Class Men (HT: Travis Greene)

... But it's not true that working-class men are stuck in a patriarchal past that middle- and upper-class men have overcome. Among working-class men who do marry, their behavior as husbands and fathers is surprisingly enlightened, according to many recent surveys. Blue-collar couples are less likely than educated professional ones to endorse the abstract idea of men and women going against gender stereotype and sharing household activities. But overall, working-class husbands actually wind up doing more housework than middle- and upper-class men. Partly this is because there is more work to be done—for men and women alike. Sociologist Scott Coltrane reminds us how much effort it takes to shop, cook, and clean when one must take the bus to hunt for the best deals at grocery stores and bargain outlets, use the laundromat rather than one's own washer, and maintain an old house or apartment without being able to hire other working class and immigrant women to do the work for you. Coltrane's own research with working-class white men and Latino fathers revealed that they did the shopping and transported their kids as often, if not more often, than their middle-class counterparts, and did just as much routine cooking and cleaning.

College-educated men in marriages where both spouses work standard shifts do more child care, on average, than their low-income counterparts. But working-class men and women are far more likely to schedule separate work shifts so that each can watch the child. As a result, a higher proportion of working-class fathers are the primary caretakers while their wives are at work.

In the 1960s and 1970s, highly-educated men whose wives were employed did much more housework than their less-educated counterparts. But that has changed over time. In a forthcoming paper, Oxford researcher Oriel Sullivan finds that during the 1980s and 1990s, husbands who did not graduate from high school and who were married to working women began to catch up. Today they equal or even exceed the housework contributions of their counterparts with higher levels of education. ...

Also this observation:

Finally, let's not forget that high-income men bring their own set of problems to marriage. Many seem especially vulnerable to what researchers Phyllis Moen and Patricia Roehling call the "career mystique," the idea that a successful work-life requires them to commit all their time and energy to the job and to delegate caretaking responsibilities to someone else. A recent study by Joan Williams and Heather Boushey  found that 38 percent of high-earning professional men and almost one-quarter of middle-income men work more than 50 hours a week.

Two economic observations here. First, you have two men who need to get kids to a soccer game. One man who can earn an extra $20 for another hour worked and another man can earn $150 for another hour worked. At some point it becomes highly advantageous from a purely economic point of view to, if need be, hire someone to do many of your daily tasks. And the problem is, because you can earn so much more with an extra hour of work you are motivated to work longer hours, which leads to advancement and higher salaries, making it even more costly not to work.

While for many women, career is something to be incorporated in a life mix, I think many men still see their lives in terms of a career or nothing. In psychic terms and in social acceptance terms, it is still far easier for a women to drop out of the job market to raise children or do other pursuits. I think in aggregate men are still more driven by work than women.

A second observation is that the average man in the workforce works about 10% more hours than the average woman. The much bemoaned aggregate gender pay equity decreases significantly when average hours of work are factored in.

Garment Factories, Changing Women’s Roles in Poor Countries

New York Times - Economix: Garment Factories, Changing Women’s Roles in Poor Countries

While visiting garment factories in Bangladesh on assignment recently, I met young women who had migrated from villages to the city in search of jobs that they needed to support their families back home. It is a fairly standard story in this part of the world.

What struck me, however, was how their journeys had changed them and their views about life. Take Maasuda Akthar, who moved to Gazipur, a town 30 miles outside  Dhaka, when she was 16 with her sister. (I wrote about her in this article about how the Bangladesh garment industry was benefiting from increased labor costs in China.) She married a man whom she met at the factory. As an experienced seamstress, she now makes more money than him. Ms. Akthar, 21, told me that her husband had offered to become the sole breadwinner in the home so that she could stay at home and “be comfortable,” but she refused because she enjoys working. Not only that, she told me she did not plan to have children for a few years.

My conversations with Ms. Akthar and the other woman appeared to confirm what economists, policy makers and businessmen had told me: By giving women an independent source of livelihood, Bangladesh’s garment industry has changed this conservative Muslim country’s society in immeasurable ways. (More than 80 percent of the three million people who work in the industry are women.) ...

... Mr. Mobarak also found that girls who live in villages with garment factories tend to marry later and have children later than the girls who grow up in villages without factories. In other countries, this has typically happened as women get more educated, but Mr. Mobarak’s survey of 1,500 families suggests that it is happening slightly differently in Bangladesh, which has a literacy rate of just 55 percent.

“Girls do seem to take advantage of these jobs at 17 to 19 years old, and that allows them to delay marriage and child bearing,” Mr. Mobarak told me in a telephone interview. “Even if it’s not happening through education, it is happening through work.” ...

... Wages in Bangladesh’s garment industry are among the lowest in the world. The minimum wage, which the government is expected to increase soon, is just 1,662 taka (about $23) a month. Labor groups are demanding a sharp increase and their protests and clashes with the police have periodically shut down factories in recent weeks.

Still hundreds of thousands of women flock to Dhaka and other garment hubs in Bangladesh every year because factories pay more than the women could earn in villages. ...

Men More Affected than Woman by Ups and Downs of Relationships

ABC News: Men More Affected than Woman by Ups and Downs of Relationships

Contrary to popular belief, men are more affected by  a rocky relationship than their female counterparts, according to new research from Wake Forest University.

Research shows that women have a harder time coping with a breakup, but the guys are the ones who feel more stress and strain when the relationship hits a rough patch, researchers found. On the upside, men also get more of a psychological and emotional boost when the relationship is healthy.

"Common wisdom says that women are more hurt by problems in a relationship," says Robin Simon, lead researcher on the study and a sociologist at Wake Forest, "but we found that the benefits of support [in a relationship] and the disadvantages of strain are exaggerated for the men."

"Men are more sensitive than we often think they are," she says. ...

Graduating From Lip Smackers (Tweens and Cosmetics)

New York Times: Graduating From Lip Smackers

IT began for Alyssa Pometta, as these habits so often do, with the soft stuff. We are talking, of course, about lip gloss.

She began wearing it in fourth grade — Bonne Bell’s Lip Smackers, a girl’s rite of passage — after years of wearing ChapStick and pretending it was Revlon. But the thrill of flavored lip gloss was fleeting, and in January, 11-year-old Alyssa asked her mother, Phyllis Pometta, if she could graduate to the hard stuff: lipstick, eyeliner and mascara.

Mrs. Pometta’s first instinct was to send her daughter to her room, but she reconsidered. Instead, she took her for a makeover.

“I’m using the choose-your-battles kind of parenting,” Mrs. Pometta, an independent publicist from Plainfield, Ill., reasoned in a telephone interview. “I figured, better that she’s informed and has the right tools than she goes into it blindly with her friends in the bathroom and comes out looking like a clown.”

The choice between prohibition and harm-reduction has long divided parents on prickly issues: forbid alcohol or supervise the inevitable kegger? Preach abstinence or buy condoms? Now, the struggle shows signs of coming to a new front: the cosmetics counter.

Regular use of certain cosmetics is rising sharply among tween girls, according to a new report from the NPD Group, a consumer research company. From 2007 to 2009, the percentage of girls ages 8 to 12 who regularly use mascara and eyeliner nearly doubled — to 18 percent from 10 percent for mascara, and to 15 percent from 9 percent for eyeliner. The percentage of them using lipstick also rose, to 15 percent from 10 percent.

Meanwhile, women of all other age groups, including teenagers, report using less makeup, according to NPD. The economy seems to be playing a role, said Karen Grant, the senior beauty industry analyst with NPD, with women cutting back on beauty products to save money and unemployed women feeling less compelled to do their face every morning.

So how is the elementary-school set getting away with it? Easy: Mom is the one buying it. When asked to name their primary influence for acquiring and applying makeup, 66 percent of the 365 tween girls polled by NPD pointed to a family member or adult family friend.

“They’re not sneaking any of this stuff,” Ms. Grant said. “They’re doing the shopping with their moms, they’re getting the money from their moms and families. It’s becoming almost part of the family exercise.”

