Gender

Heartbreaking New Report Confirms: Girls Are Taught They Are “Weak”

Worldwide study shows we tell girls they are not as strong as boys and that their body is their most important asset.

From the United States to the Democratic Republic of Congo, girls around the world are taught that they are weak, vulnerable and that their bodies and physical appearance are their most important asset, according to It Begins at Ten: How Gender Expectations Shape Early Adolescence Around the World, a new report by the Global Early Adolescent Study (GEAS). GEAS is an ongoing collaboration between John Hopkins University and the World Health Organization.

“We found children at a very early age—from the most conservative to the most liberal societies—quickly internalize this myth that girls are vulnerable and boys are strong and independent,” said Robert Blum, director of the Global Early Adolescent Study based at Johns Hopkins University. “And this message is being constantly reinforced at almost every turn, by siblings, classmates, teachers, parents, guardians, relatives, clergy and coaches.”

For example, the researchers found boys in both New Delhi and Shanghai talked about being encouraged to spend time outside of the home in unsupervised exploration of their environment, while girls said they were advised to stay home and do chores. Shaming and beatings for those who sought to cross the divide was reported by girls and boys in both cities.

In every city but one, (Edinburgh, Scotland) both boys and girls were certain that it was boys who must take the initiative in starting a relationship, and that girls’ role was to look pretty to attract their attention.  This focus on physical appearance and body was consistent across all cultures, even if it expressed itself in different ways.

“In New Delhi, the girls talked about their bodies as a big risk that needs to be covered up, while in Baltimore girls told us their primary asset was their bodies and that they need to look appealing—but not too appealing,” Kristin Mmari, DrPH, associate professor and lead researcher for the qualitative research at GEAS said.

Boys were also portrayed as “predators” in all cultures. Girls were instructed to avoid spending time with boys. These rules are enforced, through societal pressure, shaming and even physical coercion.

Under the guise of protecting them, girls find their freedom greatly curtailed. Every society has rules on how girls should behave in order to protect them from “predatory males.” “Don’t sit like that.” “Don’t dress that way.” “Cover your hair.”They were often not allowed to play outside or take trips on their own. This reinforces the narrative that girls are vulnerable while boys are strong and “independent” and denies girls the opportunity to explore the world around them.

The full study is available on the Internet.

Computers That Consume Our Media Develop Sexist Views of Women

Women don’t play sports and belong in the kitchen, according to sophisticated learning machines.

In a study that has a number of disturbing implications, researchers found that computers become sexist when exposed to too much of our media. University of Virginia computer science professor Vicente Ordóñez noticed a pattern in how the image-recognition software he had developed interpreted photos. “It would see a picture of a kitchen and more often than not associate it with women, not men,” he told Wired.

That made Ordóñez wonder if researchers were injecting their own biases into the computer’s thought processes. So he found some collaborators and decided to test industry standard the photosets provided by Microsoft and Facebook to “train” image-recognition software.

They found that both data sets reinforced gender stereotypes in their depiction of activities such as cooking and sports. Pictures of shopping and washing were correlated to women, for example, while coaching and shooting were linked to men.

More worrying, image-recognition software trained with these datasets did not just reflect those biases — they magnified them. If a photo set associated women with cleaning, software trained with that photo set created an even stronger link between women and cleaning.

For instance, the research paper shows a photo of a man at a stove that image-recognition software consistently labelled as “woman.”

As these types of intelligent machine-learning programs are getting ready to explode in number and in importance. If we can’t get a handle on how to combat this problem, they could magnify the worst stereotypes society has about race and gender.

This is already happening. In 2015, Google’s automated photo service embarrassingly tagged black people as “gorillas.”

As learning computers become more sophisticated, this problem could have dramatic real-world consequences. Mark Yatskar, a a researcher at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, imagines a personal assistant robot in the future that is trying to guess what a human is doing in the kitchen. It might give a man a beer while offering to help a woman clean.

Last year, researchers from Boston University and Microsoft demonstrated that software that learned from text provided by Google News had acquired sexist biases as well. When asked  complete the statement “Man is to computer programmer as woman is to X,” it replied, “homemaker.”

