tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/gender-583/articlesGender – The Conversation2024-03-22T12:30:59Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244782024-03-22T12:30:59Z2024-03-22T12:30:59ZBreakaway parties threaten to disrupt South Korea’s two-party system – can they also end parliamentary gridlock?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582322/original/file-20240316-30-z280lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3994%2C2646&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol waving goodbye to his popularity?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/south-koreas-president-yoon-suk-yeol-and-his-wife-kim-keon-news-photo/1793664795?adppopup=true">Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Contemporary South Korean politics has traditionally been dominated by just two main parties – in <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1962968">common with many other countries</a> with strong presidential systems. But that could soon change.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2024/02/south-korea-in-political-disarray-ahead-of-the-april-parliamentary-elections/#:%7E:text=The%20Yoon%20administration%20and%20the,defeat%20in%20Seoul%20last%20October.">voter discontent</a> is creating opportunities for smaller political parties in the upcoming parliamentary election on April 10, 2024. </p>
<p>Heading into that vote, the two main parties – President Yoon Suk Yeol’s People Power Party and the opposition Democratic Party – between them hold 270 seats in the 300-member parliament. But both parties are grappling with internal struggles and political controversies that are fueling the prospect of new, breakaway parties making gains. </p>
<p>The result could be a multi-party legislature. As a <a href="https://www.ngu.edu/faculty/jong-eun-lee">political scientist</a> with a focus on East Asia and international affairs, I believe that outcome has the potential of transforming the country’s domestic and international agenda. </p>
<h2>Parliamentary gridlock</h2>
<p>Polling suggests that South Koreans haven’t been happy with the performance of their politicians for years, with one 2022 survey putting <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1455207/south-korea-trust-in-the-national-parliament/">trust in the national assembly at just 24%</a>. Events since then are unlikely to have improved confidence in either main party.</p>
<p>Since Yoon being elected president in 2022, his legislative agenda has been met with <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230509000725">resistance</a> by the opposition-controlled National Assembly. His <a href="https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=345281">plans for reforming</a> the country’s education, pension and labor systems have stalled as a result. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Yoon has <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240130000616">vetoed multiple bills</a> passed by the National Assembly, such as the <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20231201001653315">“yellow envelope” law</a>, which limits companies’ lawsuits for damage claims over labor union disputes, and legislation calling for special probes into the <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240130003053315">crowd crush</a> inside Seoul’s Itaewon district during Halloween weekend in 2022 that resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries.</p>
<p>On foreign policy, the opposition Democratic Party has faulted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/president-yoon-is-lauded-in-west-for-embracing-japan-in-south-korea-it-fits-a-conservative-agenda-that-is-proving-less-popular-220898">Yoon government’s pursuit of increased security ties</a> with Japan in the face of continued bilateral tensions over Japan’s past colonial history in Korea. </p>
<p>Specifically, the opposition criticized a <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/03/02/national/politics/lee-jaemyung-yoon-suk-yeol-wartime-labor/20230302094834562.html">bilateral deal</a> on compensation for the victims of forced wartime labor in Korea, and the Yoon government’s acceptance of Japan’s release of wastewater from the <a href="https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/politics-government/20230819-130723/">Fukushima nuclear plant</a> into the Pacific Ocean.</p>
<p>Last fall, partly as protest against the president’s foreign policy and in a bid to overhaul the government’s cabinet, the National Assembly passed a nonbinding <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-09-21/national/politics/First-noconfidence-motion-against-prime-minister-passes/1875180#:%7E:text=The%20National%20Assembly%20passed%20a,of%20an%20incumbent%20prime%20minister">no-confidence motion</a> against Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, though Yoon refused to dismiss his premier.</p>
<p>The net result of the political gridlock is that both the Yoon government and the Democratic Party face high levels of <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/02/113_366062.html">public disapproval</a>. Yoon’s approval rating <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240212050041">has stagnated</a> below 40%, and the majority of voters have expressed an intention to <a href="https://www.straightnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=246087">hold his government accountable in the upcoming election</a> by supporting opposition parties.</p>
<p>However, the Democratic Party has failed to capitalize on Yoon’s unpopularity, due to similar public <a href="https://www.kukinews.com/newsView/kuk202312120252">disapproval toward the party’s leader, Lee Jae-myung</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="South Korean opposition party members hold signs at a rally." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lee Jae-myung, center, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, holds a banner during a rally opposing Japan’s discharge of treated radioactive water into the ocean on Aug. 25, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lee-jae-myung-leader-of-the-main-opposition-democratic-news-photo/1622143449?adppopup=true">Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Intraparty factions</h2>
<p>South Korea’s two main parties have frequently experienced internal feuds among factions supportive and opposed to party leadership. In recent months, such factions opposed to both Yoon and Lee’s leadership have bolted from their respective parties.</p>
<p>In January 2024, Lee Jun-Seok, former People Power Party chairman, started the <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/113_365883.html">New Reform Party</a> with party members <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230228000730">who protested</a> the pro-Yoon faction’s seemingly cliquish party leadership. This “non-Yoon” faction has also <a href="https://m.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/A2023122807400000123">criticized</a> the <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-01-05/national/politics/Yoon-vetoes-special-counsel-bill-to-investigate-first-lady/1951960">president’s veto</a> of the special counsel bill to investigate allegations surrounding first lady Kim Geon-hee, which includes claims of violating <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/09/asia/south-korea-dior-bag-scandal-intl-hnk-dst/index.html">anti-graft laws</a> and involvement in <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240105000202">stock price manipulation</a>.</p>
<p>The Democratic Party is facing a similar challenge. Also in January 2024, Lee Nak-yon, former prime minister under the previous Democratic government of President Moon Jae-in, started the New Future Party, criticizing his former party as having turned into a “<a href="https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20240112/4678600/1">bulletproof shield</a>” for the unpopular leader Lee Jae-myung. Specifically, the “non Jae-myung” faction have criticized him for <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/amid-legal-troubles-lee-jae-myung-tightens-grip-on-south-koreas-opposition-party/">refusing to step down</a> despite being under criminal investigation on corruption charges.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for breakaway parties</h2>
<p>These new breakaway parties’ strategy is to take advantage of South Korea’s <a href="https://keia.org/the-peninsula/how-does-south-koreas-new-election-system-work/">mixed-member</a> proportional election system, which provides opportunities for smaller parties to win seats. To do so, they have been focusing efforts on building concentrated support among core groups of voters. </p>
<p>The New Reform Party <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/113_367977.html">has gained support</a> among younger conservative male voters critical of the older generation of conservative politicians close to Yoon. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the New Future Party <a href="https://www.m-i.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1084200">retains some support</a> among traditional Democratic Party members, who feel disappointed with the direction of the party. Several Democratic legislators who claimed to <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240307006351315">have been purged</a> by the party leadership have joined Lee Nak-yon, widening the schism within the main opposition party.</p>