Poor adult judgment or progressive parenting? As with most such issues, it depends on whom you ask. Stacy Malkan, author of “Not Just a Pretty Face: The Ugly Side of the Beauty Industry,” said that parents have been fighting a losing battle with the beauty industry, which now markets to children so aggressively that it invites a comparison to Big Tobacco’s efforts, like Joe Camel. ...

Friendship for Guys (No Tears!)

Wall Street Journal: Friendship for Guys (No Tears!)

... Male friendships like these are absolutely typical, but don't assume they're inferior to female friendships. "If we use a women's paradigm for friendship, we're making a mistake," says Geoffrey Greif, a professor at the University of Maryland's School of Social Work, who has studied how 386 men made, kept and nurtured friendships. Men might not be physically or emotionally expressive, he says, but we derive great support from our friendships.

Researchers say women's friendships are face to face: They talk, cry together, share secrets. Men's friendships are side by side: We play golf. We go to football games. ...

... In his research, Dr. Greif found that men generally resist high-maintenance relationships, whether with spouses, girlfriends or male pals. When picking friends, "men don't want someone who is too needy," he says. A third of the men in his study said they learned positive things from female friendships, but 25% had a negative impression of women as friends, citing issues such as "cattiness" and "too much drama." And women are more likely than men to hold grudges toward friends, according to Dr. Greif's 2009 book, "Buddy System."

Studies show that in their late 20s and 30s, women have a harder time staying in touch with old friends. Those are the years when they're busy starting careers and raising children, so they don't have time to gather for reunions. Money is tighter, too. But around age 40, women start reconnecting. Before the 1990s, researchers assumed this was because they had more time for friendship in their 40s, as their children became self-sufficient. But now researchers consider this middle-aged focus on friendship to be a life stage; as women plan the next chapter of their lives, they turn to friends for guidance and empathy.

Men, meanwhile, tend to build friendships until about age 30, but there's often a falloff after that. Among the reasons: Their friendships are more apt to be hurt by geographical moves and differences in career trajectories. Recent studies, however, are now finding that men in their late 40s are turning to what Dr. Grief calls "rusted" friends—longtime pals they knew when they were younger. The Internet is making it easier for them to make contact with one another.

A woman from Wisconsin wrote to me recently to say that she effortlessly shares intimate feelings with her friends. That's in great contrast to her husband. He recently went on a fishing trip to Canada with four longtime friends. And so she wondered: What did they talk about for a whole week? She knew one of the men had problems at work. Another's daughter was getting married. The third man has health problems. Her husband said none of those issues came up. She couldn't believe it.

She told him: "Two female strangers in a public restroom would share more personal information in five minutes than you guys talked about in a week!"

But again, it's a mistake to judge men's interactions by assuming we need to be like women. Research shows that men often open up about emotional issues to wives, mothers, sisters and platonic female friends. That's partly because they assume male friends will be of little help. It may also be due to fears of seeming effeminate or gay. But it's also an indication that men compartmentalize their needs; they'd rather turn to male friends to momentarily escape from their problems. The new buzzword is "bromance." ...

Dad-daughter bonding sees resurgence in pop culture

Chicago-Tribune: Dad-daughter bonding sees resurgence in pop culture

... Another possible reason for the rising number of depictions of fathers and daughters in the arts can be chalked up to real-world social change. Women now can participate in the full range of human activities; they can play sports, enter politics, go fly-fishing, fix old cars — whatever they want to do. That wasn't the case previously. Thus fictional fathers can — just as real ones do — talk to their daughters about the same things about which they'd talk to their sons. Dad doesn't have to pretend to be interested in prom dresses and lip gloss to share some quality time with a female offspring. ...

... And despite that roll call of memorable father-daughter stories in cultural history, from Cordelia to Alexis Castle, the relationship still has not been explored with the thoroughness and imaginative rigor of other parent-child pairings, explorations led by Sigmund Freud and his followers. Mothers and sons have "Hamlet." Fathers and sons have — well, "Fathers and Sons," as well as " Star Wars." Mothers and daughters have "Little Women." But fathers and daughters still constitute a rich potential field, a largely untapped reservoir of stories.

Not all of those stories can be savory ones. In the real world, of course, not all fathers are loving and supportive; some are abusive and negligent, just as some mothers are. Dramas about fathers and daughters, if they are to reflect life, must include some portraits of pain and betrayal. But for now, pop culture is having a fine time with upbeat dads who enjoy the challenges posed by interesting daughters. Homer Simpson may not pick up on daughter Lisa's literary allusions, but he loves her more than he does Lard Lad Donuts — and that's no small thing. ...

Not So Pretty in Pink: Are Girls' Toys Too Girly?

Time: Not So Pretty in Pink: Are Girls' Toys Too Girly?

Twin sisters Abi and Emma Moore noticed a few years ago how different their south London houses looked as Abi's started filling up with her sons' toy dinosaurs and trains and Emma's turned pink and girly with her daughters' playthings. Already frustrated by the barrage of pretty princesses and sparkly fairies marketed to girls, Emma says she reached a breaking point when she watched her daughter open a huge haul of presents at her sixth birthday party. Out of 40 gifts, Emma recalls, only three were items not designed solely for girls — two games and a set of colored pencils. Much of the rest, including several Barbies and a play-makeup set, ended up at a local charity shop, but the shock Emma felt stayed with her.

Not long afterward, she felt compelled to do something about it. In 2008, she and Abi, both 38, started an advocacy group called Pinkstinks, which they hope will spark a shift in a popular culture that they say puts girls "into a pretty little box" from birth, offering them toys that emphasize the importance of looking good and being feminine, while the boys are allowed to go exploring and get dirty. The sisters have launched campaigns to pressure retailers to move away from such stereotypes, like their recent effort to help persuade the British supermarket chain Sainsbury's to repackage a doctor costume that was labeled for boys and a nurse's outfit labeled for girls.

The list of products that pigeonhole girls in the clothes and makeup category goes on and on. Disney sells pink vanity tables for girls as young as 3, for example, and the European retailer Primark stocks a T-shirt in a 2-year-old size that's emblazoned with the motto "S is for Super, Shopaholic, Soon-to-be-Supermodel." Even old classics now offer girls' versions, such as an all-pink Monopoly game in which the houses and hotels have been replaced by boutiques and malls, and a "Designer's Edition" Scrabble that has letters on the front of the box spelling out fashion. It wasn't always this way. A couple of decades ago, children's clothing mostly came in primary colors and princesses were confined to the occasional film or Halloween costume. But as marketing to children has burgeoned into a multibillion-dollar industry, and our consumerist ethos has saddled kids with mountains of stuff, the gender divide has grown wider. ...

The first thing that hit me in this story was 40 gifts for a six year old! Holy cow! But the proliferation of pink everything is something else I've noticed as well. Some time back I remember reading that as more women have had more financial independence we have seen an accentuation of what has been considered feminine consumerism, not a melding toward men and women purchasing similar goods. So is this "everything pink" for girls just an extension of that?

Can We Be Friends? (A woman asks a married man.)

Jesus Creed: Can We Be Friends? (A woman asks a married man.)

Gilbert Meilaender, in a well-known essay originally published in First Things, explored the classical issues surrounding an issue that emerged yesterday in our reposting of Carolyn Custis James' post. The issue is this: Can a married man be a serious "friend" with a woman who is not his wife? And, alternatively, can a married women be a serious "friend" with a man who is not her husband?

Meilaender explores this question through the lens of the classical world where there was a general and widespread conviction that men and women didn't do well as friends. Meilaender then explores the nuances of the question for a world that has changed dramatically: "Are there reasons why friendship between men and women may be more difficult to sustain than same-sex friendships?"

Yes, there are many differences between our world and the classical world, not the least of which is the gradual and greatly improved equalization of women in our culture and the education of women. But there remains the obvious: the sexualization of the other, and this often is expressed in terms of the man not being able to handle the woman's sexuality.

