Let’s Talk About Men: Some Suggestions on How We Can Include Men in Conversations About Gender Roles in Librarianship

Nine years ago, I did not imagine listing gender issues as one of my core research interests. Now I cannot imagine my research revolving around anything else. The way I study gender though, has taken a rather startling turn away from women to focus (sometimes uncomfortably) on men. What follows is an argument about why studying men and masculinities can make us better librarians. I argue that studying men broadly is important, and librarians should explore methods and strategies for studying a specific type of men: well-educated, white men with established careers in libraries. While my narrative is highly personal, it is based on 9 years of research and reflection about how librarians discuss gender and professional identity.     

Gender differences in grant peer review: A meta-analysis

Narrative reviews of peer review research have concluded that there is negligible evidence of gender bias in the awarding of grants based on peer review. Here, we report the findings of a meta-analysis of 21 studies providing, to the contrary, evidence of robust gender differences in grant award procedures. Even though the estimates of the gender effect vary substantially from study to study, the model estimation shows that all in all, among grant applicants men have statistically significant greater odds of receiving grants than women by about 7%.     

Gender Stereotypes in Spanish- and English-Language Television Advertisements in the United States

This study analyzed 394 U.S. Spanish- and English-language television advertisements from 2013 for differences in gender representation. The findings indicate a high prevalence of gender stereotypes in both samples. For example, more women than men were depicted as young and were usually shown at home. Men actors were generally fully dressed, whereas women were often suggestively dressed. Voice-overs were clearly dominated by men, and product categories were stereotypically associated with gender. Despite allegedly more traditional Latina/o gender role attitudes in society, this study found little variation between Spanish- and English-language television advertisements in terms of gender stereotypes. The potential effects of such representations on audiences are discussed based on social cognitive theory and cultivation theory.     

Prerequisite conditions for self‐disclosing: A gender issue

Using a scheme previously developed by the authors to define conceptually self‐disclosure, this study focuses on one dimension found in that investigation— prerequisite for disclosure. The research examines gender differences in perceived importance placed on four conditions: setting, receiver, sender, and relationship characteristics judged to be needed before disclosing private information about oneself to others. The study also looks at the influence of topic on males’ and females’ use of conditions. Results suggest that women find sender and receiver characteristics more important as prerequisite conditions for self‐disclosure than do men. No significant effect of topic on the use of conditions was found for men or women.     

Ungendered writing: Writing styles are unlikely to account for gender differences in funding rates in the natural and technical sciences

Academia has traditionally faced a substantial gender gap in staff positions and career path progression. Women do not advance up the academic career ladder in the same rate as men, with evidence of gender bias in hiring, earnings, funding, and recognition by means of prestigious awards.In this study we focus on gender differences in funding applications. Multiple factors have been proposed as potentially underlying mechanisms creating differences in funding rates between men and women, including bias in peer review processes and differences in language use. In this study we use a set of 1560 full-text applications in the natural and technical sciences that were subjected to a double-blind review process at a Danish private funder to analyse gendered writing as a potential factor causing differences in funding rates. Reproducing analyses from previous studies that found significant differences in writing styles, we analyse patterns in the use of positive words, levels of readability, concreteness and sentiment. Unlike previous studies, we only find minimal differences in writing style between the sexes. We conclude that writing styles are unlikely to account for skewed funding patterns and suggest ways in which funding programmes can be designed to provide fair opportunities to all applicants.     

Google Scholar and Web of Science: Examining gender differences in citation coverage across five scientific disciplines

Many studies demonstrate differences in the coverage of citing publications in Google Scholar (GS) and Web of Science (WoS). Here, we examine to what extent citation data from the two databases reflect the scholarly impact of women and men differently. Our conjecture is that WoS carries an indirect gender bias in its selection criteria for citation sources that GS avoids due to criteria that are more inclusive. Using a sample of 1250 U.S. researchers in Sociology, Political Science, Economics, Cardiology and Chemistry, we examine gender differences in the average citation coverage of the two databases. We also calculate database-specific h-indices for all authors in the sample. In repeated simulations of hiring scenarios, we use these indices to examine whether women's appointment rates increase if hiring decisions rely on data from GS in lieu of WoS. We find no systematic gender differences in the citation coverage of the two databases. Further, our results indicate marginal to non-existing effects of database selection on women's success-rates in the simulations. In line with the existing literature, we find the citation coverage in WoS to be largest in Cardiology and Chemistry and smallest in Political Science and Sociology. The concordance between author-based h-indices measured by GS and WoS is largest for Chemistry followed by Cardiology, Political Science, Sociology and Economics.     