<h2>Potential impact</h2>
<p>The latest polls <a href="https://www.straightnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=246459">indicate a tight race</a> between the People Power Party and the Democratic Party, with a 37.7% and 36.9% share of the vote, respectively. If the breakaway parties <a href="https://www.m-i.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1102927">win even a small number of seats</a>, the result could be a “hung parliament,” in which neither main party can form a single-party majority.</p>
<p>That would leave smaller parties with huge legislative leverage.</p>
<p>The New Reform Party is more likely to <a href="https://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?lang=e&id=Po&Seq_Code=183112">partner</a> with the Yoon government on policy agendas – despite <a href="https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/politics/politics_general/1114142.html">personal antipathy</a> between Yoon and Lee Jun-Seok. On foreign policy, New Reform Party members have <a href="https://cbiz.chosun.com/svc/bulletin/bulletin_art.html?contid=2023031801098">expressed support</a> for pragmatic relations with Japan and have warned against excessive anti-Japan nationalist rhetoric in domestic politics. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman at political rally shakes her fist in the air." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A move to abolish a gender equality ministry has reemerged as a key issue ahead of parliamentary elections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthKoreaInternationalWomensDay/bba9a2ccfd554c87b031a013fbb08189/photo?Query=south%20korea%20gender&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=91&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Lee Jin-man</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>On social and economic policies, the New Reform Party’s platform likewise aligns with the Yoon government in supporting the expansion of South Korea’s <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20240205059800001">semiconductor industry</a> and abolishing the <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/02/113_369380.html">Ministry of Gender Equality</a>. </p>
<p>Particularly on gender issues, the New Reform Party could push the Yoon government further toward positions that appeal to <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www2/common/viewpage.asp?newsIdx=367977&categoryCode=113">younger male conservative voters</a>, such as by introducing female military service. At present, only men are subject to South Korea’s mandatory military conscription, a policy that many younger South Korean men perceive as discrimination. </p>
<p>Lee Nak-yon’s New Future Party is <a href="https://www.businesspost.co.kr/BP?command=article_view&num=315985">more critical</a> of the Yoon government’s domestic and foreign policies. However, with its <a href="https://www.inews24.com/view/1695770">platform to end</a> two-party gridlock, the New Future Party could also seek a role as <a href="https://www.donga.com/news/Politics/article/all/20240226/123693471/1">an arbitrator</a> over contentious policy issues.</p>
<p>The new parties could also support the opposition Democratic Party in pressuring the Yoon government to be more accountable. Specifically, Yoon could face increased demands to approve investigations on the allegations surrounding the first lady and to solicit opposition parties’ consent for future cabinet nominations.</p>
<p>It is still uncertain how well the breakaway parties will perform in the upcoming election. And they face competition from <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240312050698">another new party</a>, the National Innovation Party, that is politically aligned with the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>One recent election in East Asia will give <a href="https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/018/0005687178">these new parties encouragement</a>: Taiwan’s <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2024/02/kmts-han-kuo-yu-is-taiwans-new-legislative-speaker/">legislative election</a> in January saw a new third party become kingmaker in the legislative assembly.</p>
<p>If any of the new South Korean parties are able to emerge from the election as a parliamentary kingmaker, it would represent a crack in the country’s two-party system and could free up the gridlock that has dogged parliamentary politics in recent years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jong Eun Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Heading into a parliamentary vote, there is very little gap between the ruling People Power Party and opposition Democratic Party – raising the prospect of a smaller party emerging as kingmaker.Jong Eun Lee, Assistant Professor, North Greenville UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2234122024-03-13T20:59:46Z2024-03-13T20:59:46ZWhat is gender-affirming care? A social worker and therapist working with trans people explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581460/original/file-20240313-20-z1u6um.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C4466%2C2991&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Although medical doctors may be the first point of contact for children exploring their gender identity, many other professions can provide gender-affirming care, such as psychologists, social workers, teachers, counsellors and recreational coaches.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In late January, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith unveiled <a href="https://globalnews.ca/video/10264944/danielle-smith-unveils-albertas-proposed-guidelines-on-parental-consent-gender-affirming-care-rules">policies on gender-affirming care and parental rights</a>. These policies want to change access to medical treatments, participation in athletics, and whether transgender children can use preferred pronouns and names in school.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/opinion/transgender-children-gender-dysphoria.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare">op-eds in newspapers</a> have brought attention to how professionals are supporting transgender children and the long-term effects of medical interventions. <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/david-staples-alberta-danielle-smith-europe-gender-transition-policy">And suggested</a> that “adults can live with the consequences, but inexperienced children can’t”. </p>
<p>This suggests medical professionals are not assessing maturity and readiness in transgender children, and also that children should not be transitioning prior to adulthood. </p>
<p>As a registered clinical social worker and registered marriage and family therapist who works primarily with the 2SLGBTQIA+ population, I want to explain gender-affirming care and how professionals use it. I also want to discuss detransition, because too many people misunderstand and misuse the term. </p>
<p>There are several important assessments that must be considered prior to addressing maturity. For gender-affirming care, a child has to be assessed as a mature minor, which is a rigorous assessment completed by a professional such as a <a href="https://www.cap.ab.ca/Portals/0/pdfs/CAPPA-MatureMinors.pdf">psychologist</a> or <a href="https://acsw.in1touch.org/document/2024/SUM_MinorsAndConsentIssues_20150326.pdf">social worker</a>.</p>
<h2>Gender-affirming care</h2>
<p>According to the <a href="https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/an-affirming-approach-to-caring-for-transgender-and-gender-diverse-youth">Canadian Paediatric Society</a>, gender-affirming care assesses psychological, social, medical and surgical options for gender-diverse people. These assessments explore an individual’s personal, familial and environmental histories, as well as their mental health and physical health. Practitioners use this knowledge to best understand one’s functioning and strengths, and to give people the kind of support they need. </p>
<p>Although medical doctors may be the first point of contact for children exploring their gender identity, many other professions can provide gender-affirming care, such as psychologists, social workers, teachers, counsellors and recreational coaches. </p>
<p>Allowing children to express gender creatively is one of the first steps explored by mental health experts when working with transgender children, youth and their families. <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/lifetime-connections/202311/gender-creative-parenting-lets-kids-be-kids#:%7E:text=Gender%2Dcreative%20parenting%20is%20a,the%20world%20and%20varied%20interests.">Gender creativity</a> is a term used to identify the fluidity of gender; how one’s identity is not set in stone and can change as we learn more about ourselves. </p>