A scenario: your daughter or your son is now married, and delights in his or her spouse. Your son or your daughter come to you and says, "I have a close friend, of the opposite sex, who is not married. That person would like me to have coffee alone just to chat. Mom, Dad, what is your advice? What is your wisdom?"

Scenario two: what are the principles you use in your cross-gender relationships? Do you have any conscious principles? What are they? Any concrete lines over which you will not cross? ...

Great discussion at Jesus Creed.

Are married women less risk-averse? If so, why?

Vox: Are married women less risk-averse? If so, why?

Does marriage make people less averse to risk? This column argues that this is the case for women, but not for men. But married women's different attitude towards risk has fallen over time as the prevalence of marriage in society has faded. For women who work, marriage makes no difference. ...

... We interpret our results as follows. The initial emergence and subsequent decline of the marital status gap for women is the joint product of two forces which are often interconnected (see Stevenson and Wolfers 2007). The first is the increase in labour participation (see Figure 2), which drives a general tendency to the emancipation of all women, even those who are still outside the labour force. Emancipation also involves the ability to make financial decisions, so that we observe an increase of the fraction of married women, including housewives, who take charge. The lagged, cumulative impact of this process can explain the initial expansion of the marital status gap, as it widens the financial participation of women so that, at some point at the beginning of the 1990s, different preferences between married and single emerge.

In those days, married women could still count on a stable position within their marriage, so that their choices differ sharply from those of single women. The marital status gap peaks around 1998-2000. Subsequently, a second force comes into the picture, as documented again in Figure 2. Gradually, the previous decade has shaken the foundations of family structure, with an increase of divorces which has in turn eroded the perception of marriage as a safe asset. It is this devaluation of marriage which, consistent with our hypotheses, can explain the convergence of married women to the same preferences of single women.

How Men’s Overconfidence Hurts Them as Investors

New York Times: How Men’s Overconfidence Hurts Them as Investors

MEN and women invest differently, a growing body of research has found. And in at least one important respect, women may be better at it.

The latest data comes from Vanguard, the mutual fund company. Among 2.7 million people with I.R.A.’s at the company, it found that during the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, men were much more likely than women to sell their shares at stock market lows. Those sales presumably meant big losses — and missing the start of the market rally that began a year ago.

Male investors, as a group, appear to be overconfident, said John Ameriks, head of Vanguard Investment Counseling and Research and a co-author of the study. “There’s been a lot of academic research suggesting that men think they know what they’re doing, even when they really don’t know what they’re doing,” he said.

Women, on the other hand, appear more likely to acknowledge when they don’t know something — like the direction of the stock market or of the price of a stock or a bond.

Staying the course and minimizing costs — selling high and buying low, if you trade at all — are the classic characteristics of good long-term, buy-and-hold investors. But during the financial crisis, the Vanguard study showed, men were more likely than women to trade — and to do so at the wrong times. ...

The Gender Wage Gap, Around the World

Economix: The Gender Wage Gap, Around the World

... Across industrialized countries, men’s median, full-time earnings were 17.6 percent higher than women’s. The biggest gender wage gap was in South Korea and Japan, where men earn wages more than 30 percent higher than women, and was smallest in Belgium, where the gap is 9.3 percent.

In the United States, the typical full-time female worker earns 19 percent less than the typical full-time male worker.

Much of this gap can be explained by the types of jobs women choose to go into (or, perhaps, the types of jobs that are available to them).

Women Favor Olympics

Marketing Charts: Women Favor Olympics

Unlike the male-favored Super Bowl, the TV audience for the Winter Olympics is predominantly female, according to The Nielsen Company.

Through February 21, 2010, an estimated 56% of Olympic viewers are female, while 44% are male. Super Bowl viewership earlier this month was almost the exact opposite, with its audience composed of 54% males and 46% females.

Older, White Viewers Watch Olympics

• Olympics ratings are clearly highest among older viewers. Ratings among teenagers are 57% lower than the national average for this year’s primetime Olympics broadcasts. Ratings among the 18-49 group are 20% lower than the national average, while ratings among those 55 and older are 82% higher.

• Olympics viewing among ethnic minorities is considerably lower than it is for the population as a whole. Ratings among Hispanic and African-American viewers are each 74% below the national average. Asian ratings are 15% below the national average.

• The Olympics are more widely viewed in the West Central region of the United States than any other part of the country. Ratings in this area are 24% higher than the national average. Viewership is lowest in the Southwest, where ratings are 28% lower than the national average.

• Households that view in High Definition are more likely to watch the Olympics. About 55% of Olympic viewers are in HD-capable/receivable homes. Viewing in these homes is 14% higher. DVR households have similar viewership tendencies. About 41% of Olympic viewers are in DVR homes and have ratings 12% higher than the national average. ...

Why (most) women like to shop

MSNBC: Why (most) women like to shop

Mall-loving behavior may be linked to our hunting and foraging past.

Our ancestors didn't shop for holiday gifts, but the way we buy may owe credit to thousands of years of evolution.

In a new study, researchers propose that our mall-visiting behaviors harken back to the days when men hunted and women foraged.

Modern men, for example, generally want to get into a store and get right back out — just like their hunting forefathers wanted to find and bring meat home as quickly as possible. On the other hand, women get back to their foraging roots by sorting through racks of sweaters on sale — as if scanning plants for signs of ripeness.

Plenty of people defy these general trends, of course, but the findings might help men and women better understand each other and limit arguments that surround shopping, said lead author Daniel Kruger, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor, Mich.

His new theory could also help marketers design better stores that cater to gender differences.

"Women would want to have more things to search through and to be able to experience them, touch them, feel textures and see colors," Kruger said. "With a guy, he knows the properties he wants. It may be more efficient to have a counter that the guy walks up to, says what he wants, and they go get that item from a storage room." ...

What do you think? Evolution at work or influenced by culturally created gender roles?

Men and marriage

Economist: Men and marriage

Women’s higher earnings seem to benefit husbands as much as wives.

IT IS a truth universally acknowledged that a married woman in possession of a large fortune will probably spend most of it on her husband and children. That seems to be the conclusion of a study* by the Pew Research Centre in Washington, DC, of the lives of Americans aged 30-44, those most likely to have young families. Whereas in earlier generations marriage allowed women to achieve economic security, now, it appears, men are more likely to benefit.

The root cause is the spread of women’s higher education. For the first time in American history there are more female than male college graduates among this age group. In contrast, in 1970, almost twice as many men as women in this group, 30-44, had college degrees. The result is that in the half of households where one partner has more education, it is now more likely to be the wife who has more. In 1970, it was usually the husband.

Income tends to rise with education, and women’s earnings have risen relative to men’s at every level of schooling. Men’s income is still, on average, higher, but women have been narrowing the gap and adding more to household earnings. A few wives contributed more than their men: in 1970 only 4% earned more than their husbands; in 2007 22% did.

That represented a rise in social mobility. But with it went an apparent decline in another aspect of mobility: more people seem to be marrying within their education and income bracket, especially at the top. The best educated and highest-earning husbands in 2007 were more likely to have the highest-income wives than was the case in 1970. At the bottom of the education heap, too, men are less likely to have wives who earn a lot. Forty years ago, half of husbands who dropped out of high school had wives who earned more than the average for women; now just 30% do.

That is an exception to the rule that, as the report says, “the economic gains from marriage have accrued more to men than to women.” But there is one other way in which the growing economic clout of women increases their power within marriage. According to Pew, in households where the husband earns more, women are still just as likely to make the final decisions regarding household finances; where the wife earns more, she is more than twice as likely to do so.

Structural Barriers Discourage Girls From Going Into Math and Science?

Mark Perry takes aim at this article in the Chronicle for Higher Education that says structural barriers in education prevent women from going into math and science. Summarizing from 2009 SAT report from the College Board he writes:

1. The average number of years of math study for boys and girls in high school is almost identical: 3.9 years for boys and 3.8 years for girls.

2. The average number of years of science study for girls (3.5 years) in high school is almost the same as for boys (3.6 years).

3. High school girls had exactly the same math GPA as boys of 3.14, and a slightly higher average GPA for science (3.27) than boys (3.23).