Job Satisfaction and Gender

This study uses quantitative and qualitative survey data to examine the job satisfaction of male and female employees at Iowa newspapers. Responses to open-ended questions indicated qualitative differences in the issues men and women considered salient and in the discourses they used to talk about their work. Male respondents were more likely to use language that evoked professional efficacy and emphasized presence. Female respondents more likely to use language that related to production and emphasized position. The findings also indicate a gender discrepancy related to income and financial status; men reported higher salaries and indicated greater financial security than women. Economic environment emerged as a salient issue for both male and female employees. Overall, the findings support the use of qualitative data to explore issues related to gender and job satisfaction and suggest organizational factors play an important role in newspaper employees’ attitudes and perceptions about their work.     

Explaining Gender Differences in the Perception of Support Availability: The Mediating Effects of Construct Availability and Accessibility

Perceived support availability (PSA), a general belief about the likelihood that social support will be available when needed, is associated with numerous processes and outcomes of supportive communication. Currently, however, there is little understanding of the factors that contribute to this belief. Numerous studies have reported gender differences in PSA, with women generally indicating that they see support as more available than do men; in turn, gender differences in PSA have been cited to explain gender differences in the production and interpretation of supportive messages. In an effort to explain gender differences in PSA and, more broadly, understand the social-cognitive factors that contribute to individual differences in PSA, this article proposes and reports a test of a theoretical model that treats PSA as the outcome of the availability and accessibility of cognitive schemata for construing social situations. Participants (150 men and 271 women) completed instruments providing assessments of PSA, construct availability (cognitive complexity), and construct accessibility (expressive and instrumental orientations). Bootstrap procedures for the simultaneous assessment of multiple mediators found that construct accessibility generally was a stronger mediator of gender differences in PSA than construct availability. However, a cooperative suppression effect was found for 1 index of construct accessibility, complicating the interpretation of mediation effects.     

Gender Differences in Selective Media Use for Mood Management and Mood Adjustment

Mood management theory has found empirical support but was challenged by gender-typed selections and exposure to negative content. These challenges are addressed with response style theory and the mood adjustment approach. A secondary data analysis and original experimental data serve to test hypotheses. As expected, after a mood-impacting experience, men tend to distract themselves with absorbing messages, whereas women tend to ruminate the experience and thus prefer messages with low absorption potential. When anticipating a mood-impacting activity, men tend to distract themselves right before it by selecting absorbing content, whereas women focus on it and prefer less absorbing messages.     

Controversial Rap Themes,Gender Portrayals and Skin Tone Distortion: A Content Analysis of Rap Music Videos

A content analysis of rap music videos aired on BET, MTV, and VH1 examined the occurrence of controversial themes, gender differences, and skin tone distortion. The results of this study found that current rap music videos have placed an emphasis on themes of materialism and misogyny. Additionally, men and women in the videos differ in their portrayal of these themes. Specifically, female characters are significantly more likely to appear as objects of sexuality. Men and women also differ in their appearance with more African American females appearing to have Eurocentric features. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Gender differences in research collaboration

The debate on the role of women in the academic world has focused on various phenomena that could be at the root of the gender gap seen in many nations. However, in spite of the ever more collaborative character of scientific research, the issue of gender aspects in research collaborations has been treated in a marginal manner. In this article we apply an innovative bibliometric approach based on the propensity for collaboration by individual academics, which permits measurement of gender differences in the propensity to collaborate by fields, disciplines and forms of collaboration: intramural, extramural domestic and international. The analysis of the scientific production of Italian academics shows that women researchers register a greater capacity to collaborate in all the forms analyzed, with the exception of international collaboration, where there is still a gap in comparison to male colleagues.     