<p>Allowing a child to express independent thought and creativity with gender expression will not lead children to assume they are in need of medical interventions. On the contrary, as a professional, these interventions are used to support a child’s understanding of their options through improving self confidence and self-esteem. </p>
<p><a href="https://jeunesidentitescreatives.com/upload/ressources/files/Barbies_and_Beer.pdf">Methods</a> can include social play, such as learning more about their own likes, forms of expression and ultimately exploring what makes them happy. The intention behind this is to help children build confidence and self worth, allowing them to engage in social settings authentically without fearing social consequence. </p>
<h2>Importance of support</h2>
<p>It is normal for us to compare ourselves to others, or to what we understand of social customs and rules. These social customs suggest our assigned sex at birth must match socially regulated forms of gender expression. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/transgender/what-do-i-need-know-about-transitioning">Transitioning</a> begins the moment one confirms to themselves that their identity is different from these social rules. This doesn’t mean everyone who feels this way will go on to socially or medically transition. </p>
<p>Once a child can identify that they feel a certain way, it is vital for them to receive support from parents, caregivers, teachers and their broader community. Gender non-conforming young people are at risk for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jadohealth.2016.09.014">mental health struggles</a> such as anxiety, depression, self-harm and attempted suicide.</p>
<p>One possible explanation for this could be <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5846479/#:%7E:text=Minority%20stress%20theory%20posits%20that,physical%20and%20mental%20health%20outcomes.">minority stress</a>, which is the distinct, chronic stressors minorities experience related to their identity, including victimization, prejudice and discrimination. </p>
<p>It is important to think critically about the social and political contexts that limit gender expression, because it impacts everyone, and can directly harm gender-diverse children. Considering this and minority stress, this is why it is important to allow children the space and freedom to freely express themselves, so that they can understand gender expression has more than two options: conform to social expectations or medically transition. </p>
<p>When children are provided gender-affirming care, mental health professionals support them in better understanding their emotions. This involves identifying feelings and learning how to emotionally regulate. This also includes addressing negative beliefs about their feelings, normalizing emotional responses and supporting children to become more self-compassionate. </p>
<p>Some believe mental health professionals focus on <a href="https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Health/pages/conditions.aspx?hwid=abs2270">gender dysphoria</a> when providing such care to children and youth. This is the feeling of uneasiness or distress because your gender identity does not match your assigned sex at birth. </p>
<p>However, children and youth are provided with various forms of support prior to medical interventions being used. Medical interventions are oftentimes the last method a child is provided, and when it is provided, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080%2F26895269.2021.1915223">some have described it as life-saving</a>.</p>
<p>Practitioners use gender-affirming care to promote <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/gender-euphoria">gender euphoria</a> — the joy of aligning gender identity with gender expression. This is done by supporting children in finding confidence and self-worth by promoting their social and psychological well-being.</p>
<h2>What is detransitioning?</h2>
<p>Some gender-diverse children will need medical interventions but that doesn’t mean they have to persist for a lifetime. By providing children and youth access to medical interventions, professionals are addressing the <a href="http://www.phsa.ca/transcarebc/child-youth/affirmation-transition/medical-affirmation-transition/puberty-blockers-for-youth#:%7E:text=The%20changes%20to%20your%20body,that%20can't%20be%20reversed.">severity of dysfunction caused by gender dysphoria</a> </p>
<p>“Detransition” is a term used to describe those who have undergone medical and/or surgical interventions, and then reverted back. There is <a href="https://fenwayhealth.org/new-study-shows-discrimination-stigma-and-family-pressure-drive-detransition-among-transgender-people/">evidence</a> showing people undergo corrective approaches after medical or surgical interventions due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089%2Flgbt.2020.0437">discrimination, stigma and family pressure</a>. </p>
<p>It is crucial to understand that transgender individuals who use medical and surgical means for a period of time and stop, may not be detransitioning.</p>
<p>There are individuals who identify as <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm9061609">non-binary</a> who begin medical interventions, at a limited dose or for a duration of time, instead of committing life long. In my practice, I have seen many individuals begin hormone treatment and with the support of their doctor change the dosage as they continue to explore their gender identity. </p>
<p>There is a need for further research exploring detransition, especially in terms of how therapists can best support individuals who decide to stop or change their medical intervention plans with their doctors. </p>
<p>Ultimately, gender-affirming care is about providing people with the support they need. To help them see themselves in ways that promote joy, confidence and happiness. It is not about pathologizing gender expression. </p>
<p>Gender transition is not about fitting into preset ideals, but rather, finding joy in day to day experiences that is cultivated by our happiness, confidence and sense of belonging.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223412/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gio Dolcecore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Gender-affirming care assesses psychological, social, medical and surgical options for gender-diverse people.Gio Dolcecore, Assistant Professor, Social Work, Mount Royal UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2244552024-03-13T16:20:57Z2024-03-13T16:20:57ZWomen favour climate actions that benefit future generations more than men – new study<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579173/original/file-20240301-30-6h6n1k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Connecting with the climate risks that could be faced by future generations could influence support for better policies now. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/diverse-hands-join-together-on-wooden-642952270">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The decisions we make now inevitably shape the prospects for generations to come. So tackling a long-term problem like climate change raises an intergenerational moral dilemma: should we invest in solutions that might not personally benefit ourselves but will help future generations reach net zero – or should money be spent to ensure everyone right now has the best possible quality of life? </p>
<p>Some of these choices people make may depend on gender. Women are more likely than men to be more concerned for the wellbeing of future generations and more likely to bear the costs of costly climate mitigation policies. New <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae105">research</a> into this intergenerational altruism examines the attitudes and behaviours of 1,600 Swedish citizens, and has found a significant difference between women and men. </p>
<p>Women tend to make more climate-friendly choices than men, according to <a href="https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/0022-4537.00177">previous research</a>. A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08941920.2011.651191">study based on Gallup polls</a> involving more than 6,000 US citizens found that women are more worried than men about health-related environmental problems. However, previous research had little to say about whether women deal with environmental intergenerational dilemmas differently than men. </p>
<p>Curious about whether women are more likely to favour costly environmental actions that benefit future generations, our team, including the researchers Gustav Agneman and Sofia Henriks, asked participants to state how many children they have or would like to have. Then they were told how many descendants they could have in 250 years and asked to distribute imaginary resources across generations.</p>
<p>Participants were encouraged to reflect on the fact that if we use up all resources today, there will be none left for future generations. Finally, they were asked whether they’d support climate policies that would increase the costs of aviation, food, fuel and clothes. </p>