4. More girls take biology and chemistry (55%) in high school than boys (45%), i.e. 122 girls per 100 boys.

5. There are 127 girls taking high school AP/Honors science classes for every 100 boys.

6. For high school students reporting more than four years of math study, the percentages are equal by gender: 50% of boys and 50% of girls take more than four years of math.

7. Both 50% of boys and 50% of girls in high school report that calculus is the highest level of high school mathematics taken.

8. More high school girls than boys took AP Honors math courses, by a ratio of 117 girls for every 100 boys.

Bottom Line: The evidence shows that high school girls are equally prepared, if not more prepared (more AP math and science classes), than high school boys for college programs in math, science and engineering. ...

Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scientists

Wired: Star Trek Stops Women From Becoming Computer Scientists

The gender gap in computer science may have been widened by Star Trek, a new study suggests — but it could be bridged with a less geeky image.

New research published in the December Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that the stereotype of computer scientists as unwashed nerds may be partially responsible for the dearth of women in the field, as shown by National Science Foundation statistics.

“What this research shows is that the image of computer science — this geeky, masculine image — can make women feel like they don’t belong,” says lead author Sapna Cheryan of the University of Washington.

“I think this is an important contribution to the literature,” says Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton of the University of California, Berkeley. He says it raises questions about how much conscious control people have over their choices.

Previous research has found that a person can get a good sense of what another individual is like just from spending a few minutes perusing that person’s bedroom. Cheryan wondered if the same was true of classrooms.

“You can get a message about whether you want to join a certain group just by seeing the physical environment that that group is associated with,” Cheryan says. “You walk in, see these objects and think, ‘This is not me.’” ...

Men and women 'respond differently to danger'

BBC: Men and women 'respond differently to danger'

Men and women may respond differently to danger, a brain scan study suggests.

A team from Krakow, in Poland, used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess brain activity when 40 volunteers were shown various images.

Men showed activity in areas which dealt with what action they should take to avoid or confront danger.

But the study, presented to the Radiological Society of North America, found more activity in the emotional centres of women's brains.

The researchers, from Jagiellonian University Hospital in Krakow, carried out scans on 21 men and 19 women.

Brain activity was monitored while the volunteers were shown images of objects and images from ordinary life designed to evoke different emotional states.

Fight or flight response

The images were displayed in two runs. For the first run, only negative pictures were shown. For the second run, only positive pictures were shown.

While viewing the negative images, women showed stronger and more extensive activity in the left thalamus.

This is an area which relays sensory information to the pain and pleasure centres of the brain.

Men showed more activity in an area of the brain called the left insula, which plays a key role in controlling involuntary functions, including respiration, heart rate and digestion.

In essence, activity in this area primes the body to either run from danger, or confront it head on - the so-called "fight or flight response". ...

Interesting. When my dad was a science professor he used to take his students on an annual camping/canoe trip in the Ozarks. He used to tell ghost stories around the campfire. One time, the group was seated on logs arranged in semi-circle around the fire. At a critical moment in one of his stories he leapt across the fire, shrieking at the top of his lungs. He said what astonished him was that every one of the women dropped to the ground or fell off their seats. Everyone of the men sprang to his feet and ran four or five steps before regaining composure.

This article seems to correspond well with what I've read elsewhere that women (in the aggregate) tend to process the world more holistically while men tend to process the world in more compartmentalized ways.

(I always read the articles with caution. The comparison between any individual woman and man may not match the aggregate but there does seem to be aggregate differences.)

Medical School Graduates

Carpe Diem: Medical School Graduates

Poll finds wide support for women in workplace

MSNBC: Poll finds wide support for women in workplace

Men and women are accepting — and even embracing — the increasing role of women in the workplace, but many are still struggling with the repercussions  on family life.

Those are some of the findings of a nationwide survey released Thursday in conjunction with a major report on the status of women by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress.

"The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything" takes an in-depth look at what has happened, and what still needs to happen, now that women make up virtually half the work force, up from about one-third of the work force 40 years ago.

The survey found that around three-quarters of men and women believe that the growing presence of women in the workplace has been very or somewhat positive for American society and the economy.

Both men and women generally said they believe women can be equal partners in work, regardless of family responsibilities. For example, nearly 45 percent of men and 56 percent of women surveyed strongly disagreed with the notion that mothers cannot be as productive at work as people without children. ...

What's Happening to Women's Happiness?

Oprah.com: What's Happening to Women's Happiness?

... First, since 1972, women's overall level of happiness has dropped, both relative to where they were forty years ago, and relative to men. You find this drop in happiness in women regardless of whether they have kids, how many kids they have, how much money they make, how healthy they are, what job they hold, whether they are married, single or divorced, how old they are, or what race they are. (The one and only exception: African-American women are now slightly happier than they were back in 1972, although they remain less happy than African American men.) ...

... The second discovery is, this: though women begin their lives more fulfilled than men, as they age, they gradually become less happy. Men, in contrast, get happier as they get older....

... For example, these trends are not caused by women working longer hours than men. ...

... Nor are they caused by gender-based stereotyping. ...

... Nor, surprisingly, is it caused by women bearing a disproportionate burden of the workload at home, the 'second-shift' as some have labeled it. ...

Interesting article but for the answer the author basically says "read my book." My bet is that this has to do with unrealized expectations. Nearly every time a group of people experiences a greater degree of freedom and opportunity, happiness goes down. Prior to the change, one simply refused to have high expectations or reasoned that their lack of "achievement" was due to forces beyond their control, and adapted. Once freedom emerges, expectations soar to unrealistic levels and "excuses" for failure to achieve are eliminated. That is a lot of pressure. I think it takes a couple of generations to reach a healthy balance between expectations and reality. What do you think?

Men, Women, and Business Referrals

Women Entrepreneur:  Tap Multi-Influential Referral Power

... A woman will refer up to 26 individuals to a company, product or service if she is happy with her experience, according to Winning the Toughest Customer:The Essential Guide to Selling to Women, by Delia Passi. Men, on the other hand, will refer an average of 11 people, even with the highest degree of satisfaction with a comparable product or service. Therefore, by a two-to-one margin, multi-influential women have incredible referral energy.

At the other extreme, women and women of color have very strong veto power. If she is not feeling comfortable with a product or service approach, she will reject that company as an option. She has the power to veto in 95 percent of purchasing decisions that involve a spouse or partner.  ...

Grad School Enrollment by Gender

Source

The Women’s Crusade

New York Times: The Women’s Crusade

(This lengthy piece was brought to my attention by Dana Ames. It is three weeks old but since it is such a powerful article I'm linking it belatedly.)

IN THE 19TH CENTURY, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution. ...

U.S. men among most helpful around house

Chicago Sun-Times: U.S. men among most helpful around house

Men, start putting some elbow grease into your housework if you're looking to rev up your relationship.

American men fared pretty well, ranking fourth in the world -- behind their peers in Norway, Sweden and the U.K. -- in being helpful, and therefore attractive mates or husbands, says a study by Oxford University researcher Almudena Sevilla-Sanz.

Women living in countries where men took more responsibility for housework and child care were more likely to marry or live with a man, the study showed.

Women living in countries with less helpful men were 20 to 50 percent less likely to be living with a man than women in the egalitarian countries.

The worst husbands are in Australia, where men are known for loving beer and sports.

Of course, turnabout is never fair play. Men were more interested in partnering with women who want to take on all the housework and child care, the study shows.

Breaking glass ceilings at large churches

Christian Century: Breaking glass ceilings at large churches

Methodists opened the ordained ministry to women in 1956, and today female ministers account for about 20 percent of the clergy in the denomination. And 14 bishops heading the 50 U.S. regional jurisdictions of the United Methodist Church are women—28 percent of the total.

Score that a triumph for gender inclusivity in the nation's largest mainline church? Not so fast, say some UMC officials. One mark of acceptance for women pastors is lagging—only some 7 percent of Methodist congregations with more than 1,000 members are led by a female senior pastor.