Eric Horvitz, director of Microsoft Research, notes that the materials we give to children often reflect an idealized world — where men and women are equally likely to be firefighters or homemakers. He suggests that a similar approach might be necessary for learning machines. “It’s a really important question–when should we change reality to make our systems perform in an aspirational way?” he asked..

Other experts worry that providing a distorted version of reality to computers will hamper their effectiveness because the data no longer reflects the real world. Aylin Caliskan, a researcher at Princeton, says it’s important for the computer to know that there are more male construction workers in the world so that it can analyze data more effectively. She recommends identifying and correcting bias afterwards rather than providing “bad data” to the machines at the outset.. “We risk losing essential information,” she says. “The datasets need to reflect the real statistics in the world.”

There may not be a clear-cut answer, but it is clear that the issue needs to be addressed before these types of learning systems become even more prevalent.

One final thought. If these stereotypes are present in media that is suppose to be curated against racial and gender biases and computers pick up on them and amplify them — what do you suppose is happening to our most important “learning machines” — the brains of our children — when they are constantly exposed to the unfiltered text and imagery that makes up much of modern society?

P!nk Gives Heartfelt Speech about her Daughter, Androgyny and Loving Yourself at VMAs

“We don’t change … we help other people to change so they can see more kinds of beauty.”

After entering the theater standing on the hood of a flying car, singing a medley of her greatest hits, P!nk took the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards to accept the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, a lifetime achievement recognizing her contributions to “music and film.”

But rather than talking about her impressive list of accomplishments in the realm of music videos, P!nk took the opportunity to tell a story about her daughter Willow, age 6, who recently told the singer she was the ugliest girl she knew because she looked “like a boy with long hair.”

“I know I don’t have a lot of time, but if I may tell you a quick story. Recently, I was driving my daughter to school and she said to me, out of the blue, ‘Mama?’ I said, ‘Yes, baby?’ She said, ‘I’m the ugliest girl I know.’ And I said, ‘Huh?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah, I look like a boy with long hair.’ And my brain went to, ‘Oh my god, you’re six. Why? Where is this coming from? Who said this? Can I kick a 6-year-old’s ass, like what?’

But I didn’t say anything. Instead I went home and I made a Powerpoint presentation for her. And in that presentation were androgynous rockstars and artists that live their truth, are probably made fun of every day of their life, and carry on, wave their flag and inspire the rest of us. And these are artists like Michael Jackson and David Bowie and Freddie Mercury and Annie Lennox and Prince and Janis Joplin and George Michael, Elton John, so many artists — her eyes glazed over. But then I said, ‘You know, I really want to know why you feel this way about yourself.’ And she said, ‘Well I look like a boy,’ and I said, ‘Well what do you think I look like?’ And she said, ‘Well you’re beautiful.’ And I was like, ‘Well, thanks. But when people make fun of me, that’s what they use. They say I look like a boy or I’m too masculine or I have too many opinions, my body is too strong.’

And I said to her, ‘Do you see me growing my hair?’ She said, ‘No, mama.’ I said, ‘Do you see me changing my body?’ ‘No, mama.’ ‘Do you see me changing the way I present myself to the world?’ ‘No, mama.’ ‘Do you see me selling out arenas all over the world?’ ‘Yes, Mama.’ ‘OK! So, baby girl. We don’t change. We take the gravel and the shell and we make a pearl. And we help other people to change so they can see more kinds of beauty.’

And to all the artists here, I’m so inspired by all of you. Thank you for being your true selves and for lighting the way for us. I’m so inspired by you guys. There’s so much rad shit happening in music. And keep doing it. Keep shining for the rest of us to see.

And you, my darling girl, are beautiful, and I love you. Thank you, MTV. This is a really special night. Thank you, Ellen. I couldn’t love you more. Thank you guys. Goodnight.”

P!nk has always been one of our favorite performers — for her incredibly catchy songs, her kick-ass attitude and her powerful social commentary about the harmful pressure society put on women and girls to conform and the power of  rejecting that pressure to just be yourself.

‘Jem’ Artist Jen Bartel Shows How Comic Book Shops Are Failing Female Fans

She illustrates the Catch-22 that occurs when shops that repel women simultaneously complain that women don’t buy comics in a beautiful Twitter takedown.