<p>A control group of participants were simply asked about their attitudes toward these costly climate policies without being told their estimated number of descendants or how they might distribute resources. Support for climate policies was compared across these two groups. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579175/original/file-20240301-18-2bps6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="adult and child walk away from camera along path in forest, green grass and tree trunks" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579175/original/file-20240301-18-2bps6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579175/original/file-20240301-18-2bps6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579175/original/file-20240301-18-2bps6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579175/original/file-20240301-18-2bps6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579175/original/file-20240301-18-2bps6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579175/original/file-20240301-18-2bps6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579175/original/file-20240301-18-2bps6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Researchers surveyed responses of 1,600 Swedish adults and found that reflecting on future generations changed their support for climate mitigation policies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/family-hiking-forest-sayan-mountains-siberia-1424583575">avtk/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Results show clear gender differences. Women were more supportive of costly climate mitigation policies when they had been informed about their projected number of descendants and had distributed resources across generations. Men were not more likely to support costly climate mitigation policy when asked to contemplate future generations.</p>
<p>Women expressed more worries about the impact of climate change, indicating that when women reflect on their future generations, they become more concerned about climate change and its impact on the planet, and more willing to invest in climate solutions now. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.12995">large body</a> of <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-97607-000">social psychology research</a> on gender stereotypes shows that women are seen, and see themselves, as more caring and nurturing than men. The gender differences found in our study could be explained by nurturing traits being activated more significantly in women than men when reflecting on the climate risks that their descendants might face. </p>
<h2>Future implications</h2>
<p>Some citizens seem willing to bear the costs of climate mitigation policies to benefit future generations. Our study suggests that making people aware of the consequences of their behaviour and helping them to psychologically connect to future generations may lead them to be more willing to make environmentally friendly choices. This suggests that political campaigns that stress environmental consequences are not futile. </p>
<p>Women are not necessarily the only people likely to respond to such calls for intergenerational altruism in the future. Gender stereotypes are changing in society. <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00037/full">Previous research</a> has <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167200262001">indicated</a> that changes in the workforce <a href="https://spssi.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/sipr.12060">influence</a> how men and women are perceived and socialised. If boys are encouraged from an <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3200/GNTP.168.2.177-200">early age to be more caring of others</a>, traits traditionally associated with femininity could become more widespread among men. </p>
<p>Perhaps then more men might favour environmental actions that benefit future generations. Until then, women’s voices in the climate mitigation debate should clearly be listened to.</p>
<hr>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hanna Bäck receives funding from The Swedish Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma A. Renström (prev. Bäck) receives funding from The Swedish Research Council. </span></em></p>Attitudes towards climate policies partly depend on a consideration of future, as yet unborn, descendants. Women tended to show more ability to think about how future generations could benefit.Hanna Bäck, Professor of Political Science, Lund UniversityEmma A. Renström (prev. Bäck), Professor, Department of Psychology, University of GothenburgLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2248922024-03-13T12:38:53Z2024-03-13T12:38:53ZWhat the numbers say about diversity on corporate boards<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581302/original/file-20240312-28-1hong4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=956%2C204%2C8157%2C5260&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Corporate diversity efforts have resulted in more women and minorities sitting on boards. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/bright-clean-modern-style-conference-room-royalty-free-image/1667099947?phrase=corporate++board+directors&adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Through the decades, corporate boards have been mostly white and mostly male. </p>
<p>That started changing in the early 1970s. Fueled by the historic gains of the Civil Rights Movement that broke down racial and gender barriers, a variety of social groups such as the <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/promising-students-benefit-commitment-developing-170000223.html">National Black MBA Association</a> and the <a href="https://now.org/">National Organization for Women</a> pressured corporations to build diversity programs into their management structures. </p>
<p>Over the years, a dramatic change has occurred. My latest research on the corporate boards of the top 50 companies from 2011 to 2023 shows that the percentage of whites dropped to 73.6%, the percentage of men dropped to 65.3% and, rather remarkably, the percentage of white men dropped below 50%, to 49.5%. </p>
<p>My research included reviewing the published names of the members of the boards of directors of the top 50 companies on the 2011 and 2023 Fortune 500 lists, as well as information on company websites about each of these hundreds of directors. I coded for gender, ethnicity and educational background. </p>
<p>Though the patterns differ for each of these demographic groups, the percentages of white women, Asian, Hispanic and Black Americans increased by different amounts as the percentage of white men decreased.</p>
<h2>White female directors</h2>
<p>The percentage of white females serving on boards at the top-50 companies increased from 16.8% in 2011 to 24.1% in 2023. All of these white women had undergraduate degrees, and almost two-thirds had advanced degrees, including in business, law and medicine. Many of them were <a href="https://fortune.com/2023/06/05/fortune-500-companies-2023-women-10-percent/">current or former CEOs</a> of Fortune 500 companies.</p>
<p>Notably, and related to the increase in white female directors, between 2000 and 2020 there was <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/diversity_update_2020.html#fnr20">a dramatic increase</a> in the number of white female CEOs.</p>
<p>There were almost as many white female directors in 2023 as there were Blacks, Asian Americans and Latinos combined. In terms of sheer numbers, white men have been replaced by white women more than by any other single group.</p>
<h2>Asian American directors</h2>
<p>The changes can be seen clearly in a comparison between the makeup of the top-50 company boards <a href="https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/diversity/unexpected_increase_in_diversity.html">between 2011 and 2023</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="rQ4Ho" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rQ4Ho/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>During that time period, the percentage of Asian Americans more than tripled, from 1.8% to 6.1%. The percentages more than doubled for Asian American men, and increased almost ninefold for Asian American females. </p>
<p>Strikingly, 17 of the 20 Asian American men who were directors in 2023 were of Indian heritage – and most but not all were born in India. Only six of the 15 Asian American women were of Indian heritage, and seven were of Chinese background.</p>
<p>Asian Americans make up about 7% of the population, so they are now only slightly underrepresented on the top Fortune boards.</p>
<h2>Black and Hispanic directors</h2>
<p>Black Americans also showed a sizable increase, from 9.4% in 2011 to 15.1% in 2023. They, too, showed a bigger jump for women, from 1.9% to 5.9%, than for men, from 7.4% to 9.2%.</p>