Methodist statisticians, releasing this month the most recent data (from December 2007), said that 81 of the denomination's largest congregations were led by women pastors and 1,055 by male pastors. Another eight large congregations had men and women serving as copastors. ...

Having Daughters Rather Than Sons Makes You More Liberal

FiveThirtyEight: Having Daughters Rather Than Sons Makes You More Liberal (HT: Gruntled Center)

The post quotes from an article by Andrew J. Oswald and Nattavudh Powdthavee:

In remarkable research, the sociologist Rebecca Warner and the economist Ebonya Washington have shown that the gender of a person's children seems to influence the attitudes and actions of the parent.

Warner (1991) and Warner and Steel (1999) study American and Canadian mothers and fathers. The authors' key finding is that support for policies designed to address gender equity is greater among parents with daughters. This result emerges particularly strongly for fathers. Because parents invest a significant amount of themselves in their children, the authors argue, the anticipated and actual struggles that offspring face, and the public policies that tackle those, matter to those parents. . . The authors demonstrate that people who parent only daughters are more likely to hold feminist views (for example, to favor affirmative action).

By collecting data on the voting records of US congressmen, Washington (2004) is able to go beyond this. She provides persuasive evidence that congressmen with female children tend to vote liberally on reproductive rights issues such as teen access to contraceptives. In a revision, Washington (2008) argues for a wider result, namely, that the congressmen vote more liberally on a range of issues such as working families flexibility and tax-free education.

Our [Oswald and Powdthavee's] aim in this paper is to argue, with nationally representative random samples of men and women, that these results generalize to voting for entire political parties. We document evidence that having daughters leads people to be more sympathetic to left-wing parties. Giving birth to sons, by contrast, seems to make people more likely to vote for a right-wing party. Our data, which are primarily from Great Britain, are longitudinal. We also report corroborative results for a German panel. Access to longitudinal information gives us the opportunity -- one denied to previous researchers -- to observe people both before and after they have a new child of any particular gender. We can thereby test for political 'switching'. Although
panel data cannot resolve every difficulty of establishing cause-and-effect relationships, they allow sharper testing than can simple cross-section data.

The Ties That Bind

Wall Street Journal: The Ties That Bind

Linked by 30 years of experiences and memories, 10 women from Ames, Iowa, are a lesson in the power and lifelong benefits of friendship.

... Similarly, a Harris Interactive Inc. survey in 2004 found that 39% of women between ages 25 and 55 said they met their current best friends in childhood or high school. Women are likely to connect early and then hold tight to each other. This is despite our transient society, or in some cases, even because of it. ...

... Few of the Ames girls’ husbands have longstanding groups of close friends they confide in regularly. Men’s friendships tend to be based more on activities than on emotions. They connect through sports, work, poker, politics. In an Australian government study, 57% of men said they bond with friends through “recreational activities.” That compared with just 26% of women who defined friendships in those terms. ...

Hunting for the secrets of a happy marriage

CNN: Hunting for the secrets of a happy marriage

(CNN) -- No one can truly know what goes on inside a marriage except the two people involved, but researchers are getting increasingly good glimpses at what makes couples tick, how relationships are stressed and what factors can keep the spark alive.

The goal: To find out what keeps love alive and couples together.

Putting marriage under a microscope has resulted in new long-term studies that are showing better than ever how a birth or simple boredom can drain a union.

More surprisingly, old photographs might help predict your chances of getting a divorce, new research suggests.

All of the findings can help couples learn lessons about their relationships and their spouses, said Nadine Kaslow, a professor at Emory University School of Medicine who specializes in couples and families and also serves as chief psychologist at Grady Health System in Atlanta, Georgia. ...

An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women

Consard Research Corporation and the Department of Labor: An Analysis of Reasons for the Disparity in Wages Between Men and Women

I discovered this report a few weeks ago and never got around to posting it. From the reports Foreward:

During the past three decades, women have made notable gains in the workplace and in pay equity, including increased labor force participation, substantial gains in educational attainment, employment growth in higher paying occupations, and significant gains in real earnings.

In 1970, about 43 percent of women aged 16 and older were in the labor force; by 2007, over 59 percent were in labor force.

In 1970, only 17.9 percent of women aged 25 and older had gone to college; by 2000, almost half had gone to college; and by 2006 one-third of the women in the labor force held a college degree.

In 2007, women accounted for 51 percent of all workers in the high-paying management, professional, and related occupations. They outnumbered men in such occupations as financial managers, human resource managers, education administrators, medical and health services managers, and accountants and auditors.

In 1970, the median usual weekly earnings for women working full-time was only 62.1 percent of those for men; by 2007, the raw wage gap had shrunk from 37.9 percent to just 21.5 percent.

However, despite these gains the raw wage gap continues to be used in misleading ways to advance public policy agendas without fully explaining the reasons behind the gap. The purpose of this report is to identify the reasons that explain the wage gap in order to more fully inform policymakers and the public.

The following report prepared by CONSAD Research Corporation presents the results of a detailed statistical analysis of the attributes that contribute to the wage gap and a synopsis of the economic research that has been conducted on the issue. The major findings are:

There are observable differences in the attributes of men and women that account for most of the wage gap. Statistical analysis that includes those variables has produced results that collectively account for between 65.1 and 76.4 percent of a raw gender wage gap of 20.4 percent, and thereby leave an adjusted gender wage gap that is between 4.8 and 7.1 percent. These variables include:

A greater percentage of women than men tend to work part-time. Part-time work tends to pay less than full-time work.

A greater percentage of women than men tend to leave the labor force for child birth, child care and elder care. Some of the wage gap is explained by the percentage of women who were not in the labor force during previous years, the age of women, and the number of children in the home.

Women, especially working mothers, tend to value “family friendly” workplace policies more than men. Some of the wage gap is explained by industry and occupation, particularly, the percentage of women who work in the industry and occupation.

Research also suggests that differences not incorporated into the model due to data limitations may account for part of the remaining gap. Specifically, CONSAD’s model and much of the literature, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics Highlights of Women’s Earnings, focus on wages rather than total compensation. Research indicates that women may value non-wage benefits more than men do, and as a result prefer to take a greater portion of their compensation in the form of health insurance and other fringe benefits.

In principle, more of the raw wage gap could be explained by including some additional variables within a single comprehensive analysis that considers all of the factors simultaneously; however, such an analysis is not feasible to conduct with available data bases. Factors, such as work experience and job tenure, require data that describe the behavior of individual workers over extended time periods. The longitudinal data bases that contain such information include too few workers, however, to support adequate analysis of factors like occupation and industry. Cross-sectional data bases that include enough workers to enable analysis of factors like occupation and industry do not collect data on individual workers over long enough periods to support adequate analysis of factors like work experience and job tenure.

Although additional research in this area is clearly needed, this study leads to the unambiguous conclusion that the differences in the compensation of men and women are the result of a multitude of factors and that the raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.

Charles E. James, Senior
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Federal Contract Compliance

Lap Dancers Show That Estrus is Not So Hidden

Gruntled Center: Lap Dancers Show That Estrus is Not So Hidden Beau Weston

Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan of the University of New Mexico have done a wonderful study to see whether human beings can tell when a woman is ovulating. Unlike most animals, people have "hidden estrus." One good consequence is that men pay attention to their mates all the time, whereas in other primates females only get attention when they are "in heat." However, human beings may be able to tell when a woman is ovulating in more subtle, even subconscious, ways.

Miller and colleagues asked eighteen lap dancers to keep track of their menstrual periods, work shifts, and tip earnings for 60 days - more than 5300 lap dances. The researchers noted differences between women who were on the pill and those who were not.

The result:
Average tips during ovulation = $335 per shift
Halfway through (luteal phase) = $260
During menstruation = $185

Women on the pill, by contrast, showed no ovulation peak for tips.

[Thanks to reader Brittany for the study]

Now I ask you, aren't you glad you read the Kruse Kronicle? How else would you find such stories.