Artist Jen Bartel (Jem, America), went on an epic Twitter rant Wednesday morning, dissecting the troubles in the distribution chain that end up hurting both comics and the women who create and love them.

https://twitter.com/heyjenbartel/status/892785773736599556

The great thing is that the thread evolved into a place to recommend shops that do make women feel welcome. Click here and scroll down to find a recommendation or leave a recommendation for a shop you love.

Feminine Scientists

The More Feminine Women Are, The Worse People Assume They Are at Science

People assume feminine women are unlikely to be scientists, but more likely to be preschool teachers, according to a depressing new study.

While huge strides have been made in accepting women in formerly male-dominated fields, not all women are viewed the same way.

A recent study conducted by Sarah Banchefsky, a research associate at the Colorado University Stereotyping and Prejudice lab (CUSP), showed a random sampling of 51 adults (25 men, 26 women) an assortment of photos of 40 men and 40 women. The participants were told they were participating in a study of “first impressions” and were asked to rate the person in each photo according to how masculine or feminine they appeared. They were then asked to guess the likelihood that a person was a scientist and the likelihood that the person was a preschool teacher.

As a group, women were rated as more feminine then men, and rated less likely to be a scientist and more likely to be a preschool teacher. (sigh) But within the group of women, the more feminine you were rated, the more likely it was that participants thought you were not a scientist and must be a preschool teacher. (double sigh)

The same was not true for feminine men.

So when people look at women, they judge how suited they are for science based on how “masculine” they appear. That’s a tricky bias that we need to be aware of and that we need to fight.

A woman does not need to be “manly” to be a scientist. STEM fields are not “masculine” pursuits. Science is gender-neutral. But society still has an inherent bias against femininity when thinking about science, and it undoubtedly contributes to the lack of women in STEM fields and the number of women who quit STEM fields in frustration.

For the record, all 80 photos — men and women — were professors in STEM fields taken from various universities.

They were all scientists.

Five Questions with Sarah Banchefsky

Did anything in the results of this study surprise you?

I was not surprised by the bottom line that feminine women are deemed less likely to be scientists. Women in STEM fields have been talking for a long time about how they downplay femininity to be taken seriously, or are met by surprise when someone learns they are an engineer. However I was surprised by the size of the effect—it’s a pretty large effect that’s unusual to find in research we do. I was surprised to see the same effect replicate so strongly in the second study even when we used a methodology that made seeing the effect less likely (i.e., men and women interspersed, no questions about appearance at all).

Did the women who participated in the study fare any better than the men, or was this bias held equally by both genders?

Both genders showed the effect, which lines up with reactions to appearance being something non conscious or automatic in nature. In fact women showed the effect somewhat more than men in the second study, which may suggest women pick up more on feminine cues (because they are more familiar with performing femininity) or make more meaning of how a woman might choose to present herself. However we only saw this in one study, so it should be interpreted with caution. But I firmly believe this is a phenomenon that happens for men and women alike.

What do you think the implications of this study are for women in STEM fields?

Unfortunately women in STEM fields may not be taken as seriously as a legitimate scientist, engineer, etc.—at least not initially–if they present themselves in a feminine manner (see story of Isis Wenger behind #iLookLikeAnEngineer campaign). I don’t think that means women should mask their femininity or conform to a masculine status quo. But I do think it means they may encounter additional challenges by presenting in a feminine way.

Do you have any ideas how we might be able to fight this sort of systemic unconscious societal bias?

I think exposure to the variety and diversity within STEM is the best antidote. The #iLookLikeAnEngineer campaign is a super exciting campaign that I think has a lot of potential to change the way people view engineering. The campaign emphasizes that you don’t have to look a certain way to be in engineering, and you certainly can look quite feminine. Check it out on Twitter. The more that people in STEM can genuinely express who they are and celebrate that you don’t have to conform to a specific look, the more that our image of STEM will change to be more inclusive.

The results of the study seem kind of depressing, is their any good news regarding gender biases?