<p>Black people made up about 13.6% of the population in 2023, so they were slightly overrepresented on these Fortune boards. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/race-in-the-workplace-the-frontline-experience">McKinsey & Company</a>, a management consulting firm, conducted a study of 53 corporations, most of which were Fortune 500 companies. The study, released in 2022, found that there were far fewer Black men and women in the pipeline leading to the CEO office than on the boards. That pipeline includes jobs such as managers, vice presidents and others on leadership teams.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A Black woman is speaking as she sits in a chair on stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581313/original/file-20240312-26-kv4ftg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michelle Jordan, AT&T chief diversity officer, talks about equity and inclusion during a 2023 conference in Atlanta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/michelle-jordan-chief-diversity-officer-at-t-speaks-onstage-news-photo/1779377976?adppopup=true">Paras Griffin/WireImage</a></span>
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<p>This suggests that these companies are trying to appear diverse through the makeup of their boards, even as they haven’t diversified the executive ranks.</p>
<p>Hispanic Americans showed only a slight increase in representation on the boards, from 4.7% in 2011 to 5.2% in 2023, with women almost doubling their representation, from 1.1% to 2.1%, and men decreasing from 3.6% to 3.1%. </p>
<p>Hispanic Americans make up about 19% of the U.S. population. As a group, they were very much underrepresented on corporate boards.</p>
<p>Many of those in all of the groups I looked at had attended elite colleges and universities, either as undergraduates or for postgraduate work. Recent evidence showing that Hispanic men and women have been <a href="https://edtrust.org/resource/private-universities-havent-increased-diversity/?emci=6e70acb4-83d5-ee11-85f9-002248223794&emdi=425387aa-41d6-ee11-85f9-002248223794&ceid=456745%5D">vastly underrepresented at elite colleges</a> over the past two decades suggests that few are making it through the pipeline from these schools to Fortune 500 boards.</p>
<h2>Recent attacks on diversity</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-2003-supreme-court-decision-upholding-affirmative-action-planted-the-seeds-of-its-overturning-as-justices-then-and-now-thought-racism-an-easily-solved-problem-208807">the 2023 Supreme Court decision</a> against affirmative action in higher education – and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/diversity-equity-dei-companies-blum-2040b173">subsequent lawsuits</a> against the practices that some corporations have used to address inequality – the civil rights gains in higher education and on corporate boards are in jeopardy of being reversed by conservative resistance. </p>
<p>In fact, many big companies have been “backing away from efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in their ranks,” according to a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/01/woke-capitalism-esg-dei-climate-investment/">Washington Post corporate culture reporter</a>.</p>
<p>The pattern that I have found in board composition between the 1990s and 2023 is consistent with data from 2013 to 2023 that was published by <a href="https://www.spencerstuart.com/research-and-insight/sp-500-new-director-and-diversity-snapshot">Spencer Stuart</a>, an executive search firm. It found that in 2013, only 39% of newly appointed directors were women and underrepresented minorities.</p>
<p>In the next decade, the percentage of new diversity appointments to boards increased dramatically, from the 39% in 2013, to 60% in 2018, to 86% in 2021, and then tapered off to 82% in 2022 and 75% in 2023.</p>
<p>Based on my findings and those of other researchers, it is likely that the ups and downs of diversity on corporate boards will serve as an indicator of the success – or failure – of ongoing efforts to increase inclusion in all walks of American life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224892/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richie Zweigenhaft does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Since the 1970s, corporate boards have included more women and minorities. But those gains are likely to change after a US Supreme Court ruling and increased conservative resistance.Richie Zweigenhaft, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, Guilford CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255432024-03-12T21:27:08Z2024-03-12T21:27:08ZDetransition and gender fluidity: Deeper understanding can improve care and acceptance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581420/original/file-20240312-16-b238nw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=143%2C377%2C5748%2C3727&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The increasing visibility of gender transitioning and detransitioning has come with a helping of sensationalization and polarization.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you have been following recent coverage about gender-affirming health care, <a href="https://ici.radio-canada.ca/tele/enquete/site/episodes/864008/episode-du-jeudi-29-fevrier-2024">detransition will not be an unfamiliar topic</a>. From <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/opinion/transgender-children-gender-dysphoria.html">mainstream</a> <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/wpath-files-transgender-care-children">journalists</a> to transgender <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/detransition-baby-book-torrey-peters-1193653/">authors</a>, many have taken an interest in people who underwent a medical gender transition and chose to return to their former identity.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/wpath-files-transgender-care-children">increasing visibility</a> of gender transitioning and detransitioning has also come with a helping of sensationalization and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-real-threat-to-gender-diverse-children-is-the-politicization-of-care-issues-like-puberty-blockers-and-detransition-223170">polarization</a>. But a divided media landscape that presents detransitioners as either “<a href="https://www.them.us/story/new-york-times-detransition-youth-op-ed-pamela-paul-chase-strangio">misinformation</a>” or victims of “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/gender/commentary/how-big-tech-turns-kids-trans">gender ideology</a>” hurts all gender-diverse people, including those who are detransitioning.</p>
<p>We are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BH8jEdkAAAAJ&hl=en">transgender</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0mJq6LQAAAAJ&hl=en">cisgender</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9qiUwT0AAAAJ&hl=es">researchers</a> who study gender-affirming health care, and we are among a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623x.2020.1869126">few in the world</a> who are <a href="https://www.thedarestudy.com/">currently investigating detransition</a> (detrans, for short — a label adopted by some with this lived experience). We also know many people who have detransitioned personally, whose first-hand perspectives have helped us to improve how we approach this topic.</p>
<h2>Detransition is not new, but we are seeing new gender-diverse experiences</h2>
<p>Detransition is not new. Providers of gender-affirming medicine have long been aware of adults who medically transitioned and later returned to live in their former “gender role” or showed signs of regret. </p>
<p>Dr. Harry Benjamin, the endocrinologist who was among the first to offer gender-affirming medical interventions in the United States, wrote about one such case in his 1966 book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1229462"><em>The Transsexual Phenomenon</em></a>.</p>
<p>In 1992, German clinicians Friedemann Pfäfflin and Astrid Junge published a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070812100135/http:/www.symposion.com/ijt/pfaefflin/6002-6.htm#Treatment%2520Results">comprehensive review</a> of followup studies published over the previous 30 years, reporting 25 cases of “role reversal” or regret among adults who had undergone surgery. Later, in 1998, Dutch clinicians Abraham Kuiper and Peggy Cohen-Kettenis published a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270273121_Gender_Role_Reversal_among_Postoperative_Transsexuals">qualitative study</a> of 10 adults who returned to their original “gender role” or expressed feelings of regret after surgery.</p>
<p>Pioneers of gender medicine were interested in understanding these stories because regret, along with suicide, was considered an outcome <a href="https://doi.org/10.1300/J056v05n04_05">that should be prevented</a> at all costs. </p>
<p>The logic of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34666278/">preventing regret</a> was part of what inspired <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479899371/trans-medicine/">doctors’ strict gatekeeping</a> practices and the requirement that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-9311060">gender transitions be binary</a>: male-to-female or female-to-male. Using strict measurement criteria, they estimated that detransition was rare: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097%2FGOX.0000000000003477">around one</a> to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0300-8">two per cent</a>.</p>