So my question to my male readers is, have you been able discern a difference while receiving a lap dance?  ;-)

Two sexes 'sin in different ways'

BBC: Two sexes 'sin in different ways'

Women are prouder than men, but men are more lustful, according to a Vatican report which states that the two sexes sin differently.

A Catholic survey found that the most common sin for women was pride, while for men, the urge for food was only surpassed by the urge for sex.

The report was based on a study of confessions carried out by Fr Roberto Busa, a 95-year-old Jesuit scholar.

The Pope's personal theologian backed up the report in the Vatican newspaper. ...

Beauty is in the sex of the beholder, study finds

Reuters: Beauty is in the sex of the beholder, study finds

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The brains of men and women respond differently to beautiful objects such as paintings, researchers reported on Monday.

They used imaging technology called magnetoencephalography to look at the brain activity of 20 volunteers while looking at pretty paintings and ugly pictures of cities and found clear sex differences when the test subjects saw images they described as beautiful.

Women use more of the whole brain when appreciating a nice piece of art, while men use mostly the right side, Francisco Ayala of the University of California, Irvine and colleagues in Spain found. ...

The More Choice Women Have, the More They Diverge From Men

Gruntled Center: The More Choice Women Have, the More They Diverge From Men

"The richer the country, the more likely women and men choose different types of jobs."

This is the very interesting finding reported by Susan Pinker in The Sexual Paradox. She is specifically studying the problem that got Laurence Summers into so much undeserved trouble: why are there many fewer women than men at the highest levels of math, science, and engineering? Her answer: when given the choice, women with high aptitude for math, science, and engineering are more likely than similarly gifted men to choose something else.

In fact, Pinker argues, it is not that the women are discriminated against or diverted, where men are not. Rather, women with high math aptitude are also likely to have high verbal aptitude and high empathy, whereas math-minded men are not. It is the men who are channeled into science and engineering because they do not have as many other choices. The women, given the choice, are more likely to take their math skill to clinical medicine. They want to do work with people that makes more of a difference in people's lives.

The countries with the highest rates of women in science and engineering are not the ones in which women are most free, but in poor and authoritarian countries where math-competent women are pushed into science and engineering by families that want them to have higher salaries, and states that want more scientists and engineers.

Interesting stuff. Beau is doing an interesting series of posts on this book.

The "Man-Cession" Worsens, Record M-F Gap

Carpe Diem: The "Man-Cession" Worsens, Record M-F Gap

According to today's BLS labor report, the gap between the male jobless rate (8.3%) and female jobless rate (6.7%) widened to 1.6%, which is the largest male-female jobless rate gap in BLS history (back to 1948).

The Girl Effect

Danny Gamache put me on this campaign to end poverty. Great Stuff! Considerable wisdom is shown here beyond bumper sticker politics and economics.

Official Website: The Girl Effect

More Men Take the Lead Role in Caring for Elderly Parents

New York Times: More Men Take the Lead Role in Caring for Elderly Parents

When Peter Nicholson’s mother suffered a series of strokes last winter, he did something women have done for generations: he quit his job and moved into her West Hollywood home to care for her full time.

Since then, he has lost 45 pounds and developed anemia, in part because of the stress, and he is running out of money. But the hardest adjustment, Mr. Nicholson said, has been the emotional toll.

“The single toughest moment was when she said to me, ‘And now who are you?’ ” he said. “My whole world just dropped. That was the pinnacle of despair.”

Mr. Nicholson, 53, is part of a growing number of men who are providing primary care for their aging parents, usually their mothers. ...

Love’s Labor

New York Times: Love’s Labor

The unpaid services of America’s family caregivers amounted to some $375 billion in 2007, up from $350 billion in 2006. Those are the latest findings from the AARP Public Policy Institute, which recently updated a similar report it conducted last year.

The report, “Valuing the Invaluable: The Economic Value of Family Caregiving,’’ estimates that 34 million American adults provide an average of 21 hours a week of care to another adult, usually an elderly parent or spouse, worth $10.10 an hour in the marketplace.

That’s a bloodless way of thinking about the typical caregiver, who is defined in a series of benchmark studies as a 46-year-old woman, married, employed and looking after a widowed mother who needs help with everyday tasks and medical issues. But you know who they’re talking about: You. ...

Girl Power: Females Dominate US Higher Education

Carpe Diem: Girl Power: Females Dominate US Higher Education

Check out his graphs for graduate education as well.

Middle-aged women drive rise in U.S. suicides: study

Reuters: Middle-aged women drive rise in U.S. suicides: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. suicide rates appear to be on the rise, driven mostly by middle-aged white women, researchers reported on Tuesday.

They found a disturbing increase in suicides between 1999 and 2005 and said the pattern had changed in an unmistakable way -- although the reasons behind the change are not clear.

The overall suicide rate rose 0.7 percent during this time, but the rate for white men aged 40 to 64 rose 2.7 percent and for middle-aged women 3.9 percent, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found. ...

The Pornification Of A Generation

Newsweek: The Pornification Of A Generation

The idea for a book about porn culture came to Kevin Scott the day his daughter decided she absolutely had to have a Bratz-doll pony. For months, the 5-year-old had begged him for a Bratz doll—clad in spike heels, fishnets and miniskirt, enormous puppy-dog eyes protruding from her oversized head. Her sexy look seemed a little too sexy for a preschooler, so he and his wife bought her a different doll, which she was happy with. Except that a few months later, Bratz came out with Bratz Babyz. "If Bratz had looked like Barbie hookers, these looked like baby hookers," Scott says. Again, he convinced his daughter that My Little Pony was just as cool—and for a moment, the conversation ended. Until, of course, the Bratz came out with Bratz Ponyz. And then, says Scott, an English professor at a small college in Georgia, "I realized porn culture and I were in a death match for my daughter's soul."

In a market that sells high heels for babies and thongs for tweens, it doesn't take a genius to see that sex, if not porn, has invaded our lives. Whether we welcome it or not, television brings it into our living rooms and the Web brings it into our bedrooms. According to a 2007 study from the University of Alberta, as many as 90 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls aged 13 to 14 have accessed sexually explicit content at least once.

But it isn't just sex that Scott is worried about. He's more interested in how we, as a culture, often mimic the most raunchy, degrading parts of it—many of which, he says, come directly from pornography. ...

To some evangelicals, Palin's career violates biblical teachings

Los Angeles Times: To some evangelicals, Palin's career violates biblical teachings

In a white-steepled church along a stretch in picturesque canyon country, the preacher laid out the basic blueprint of a godly marriage: Husbands lead, wives submit.

Speaking recently before hundreds of worshipers at Placerita Baptist Church in Newhall, guest preacher Chris Mueller affirmed the view that loving male headship and gracious wifely submission are God's plan for spouses.

Placerita, like many conservative Christian churches, teaches that a wife's role is to be her husband's helpmate (Genesis), "workers at home" (Titus) and submissive to her husband in everything (Ephesians).

So how do these congregants square such teachings with their support for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the conservative evangelical Christian who is aiming to become vice president while her teenage daughter is pregnant, her infant son has Down syndrome and her husband took a leave from work to serve as "Mr. Mom," as People magazine put it?

"It's probably presumptuous of us to figure out how she is going to balance all of this," said Pat Ennis, a Placerita congregant who heads the home economics department at The Master's College, a Christian institution in Santa Clarita. "The most important thing is that she can do it in God's strength." ...

Women and Ministry - Scot McKnight

A few years ago, Scot McKnight began a series at his Jesus Creed blog called "Women and Ministry" that spanned several months. Many of these posts had more than 200 comments, with some fascinating discussions. I occasionally go back to these discussions to review what was said.

Unfortunately, these comments are categorized with other posts that weren't directly related to this series. So for your convenience and mine, I've created an index of this series for easier reference.

Woman in Ministry

Women in Ministry: Ruth Tucker

Women in Ministry: Feminization of the Church?

Women in Ministry: Scripture and Feminism

Women in Ministry: Phyllis Tickle

Women and Ministry: Hermeneutics

Women in Ministry: A Letter now open

Women and Ministry: Headship from Home to Church?