Interestingly, people were not more likely to say men were scientists than women on average—it seems like people are sensitive about being sexist or expressing gender bias. What’s problematic with this femininity bias is that it’s more subtle—people may not be aware of it and it may be more beyond their control. Just because people believe feminine women are less likely to be scientists, or that they are, for example, surprised to encounter a feminine female engineer, that doesn’t necessarily mean they also find feminine women less competent or capable. In fact they may think “more power to them!”

That is a question we are continuing to investigate—does femininity erroneously convey information about “ability” in STEM fields? In general, I think we need to focus on changing the image of engineering overall; one interesting finding is attractive people—men and women alike—were deemed less likely to be scientists. That’s crazy! So men too may be harmed by the notion that you can’t be a scientist and be good looking at the same time.

Link to Study

GoldieBlox Is Right – Girls Need More Heroes

by Sharon Choksi

Why do I applaud the latest GoldieBlox video about heroes? Because my daughter thought Katniss was a boy.

Yes, GoldieBlox. YES! You are absolutely right that “all girls deserve to see themselves as heroes” but our girls simply do not see enough examples of female action heroes. The impact of that hit home when my daughter assumed one of the few examples out there, Katniss from The Hunger Games, was a boy. So if anyone thinks girls aren’t noticing (and being affected by) the gender disparity in our culture’s heroes, think again.

In their latest video, GoldieBlox re-imagines the heroes from famous action movies as women (think everyone from James Bond to Indiana Jones to Rocky). It’s a fun and powerful way to drive home the point that ALL of them were men. Then they share the statistics – only 12% of protagonists in big-time, blockbuster films are female. But you don’t need data to know that something needs to change. You just need to know this story about my daughter.

When my 10 year old daughter was reading The Hunger Games, she kept referring to Katniss as “he” – despite the language in the book making it pretty darn clear she’s a girl. My daughter had never seen the movie (or even a trailer), so the only clues she had about Katniss’ gender were the words in the book. But the messages she had been exposed to throughout her life – about boys being the main characters and the ones to save the day – were clearly stronger in her head than the female pronouns used on the pages. In her mind, Katniss was a boy.

I can still remember the look of utter disbelief and confusion on my daughter’s face the first time I told her Katniss was a girl. She was already multiple chapters into the book, and was telling me something about Katniss by saying how “he” did this and “he” did that. I asked her several times, “you’re talking about Katniss, right?” The answer was “yes” each time, with increasing frustration in her voice that seemed to say “Why isn’t my mom understanding? She read the book!” My daughter had clearly formed a mental picture of who Katniss was – and it was a hard one to change. We ended up having the same conversation about Katniss’ gender 3-4 more times over the next several chapters before my daughter finally starting talking about Katniss as a “she” and not a “he.”

During these discussions, I’m pretty sure I had the same look of disbelief on my own face! I had raised my daughter to believe that girls and boys are equals. I had exposed her to a variety of strong and ground-breaking women (real and fictional). I had even started Girls Will Be with my siblings to fight gender stereotypes in girls clothing, and we picked our brand name because we wanted to send the message that girls will be…so many different things (beyond sugar and spice and everything nice). Including heroes!

All-in-all, we had more than your average number of conversations in our house about gender stereotypes in clothes, toys, movies, and more. My kids seemed to ignore society’s messages about what they were “supposed” to like, with my daughter playing flag football and my son loving the color pink. Yet, here we were. If my own daughter could assume Katniss was a boy, I began to think that the messages kids receive outside the home about what it means to be a girl vs. a boy must be even more powerful than I thought.

So what can we do to change those messages? Watch the latest GoldieBlox video with the girls and boys in your life, and talk about it afterwards. Share the video with your friends. Support the work of The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to make sure more movies are made with female heroes. Use resources like A Mighty Girl to seek out movies and books with strong female protagonists.

Together, let’s work to make sure all kids (girls AND boys) know that girls can be heroes too!

Sharon Choksi
Co-Founder of Girls Will Be

TEDx: Girls Can Be Their Own Superheroes

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John Marcotte, founder of Heroic Girls, challenges the audience to look beyond what is labeled as “girly” or “feminine” to explore how such labels limit the potential of future generations.

The talk includes a clip from an earlier Heroic Girls video, Anya and Stella vs. Action Figures.

Studies and Research Cited