<p>But today, gender is no longer thought of as binary. And while there is evidence that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/lgbt.2020.0437">detransition</a> has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2022-324302">increased</a> in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10010121">recent years</a>, debates about numbers can distract from a more delicate conversation about the real need for LGBTQ+ communities, organizations and gender-affirming care providers to develop a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2023.2279272">nuanced understanding of gender fluidity and detransition</a>.</p>
<p>Although detransition may not be new, what is new is a small but emerging gender-diverse population in our society who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542%2Fpeds.2021-056082">transitioned socially</a> and/or medically as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2022.2085224">children, youth</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02716-1">young adults</a> who are now <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.0077">re-identifying</a> with their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2402">birth-assigned sex/gender</a>, or moving from a binary trans identity (trans man or woman) <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000678">to non-binary</a>.</p>
<h2>Understanding detransition can help us to enrich gender care</h2>
<p>We have long known that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11930-016-0092-z">sexuality can be fluid</a> for some LGBTQ+ people. New <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2023.2244926">research</a> shows that it is not uncommon for trans and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293868">gender-diverse</a> young people to report <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00333549231223922">shifts in gender identity</a> over time — dynamically moving between binary trans girls or trans boys, to non-binary, or to <a href="https://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X(22)00832-1/pdf">cisgender</a>. In some cases, these identity-shift patterns can influence <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2022.10.020">changes in desires for gender-affirming interventions</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Painted stripes in the colours of the rainbow pride flag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581421/original/file-20240312-28-x8knjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581421/original/file-20240312-28-x8knjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581421/original/file-20240312-28-x8knjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581421/original/file-20240312-28-x8knjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581421/original/file-20240312-28-x8knjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581421/original/file-20240312-28-x8knjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581421/original/file-20240312-28-x8knjn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rigorously studying detransition can help build a more robust understanding of gender identity development, and improve gender care.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, when a person’s gender identity or their desire for how they want to express their gender changes after already completing medical or surgical interventions, this may contribute to feelings of decisional regret. This poses <a href="https://actaspsiquiatria.es/index.php/actas/article/view/36">important dilemmas</a> for providers of gender-affirming medical interventions.</p>
<p>Many people who detransition are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-073584">LGBTQ+</a>. But because detransition and regret are being <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/us/politics/transgender-care-detransitioners.html">instrumentalized in debates</a> about trans people and gender-affirming health care, organizations and care providers serving sexual minorities and gender-diverse communities may feel that offering outward support for detransitioners is politically risky.</p>
<p>But if organizations and care systems fail to offer formal recognition and support, where can detransitioners turn to for help?</p>
<p>Discussion of anything but positive outcomes from gender-affirming hormonal or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/opinion/sunday/vaginoplasty-transgender-medicine.html">surgical treatments</a> was long <a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-transyouth-outcomes/">considered unspeakable</a> in mainstream culture and in the trans community. As a result, regret went underground, to online social media networks and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.24717">detrans peer support networks</a>. Apart from a small number of therapists working privately with this population, there are few support services.</p>
<h2>Detransitioners’ voices</h2>
<p>Some detrans people have decided to go public and tell their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/opinion/transgender-children-gender-dysphoria.html">stories in the media</a>, to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/12/06/detransitioners-transgender-care-laws/">testify in state legislatures</a> and to <a href="https://www.nysun.com/article/lawsuits-by-regretful-detransitioners-take-aim-at-medical-establishments-support-for-gender-transition-treatments-for-minors">take legal action</a>. As social scientists who study gender-affirming health care, we understand what motivates these pursuits: a desire to be understood, and to seek validation and justice.</p>
<p>Detransitioners’ voices, though, may be strategically positioned toward <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/4284777-matthews-here-come-the-gender-detransitioner-lawsuits/">gender-affirming care restrictions</a>, rather than to improve research or to develop comprehensive detransition-related care services. This positioning may further contribute to stigma and division between trans and detrans people.</p>
<p>It is our view that detransition should be rigorously studied to build a more robust understanding of gender identity development, and to improve gender care — so that nobody’s needs or lived experiences are neglected.</p>
<p>We wrote about some of these ideas and recommendations in the medical journal <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-073584"><em>BMJ</em></a>, including what we know about detransition so far. We <a href="https://www.yorku.ca/laps/2023/10/31/laps-professor-kinnon-mackinnon-and-team-launches-a-research-website/">also developed</a> an <a href="https://detransinfo.com/">online support resource</a> to communicate the most up-to-date research and care guidance.</p>
<h2>Identity evolution and detransition are LGBTQ+ experiences</h2>
<p>In our own emerging research with detransitioning people, we have observed that these experiences <a href="https://rjs.inrs.ca/index.php/rjs/article/view/294/182">can often overlap with trans people’s</a> and the broader LGBTQ+ community. Indeed, some who understand themselves as detrans may also identify as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2402">non-binary, gender-fluid</a>, bisexual, queer, butch, gay, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2021.1919479">lesbian and/or gender nonconforming</a>; and many continue to experience <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2023.2279272">gender minority stress and homophobia</a>. </p>
<p>Some might only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/lgbt.2020.0437">detransition temporarily</a> due to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.24717">lack of support</a>, external pressures and transphobia, and re-affirm a trans identity in the future.</p>
<p>Regardless, detransition can bring about <a href="https://doi.org/10.57814/8nd4-6a89">loss of community supports, stigma</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.24717">shame and health care avoidance</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2021.1919479">Many</a> — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293868">but not all</a> — detransitioners experience regret over past medical interventions. Other feelings may be present as well, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2402">satisfaction, ambivalence, grief and self-discovery</a>.</p>
<p>Identity shifts can be hard to predict. However, in hindsight, some detransitioners do feel that they were influenced by their cultural environment to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-023-02556-z">interpret their feelings</a> and behaviours through the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2402">lens of gender dysphoria</a> or to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000678">adopt a trans identity</a> without considering alternatives. At the same time, some detrans people recount that environments that suppressed or <a href="https://doi.org/10.57814/8nd4-6a89">doubted their initial trans identity</a> only meant that later on, in detransition, it was hard to disclose to loved ones and care providers that their identity had changed.</p>