Women and Ministry: Paul

Women in Ministry: Biblical examples

Women in Ministry: Sumner Months

Women in Ministry: Sumner Months 2

Women in Ministry in Africa

Sumner Months 3

Women in Ministry: Personhood

Women in Ministry: Manhood

Women and Ministry: God-talk

Women in Ministry: Can we change?

Women in Ministry: "weaker vessel"?

Women in Ministry: "Headship"

Women in Ministry: "I do not permit…"

Women in Ministry: "The Redemptive Trend"

Women in Ministry: Redemptive Trend 2

Women in Ministry: Redemptive Trend 3

Women in Ministry: Redemptive Trend 4

Women in Ministry: Ethnic Stereotypes

Women in Ministry: The Redemptive Trend

Women in Ministry: Redemptive Trend

Women in Ministry: Are you Biblical?

Women in Ministry: Made for Mutuality

Women in Ministry: First Mary

Women in Ministry: Sacred Space

Women in Ministry: Galatians 3:28

Women in Ministry: Three Women 1

Women in Ministry: Three Women 2

Women in Ministry: Three Women 3

Women in Ministry: A Story

Women in Ministry: Why is this such an Issue?

Women in Ministry: Why is this such an Issue? 2

Women rule the roost, and that's OK with men

USA Today: Women rule the roost, and that's OK with men

Around the house, women rule. And men aren't putting up a fight about it, according to a study from the Pew Research Center that examines how gender and power play out at home and in the community.

Of 1,260 individuals surveyed this summer— either married or living together — women wield more decision-making power at home. In 43% of couples, women made more decisions — almost twice as many as men — in the four areas Pew surveyed: planning weekend activities, household finances,major home purchases and TV watching.

The survey also found 43% of men don't have the final say in any of those decisions; they either share decision-making or defer to their partners.

"Across all decision-making realms, it tilts to the woman,"says Rich Morin, lead author of the study, being released today.

"I was surprised by the percentage of men who made none of the decisions in any of the areas. A significant percentage were just bystanders."

Such responses run counter to societal beliefs, says Melinda Forthofer, director of the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina-Columbia. ...

Men with sexist views 'earn more'

BBC: Men with sexist views 'earn more'

Men who grow up thinking women should stay at home may be labelled "old-fashioned" - but could end up well ahead in the salary stakes.

A US study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, suggests that they will consistently out-earn more "modern-thinking" men.

On average, this meant an extra $8,500 (£4,722) a year.

One UK psychologist said men inclined to wield power in their relationships might also do this at work. ...

It strikes me that men who hold these views probably have more of their identity tied up in being good breadwinners and are, therefore, possibly more highly motivated to be good breadwinners.

 

The Complementarian Palin Conundrum

What to do with Sarah Palin? Many people in theologically conservative protestant denominations and congregations believe that men and women fulfill complementary gender roles. They describe themselves as complementarian. Men lead. Women submit. Men teach and preach. Women do not teach or preach to men, nor are they ordained to be pastors. There are a wide variety of ways these issues are practically dealt with, and some seem only complementarian in name when you view actual behavior. Most complementarians bristle at the claim their position implies any inferiority on the part of women. Men and women are "equal in being, unequal in function," they say. Whatever the case, complementarian teachers maintain they are upholding the Church's historic teaching.

The virtual credo for the complementarian position is 1 Timothy 2:11-15. Unlike other passages, which (on the surface at least) seem to address this topic, 1 Timothy gives a theological basis for the complementarian position.

The prescription:

"Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent." Verses 11 and 12

The theological justification:

"For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor." Verses 13 and 14

As you probably know, a disproportionate number of American complementarians are politically conservative and Republican. This election year, a woman, Sarah Palin, fills the vice-presidential slot. Isn't this a contradiction of complementarian standards? For most, apparently not.

Leading complementarians argue that submission to the husband in the home is not transferable to submission of women to men outside the home. Furthermore, 1 Timothy 2 only addresses women's role in public worship or ecclesial matters. Fair enough, but is this the historical understanding? What is the functional necessity for excluding women from teaching and leadership roles in the Church? Church scholars have had fairly consistent pragmatic functional reasons for restricting leadership/teaching to men over the centuries based on passages like 1 Timothy 2. Three stand out in particular.

1. Priest as Mediator - Because the priest is the mediator of Christ to the people, the priest must be male to symbolize Christ. This is irrelevant to Protestants because we understand there is no mediator between Christ and us.

2. Primogeniture - Various church fathers commenting on 1 Timothy 2:13, identifying primogeniture as a "functional" reason. But read the following closely with the idea of "equal in being, unequal in function" in mind. (All quotes below, and several others, can be found in two appendices of William Webb's Slaves, Women and Homosexuals.):

John Chrysostom (347-407): "It shows that the male sex enjoyed the higher honor. Man was first formed; and elsewhere he shows their superiority." Homilies on Timothy (Homilies 8-9)

Martin Luther (1483-1546): "Because of God's work, Adam is approved as superior to Eve, because he had the right of primogeniture." Luther's Works

John Wesley (1703-1791): "'First' - So that woman was originally the inferior [in rank or status]. She was inferior too in bodily strength." The New Testament Explanatory Notes

We see primogeniture referenced, but the implicit and frequently explicit reason given for the significance of primogeniture is that it signifies male superiority. Some Reformation scholars, including Calvin, found the primogeniture argument weak. Nevertheless, Calvin writes in his commentary on 1 Timothy:

"Since, therefore, God did not create two chiefs of equal power, but added to the man an inferior aid, the Apostle justly reminds us of that order of creation in which the eternal and inviolable appointment of God is strikingly displayed."

So, while Calvin was not too keen on primogeniture reasoning, he resorted to the "inferior helpmate" reasoning instead.

These arguments on primogeniture usually exist as secondary support for the next reason.

3. Women's Inferior Nature - Again commenting on 1 Timothy 2:13:

John Chrysostom (347-407): “The woman [Eve] taught once, and ruined all. On this account therefore he saith, let her not teach. But what is it to other women, that she suffered this? It certainly concerns them; for the sex is weak and fickle, and he is speaking of the sex collectively. Homilies on Timothy (Homilies 8-9)

Augustine (354-430): "And [Satan] first tried his deceit upon the woman, making his assault upon the weaker part of that human alliance, that he might gradually gain the whole, and not supposing that the man would readily give ear to him, or be deceived, but that he might yield to the error of the woman … For not without significance did the apostle say, 'And Adam was no deceived, but the woman being deceived was in transgression.'" City of God

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): "The human group would have lacked the benefit of order had some of its members not been governed by others who were wiser. Such is the subjection in which woman is by nature subordinate to man, because the power of rational discernment is by nature stronger in man.

St. Paul says that women should keep silence in Churches", and, 'I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men.' [1 tim. 2:12] But this especially touches the grace of speech. Accordingly that grace [speaking publicly to the whole Church] does not pertain to women … because generally speaking women are not perfected in wisdom so as to be fit to be entrusted with public teaching." "Prophecy and other Charisms" in Summa Theologica 45:133

Martin Luther (1483-1546): "Paul thus has proved that by divine and human right Adam is the master of the woman. That is, it was not Adam who went astray. Therefore, there was greater wisdom in Adam than in the woman. Where this occurs, there is greater authority … He [Adam] persevered in his dominion over the serpent, which did not attack him but rather attacked the weaker vessel … just as he does today." Lectures on 1 Timothy

John Knox (1514-1572) On women: "For who can deny but it is repugnant to nature, that the blind shall be appointed to lead the conduct such as do see? That the weak, the sick, and impotent persons shall nourish and keep the whole and strong, and finally, that the foolish, mad and frantic shall govern the discrete, and give counsel to such as be sober of mind? And such be all women, compared to a man in bearing of authority. …Nature, I say, does paint them further to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble and foolish: and experience has declared them to be inconstant, variable, cruel and lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment." The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.