文本分类中一种基于选择的二次特征降维方法

特征选择和特征抽取是文本分类中特征降维的主要方法.目前各种特征选择方法主要致力于度量特征与文本类别的相关性,却很少考虑特征之间的冗余性问题,从而影响特征降维的效果.本文提出一种基于选择的两步特征选择方法,既考虑一些类别信息较强的特征的选取,又减少一些类别判定方面的冗余特征,在尽量减少信息损失的前提下达到有效缩减特征维数的目的.对中文文本的分类实验结果表明,本文提出的特征降维方法在文本分类的准确率方面效果较好.     

贝叶斯分类算法在社交网站信息过滤中的应用分析

对文档进行分类并鉴别出垃圾信息是一个非常有实用价值的研究领域,越来越多的网站开始关注这种技术。采用智能算法对垃圾信息进行有效分析,寻找垃圾制作者,并通过网络日志和所发表的内容,判断哪些是广告用户和垃圾信息的发布者,并将其删除。认为对垃圾信息的甄别其实是一种把信息分成有用信息和无用信息的过程,试用贝叶斯分类算法把信息分成不同的类。针对基于规则的分类方法和通过分析广告链接网址来剔除垃圾信息的方法的缺陷,给出贝叶斯分类算法及机器训练方法,从实验结果看,本方法优于基于规则的分类法。     

Men's behavior toward women after viewing sexually-explicit films: degradation makes a difference

Past research indicates that short-term exposure to nonviolent sexual media stimuli can produce cognitive changes in men which, in turn, can affect their behavior toward women. This study explored differences among these behavioral effects based upon sexual degradation in film content and male viewers' gender schematicity, as an extension of the study of cognitive effects reported in Jansma, Linz, Mulac, and Imrich (1997). Seventy-one men viewed one of three films: (a) sexually-explicit and degrading to women, (b) sexually-explicit but non-degrading, or (c) non-sexual. The men then interacted with women in problem-solving dyads that were recorded on videotape. Men who viewed either sexually-explicit film displayed more dominance and anxiety than did the men who viewed the non-sexual film. This was true, however, for only the two-thirds who were non sex-typed (BSRI, Bem, 1974). Sex-typed men's behavior was consistent across sexual versus non-sexual film conditions. In addition, men who viewed the degrading sexual film displayed less anxiety, but more dominance, than men who watched the non-degrading sexual film. Women's behavior failed to distinguish which of the three films their partners had viewed, but was positively correlated with most of their partner's discriminating behavior. Results of men's viewing sexual or degrading sexual material are discussed in terms of negative social implications for women in the context of everyday male-female interactions.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Gender Gap in News Consumption

Survey results reveal that women consume less news than men. This article empirically analyzes this gender gap and explores several explanations. In the United States, the gender gap cannot be explained by differences in education, income, and other socio-demographics or by differences in preferences and job benefits of news consumption. However, the dual burden of paid and household work appears to be one of the drivers of the gender gap. In a cross-country comparison, the gender gap is linked to measures of gender equality in the economy and in politics.     

Gender stereotypes and normative heterosexuality in matrimonial ads from globalizing India

Matrimonial ads serve as unobtrusive sites to observe the construction and perpetuation of normative heterosexuality through socio-cultural discourses. The current study focuses on gendered spousal expectations and sex role preferences in 1065 matrimonial ads from two popular newspapers in India. Gender differences in ad type, financial stability, physical attractiveness, fairness, slimness, personality traits, and occupational preferences were examined. Results found support for social exchange of men's financial stability for women's physical attractiveness, gender polarization in ideal spousal occupations, and the relative fluidity in gender identities of women as compared to men. A strong preference for fair and slim women was observed. Implications for sexual objectification of women and changing gender roles in globalizing India are discussed.     

基于训练集裁剪的加权K近邻文本分类算法

文本分类是信息检索领域的重要应用之一,由于采用统一特征向量形式表示所有文档,导致针对每个文档的特征向量具有高维性和稀疏性,从而影响文档分类的性能和精度。为有效提升文本特征选择的准确度,本文首先提出基于信息增益的特征选择函数改进方法,提高特征选择的精度。KNN(K-Nearest Neighbor)算法是文本分类中广泛应用的算法,本文针对经典KNN计算量大、类别标定函数精度不高的问题,提出基于训练集裁剪的加权KNN算法。该算法通过对训练集进行裁剪提升了分类算法的计算效率,通过模糊集的隶属度函数提升分类算法的准确性。在公开数据上的实验结果及实验分析证明了算法的有效性。