<p>In any case, gender fluidity does not negate the reality of detrans people’s authenticity in their own gender-diversity. While we understand that some of this information is new and may be uncomfortable to embrace, a gender-affirmative stance must hold space for the full breadth of gender diversity being reflected in our society today.</p>
<p>Rigorous, on-going research that is inclusive of these experiences is fundamental to being gender-affirming. Gender fluidity and detransition deserve further understanding and formal care services, not controversy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kinnon R. MacKinnon receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Pullen Sansfaçon receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair Program.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pablo Expósito-Campos receives funding from the Predoctoral Research Fellowship Program of the Government of the Basque Country, Spain. He is a student member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and a member of the "Gonad, identity, and sexual differentiation" Working Group of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (GT-GIDSEEN).</span></em></p>Gender fluidity and detransition deserve nuanced understanding. Polarization that presents detransitioners as either ‘misinformation’ or victims of ‘gender ideology’ hurts all gender-diverse people.Kinnon R. MacKinnon, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, York University, CanadaAnnie Pullen Sansfaçon, Professor of Social Work, Université de MontréalPablo Expósito-Campos, Predoctoral researcher in Psychology, Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko UnibertsitateaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2235062024-03-08T13:35:33Z2024-03-08T13:35:33ZCenturies after Christine de Pizan wrote a book railing against misogyny, Taylor Swift is building her own ‘City of Ladies’<p>In her work, Taylor Swift has taken inspiration from women of the past, including actress <a href="https://www.billboard.com/music/lyrics/taylor-swift-tortured-poets-department-clara-bow-family-reacts-1235607902/">Clara Bow</a>, socialite <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/the-outrageous-life-of-rebekah-harkness-taylor-swifts-high-society-muse">Rebekah Harkness</a> and her grandmother <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/taylor-swift-marjorie-song-video-evermore-album-sheffield-1103100/">Marjorie Finlay</a>, who was an opera singer. </p>
<p>But sometimes I wonder what the 34-year-old pop star would think of the life and work of Italian-born French writer <a href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/christine_de_pisan">Christine de Pizan</a>. </p>
<p>Back in the 15th century, Christine – who scholars customarily refer to using her first name, because “de Pizan” simply reflects her place of birth, and she may not have had a last name – dealt with her share of “<a href="https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article282745283.html">dads, Brads and Chads</a>,” just as Swift has in the 21st century. </p>
<p>Thought to be the first French woman to make a living as a writer, Christine compiled “<a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667679/">The Book of the City of Ladies</a>” in 1405 to challenge the negative stereotypes of women in the Middle Ages. In it, she offers dozens of examples of accomplished women found throughout history, including queens, saints, warriors and poets. </p>
<p>Christine’s writings continue to resonate – especially with women – and are used widely in college courses on women and gender. I recently used excerpts from “The Book of the City of Ladies” in my course on women and gender in early modern Europe.</p>
<p>In reflecting on Christine’s writings from over 600 years ago, I am struck by how she recognized the pernicious effects of attacks on women’s intellect and accomplishments – the ways in which they could be internalized and accepted if women did not challenge the stereotypes. </p>
<h2>Building the ‘City of Ladies’</h2>
<p>Christine de Pizan was born in Italy but spent much of her life in the royal court of France during the rule of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Valois-dynasty">the House of Valois</a>. </p>
<p>Her father, a court physician and astrologer, encouraged her education alongside her brothers. She had three children with her husband, a French royal secretary named Etienne de Castel, who died when Christine was just 25 years old.</p>
<p>Widowed and facing the prospect of raising and financially supporting children on her own, she turned to composing works that appealed to elites, resulting in commissions from patrons. She wrote on a variety of topics, including <a href="https://roseandchess.lib.uchicago.edu/rose.html">a poem celebrating Joan of Arc’s success on the battlefield</a>.</p>
<p>But her most ambitious and enduring work is “The Book of the City of Ladies.” </p>
<p>Discouraged by all the misogyny she had read, Christine whimsically claimed that she had received a vision from three ladies: Reason, Rectitude and Justice, who tasked her with the project.</p>
<p>By gathering stories about the accomplishments of women, Christine set out to build an allegorical city where women and their achievements would be safe from the insults and slander of men. </p>
<p>In “The City,” she specifically referenced “<a href="http://www.theabsolute.net/misogyny/matheol.html">The Lamentations of Matheolus</a>,” from 1295, a lengthy essay written in Latin by a cleric from Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. Its French translation from the late 1300s would have been the version Christine read. </p>
<p>It is full of hateful views of women, but Matheolus saves most of his ire for wives.</p>
<p>“Anyone who wishes to immolate himself on the altar of marriage will have a lot to put up with,” he writes, adding that the torture of marriage “is worse than the torments of hell.” He derides women as “always quarrelsome … cruel, and shrewish” – “terribly perverse” individuals who have “deceived all the greatest men in the world.”</p>
<p>Matheolus was not alone in his low views of women. Other popular writings of the time included Jean de Meun’s “<a href="https://roseandchess.lib.uchicago.edu/rose.html">The Romance of the Rose</a>,” which portrayed women as untrustworthy and jealous, and an anonymous treatise, “<a href="https://pius.slu.edu/special-collections/?p=4037">On the Secrets of Women</a>,” which offered misinformation about the biology of women. </p>
<p>With so much misogyny coming from so many sources, Christine acknowledged how easy it was for women to believe what was said about them: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It’s no wonder that women have been the losers in the war against them since the envious slanderers and vicious traitors who criticize them have been allowed to aim all manner of weapons at their defenseless targets.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Christine recognized the reasons behind this widespread misogyny: Women who were smarter and kinder than men were seen as a threat and a challenge to <a href="https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/women-in-medieval-literature-and-society/">the established patriarchy</a> of Western society. </p>
<h2>Taylor Swift’s ‘big ole city’</h2>
<p>Like Christine, Swift is a gifted writer who began making a living with her pen when she was a teenager. </p>
<p>She has built her own city of sorts to protect her reputation, her music and her self-esteem.</p>
<p>In her 2020 documentary “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11388580/">Miss Americana</a>,” Swift opens up about her struggles with media scrutiny, which contributed to an eating disorder. In it, she describes herself as “trying to deprogram the misogyny in my own brain.”</p>
<p>She <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/arts/music/taylor-swift-trial-jury-verdict.html">sued a DJ that groped her and won</a>, leading to her being featured as one of the “silence breakers” <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/12/6/16742166/taylor-swift-time-magazine-person-year-2017-silence-breaker-me-too">on the cover</a> of Time magazine in 2017 at the dawn of the #MeToo movement. And in 2021, she began reclaiming her words and music <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/music/taylors-version-meaning-swift-rerecording-albums-rcna98513">by re-recording her older albums</a> as “Taylor’s Versions” after the original masters were sold by her first record label without her consent. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tattooed arms peruse vinyl records featuring a young woman on the cover." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580547/original/file-20240307-18-oq6pk5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An employee of an Ohio record store stocks a shelf with copies of ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ in 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/OhioDailyLife/23ee9d50617546c092a62ec7a51c301f/photo?Query=taylor%27s%20version&mediaType=photo&sortBy=creationdatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=138&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo/Aaron Doster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In her songs, Swift also repeatedly confronts the men who have discounted her talent and intellect. Her song “<a href="https://genius.com/Taylor-swift-mean-lyrics">Mean</a>” is widely believed to be about the critics who questioned her talent, such as <a href="https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2010/02/01/grammys/">Bob Lefsetz</a>, who wrote that Swift clearly couldn’t sing and had possibly destroyed her career after <a href="https://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/taylor-swifts-out-of-tune-grammy-performance-defended-by-label-201042/">a shaky performance</a> at the 2010 Grammys.</p>