John Wesley (1703-1791): "The preceding verse [1 Tim 2:13] showed why a woman should not 'usurp authority over the man.' This verse [1 Tim. 2:14 ] shows why she ought not 'to teach.' She is more easily deceived, and more easily deceives." "1 Timothy" in Wesley's Notes on the Bible

Complementarians declare 'equal in being; unequal in function" and then claim the mantle of upholding the Church's historic teachings. Yet:

1. As Protestants, complementarians have rejected the idea of priest as mediator.

2. Unlike the leading scholars of the Church who taught that primogeniture signified superiority (therefore justifying authority and teaching), complementarians point to primogeniture, insisting there is no implication of inferiority and superiority. Yet they offer no reason why primogeniture would have any influence on the practice of leading/teaching, especially because God repeatedly chose other than the firstborn (Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and David, to name a few), implying that God's gifting and call is what mattered, not primogeniture. (Is it also true that only firstborn sons should be pastors?)

3. Unlike the leading scholars of the Church, who taught that women were innately inferior to men and more easily deceived, complementarians bristle at the charge that they are saying women are bad.

In short, complementarians are not adhering to the Church's historic teaching with their "equal in being, unequal in function" proposition. Neither are non-hierarchical complementarians like me.

Having abandoned the historical rationale for abiding by certain prescriptions, Complementarians can now offer no functional justification for why women should not lead or teach. During the 1970s, complementarians created the novel formulation of "equal in being; unequal in function" to justify retention of old practices while, in theory, abandoning claims of women's inferiority. But the formulation is a smoke screen. While it is true that one of two equal beings may be subordinate to another regarding some specific limited functions for a limited time, it is not true that an equal being can be subordinate to another equal being in everything, all the time. The latter is what is being claimed for women and men by complementarians. For two beings with the capacity to will and act, this is the very definition of an inferior being. And now, this formulation is being projected onto the ontological Trinity, declaring that Jesus' will is eternally subordinate to the Father in a way the Father is not to the Son. But even if we grant that the formulation is true, what is the "functional" distinction that favors men teaching and leading?

The answer isn't symbolic mediation, it isn't primogeniture signifying male superiority, and it isn't innate inferiority of women. Primogeniture absent male superiority is presented as a reason, but if it is not about superiority, what makes being firstborn a qualification for leading and teaching, especially when God repeatedly ignored it? What is the functional difference favoring men versus women?

The truth is that we have been in a Galileo-like paradigm shift over the past century or two. Just as it eventually became clear to the Church five hundred years ago that the Earth orbits the Sun instead of the Sun orbiting the Earth, we have now seen that women are not fickle, silly inferiors incapable of leadership and teaching. Just as with Galileo, we have had to go back and reread passages that had seemed so obviously clear and rethink how our perceptions might have influenced what we were reading.

This is not the place for me to articulate my thoughts on the controversial passages of Scripture. I've done that in my Household of God series (Scroll down to the "New Testament Household Codes" section and begin there.) My point here is that, unlike Hilary Clinton's election, Palin serving as vice-president will crank up the dissonance in people's minds between the complementarian prohibition of women teaching and seeing Palin ever before them. Had it been Clinton, it would have been easy to ignore her as another one of those "radical feminists." Palin, however, is seen as being of the same culture many complementarians hold dear. The absence of a real functional barrier will force many to re-examine Scripture.

We will see if Palin ends up as the vice president. Should it become so, this complementarian dynamic will be interesting to watch.

(Note: David Gushee has been thinking along similar lines. See his article in USA Today, The Palin Predicament.)

Social Equality Brings Out More Sex Differences - It Does Not Eliminate Them

Gruntled Center (Beau Weston): Social Equality Brings Out More Sex Differences - It Does Not Eliminate Them

...The really interesting finding is that in rich, egalitarian societies, men's and women's personalities diverge more. This seems to me to support the sociobiological notion that sex differences are deep, and are more likely to be expressed the more conditions are optimal for individuals to realize their deep inclinations. ...

Saddened

Called To Be (Rev Kim): Saddened (HT: Quotidian Grace)

I've not yet posted anything of a political nature on my blog - either church politics or national politics. While I consider myself informed, I don't consider myself informed enough to deeply address the issues. But on this day, when we now know the tickets for both major political parties, there is much that saddens me.

I'm saddened that smart, accomplished people are criticizing so vehemently the choice of a smart, accomplished woman for the second-highest office in the land.

I'm saddened that smart, accomplished people are presuming that this woman was chosen only because she is a woman.

I'm saddened that smart, accomplished people are presuming that this smart, accomplished woman is being exploited. I'm saddened ...

The World's Most Powerful Women

Forbes: The World's Most Powerful Women

Hopeful signs for women: Our fifth annual ranking showcases women who have beat out men for top posts this year, including Lynn Laverty Elsenhans (No. 39), the new chief of Sunoco; Gail Kelly (No. 11), who heads Australian bank Westpac; and Jane Mendillo (No. 42), who was just named to run the $35 billion Harvard University endowment.

In total, the women ranked on this list control $26 trillion worldwide....

...The most powerful woman in the world, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, tops the list for the third year running as the ranking democratically elected female leader. Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the embattled U.S. bank-deposit insurer, debuts in second place as she tries to stave off financial panic amid a worldwide credit crisis.

At No. 3, Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo (nyse: PEP - news - people ) is the highest-ranked woman in business as she expands the food and beverage giant internationally to counter a decline in Americans' preference for soda and chips.

Angela Braly (No. 4), the head of big health insurer WellPoint (nyse: WLP - news - people ), suffered a setback this spring when her downward revision of financial forecasts caused a stock tumble, sparking investor and employee ire.

At No. 5, Cynthia Carroll is leading mining giant Anglo-American to riches in the commodities boom. Kraft (nyse: KFT - news - people ) chief Irene Rosenfeld (No. 6), is slowly turning around the mac 'n cheese maker in her second year on the job, scoring a big hit in China with a new Oreo.

In the last few months of her tenure, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (No. 7) faces a myriad of diplomatic flare-ups: an unstable Pakistan, a bellicose Russia and the long-smoldering Middle East peace question. Ho Ching (No. 8), the head of Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek, has been moving more of the city-state's money abroad and now owns 15% of Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ).

In France, Areva (other-otc: ARVCF.PK - news - people ) head Anne Lauvergeon (No. 9) has been dealing with public fallout from this summer's leaks at two nuclear plants, even as France has announced plans to build more. Anne Mulcahy (No. 10) has doubled her research and development budget to focus on color printing and eco-friendly technologies. ...

A Tough Time to Be a Girl: Gender Imbalance on Campuses

The Chronicle of Higher Education: A Tough Time to Be a Girl: Gender Imbalance on Campuses

(The author of the article, Richard Whitmire (WhyBoysFail.com), has a Word version linked at his site which you will find by clicking here.)

...Last year, the writer Laura Sessions Stepp created a stir with her book Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love and Lose at Both, which described what the author says is lost as young men and women move away from traditional romantic relationships and toward fleeting sexual encounters. Not only are women gambling with their health, argues Stepp, but they are making decisions they will regret in future years. The hookup culture could leave them bereft of the skills to build real relationships later in life. Whether Stepp is "retro," as some of her critics charged, may be less important than the fact that the hookup culture shows no signs of reversal.

One key element to the pickup culture, however, remains unreported: American colleges are undergoing a striking gender shift. In 2015 the average college graduating class will be 60-percent female, according to the U.S. Education Department. Some colleges have already reached or passed that threshold, which allows anecdotal insights into how those imbalances affect the pickup culture. What can be seen so far is not encouraging: Stark gender imbalances appear to act as an accelerant on the hookup culture.

Biologists and social scientists can't be surprised by that observation. In the animal kingdom, it is well known that whichever sex is in short supply has the upper hand. ...

...As a result of the rising gender imbalances, the university has become "female centric." But while women may run the clubs, dominate in classes, and generally define the character of the university, the law of supply and demand rules the social scene. That's why the women are both competitive in seeking men and submissive in lowering their standards. ...