<p>“Someday, I’ll be livin’ in a big, ole city,” Swift retorts in the track, “And all you’re ever gonna be is mean.”</p>
<p>At the conclusion of “The Book of the City of Ladies,” her mission to record the achievements of women accomplished, Christine de Pizan invites her female readers to join her: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“All of you who love virtue, glory and a fine reputation can now be lodged in great splendour inside its walls, not just women of the past but also those of the present and the future, for this has been founded and built to accommodate all deserving women.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Though the City of Ladies was built centuries ago, I have a feeling that Taylor Swift would be right at home in that big, ole city.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill R. Fehleison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>By compiling stories about the accomplishments of women, Christine set out to build an allegorical city where women and their achievements would be safe from sexist insults and slander.Jill R. Fehleison, Professor of History and Interdisciplinary Studies, Quinnipiac UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2219082024-03-07T14:28:20Z2024-03-07T14:28:20ZSeven reasons more female leaders would be a positive step for the climate<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574647/original/file-20240209-18-frd1d3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former prime minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern prioritised environmental issues during her tenure. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/brussels-belgium-25th-january-2019-zealands-1294621573">Alexandros Michailidis/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Initially, everyone on the organising committee for the COP29 global climate summit was male. In response, the <a href="https://www.shechangesclimate.org/">She Changes Climate</a> campaign group stated that “climate change affects the whole world, not half of it”. A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/15/cop29-climate-summit-committee-appointed-with-28-men-and-no-women-azerbaijan">backlash</a> followed and women have since been included to enhance representation within the committee. </p>
<p>A gender-balanced committee is not only a matter of justice and representation, but it also represents a strategic choice. Addressing the complex global challenge of climate change requires diverse perspectives and experiences. Female leaders can bring different qualities to the table. </p>
<h2>1. Caring about nature</h2>
<p>If leaders care about the planet, climate policies will reflect that. <a href="https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/">Data shows that</a> as citizens, women tend to care for nature and the environment more than men and they tend to be more responsible for actions which may impact the climate change. </p>
<p>According to this <a href="https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/">European Social Survey</a> data, the share of women who agreed that it’s important to care for nature and the environment is higher than the share of men in all European countries. The difference is not large, ranging from 7% in Austria to 0.3% in France, but the pattern is consistent across all countries. </p>
<p>When people were asked whether they feel personally responsible for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, 52% women agreed compared with 48% of men. More than 63% of women agreed that limiting their energy use reduced greenhouse gas emissions, compared to just 36% of men. </p>
<h2>2. Wanting to take action</h2>
<p>When first appointed to their roles of prime minister in New Zealand and Finland respectively, Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin <a href="https://www.ipu.org/news/news-in-brief/2022-07/climate-action-these-seven-women-mps-are-leading-way">both declared</a> that climate change was an emergency and announced actions for their country which influenced the global efforts to mitigate climate change. </p>
<p>Female policymakers agree more than men on the need of measures for the environment, according to data from the <a href="https://www.comparativecandidates.org/">Comparative Candidate Survey </a>. Among politicians who ran for the national parliament elections, 83% of women believed that stronger measures should be taken to protect the environment, compared to 75% of men. </p>
<p>My <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/gender-equality-and-public-policy/63D91B648D83CB692D3C7195D8E94088">own research</a> shows that the difference between men and women is significant even when we control for individual characteristics, including age, ideology, education, religion, occupation and number of children.</p>
<h2>3. Making change happen</h2>
<p>Firms with more women in decision-making positions tend to perform better on environmental and sustainable outcomes. I <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/gender-equality-and-public-policy/63D91B648D83CB692D3C7195D8E94088">found that</a> companies with three or more female directors perform better on specific measures of environmental performance. </p>
<p>The share of managers also matters: a higher female presence in managerial positions is associated with better environmental performance. This is measured by an indicator which considers different factors: pollution of air, land and water and the impacts on biodiversity, the use of non-renewable energy, water, land, forests, minerals, the production of waste and new product development efforts to remedy these problems. </p>
<h2>4. Being altruistic</h2>
<p>Men and women tend to show differences in social orientation. As American sociologist Nancy Chodorow outlined in her 1978 book, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520221550/the-reproduction-of-mothering">The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender</a>, women are directed toward the caregiver role, so they are encouraged to be more compassionate, nurturing, protective, and cooperative than men. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/116/1/293/1939030?redirectedFrom=fulltext">Experimental research</a> in 2001 confirmed that women tend to be more altruistic and socially oriented than men. </p>
<h2>5. Having more opportunities</h2>
<p>Gender roles and different opportunities may also play a role in gender differences in attitudes towards the environment. The <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08941920.2014.918235">biological availability hypothesis</a> suggests that women spend less time at work than men and more time at home, so they have more opportunities to engage in private pro-environment behaviours such as recycling and water use (although this doesn’t mean they have more free time). Women also tend to be more concerned than men about health and safety issues and this is reflected in higher levels of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0013916596283003">environmental concerns</a>. </p>
<h2>6. Approaching risk with caution</h2>
<p>Women perceive risks differently. Women tend to be more risk averse than men, as they tend to prefer an outcome which is certain to an uncertain one associated to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-111809-125122">higher return</a>.</p>
<h2>7. Taking the long-term view</h2>
<p>When approaching climate change, women tend to offer fresh perspectives, creative problem-solving skills and inclusive leadership styles. As climate change affects everyone, our collective effort benefits from acknowledging the diverse ways in which men and women express concerns about the issues and propose actions for the future. Women tend to be more patient and willing to wait for higher <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-01404-001">reward in the future</a> and they care about the consequences of their actions over a longer time frame. </p>
<p>In any decision-making process, personal leadership style is a crucial factor. Gender plays a significant role in shaping that style and female leadership style tends to focus more on long-term goals. That can help drive solutions that mitigate and adapt the impact of climate change. </p>
<p>Including more women at the table at the future climate summits is an essential step towards making real change. Each of us can make the difference, as citizens, voters, business entrepreneurs and decision-makers to promote better representation and more balanced decisions, for now and for future generations.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paola Profeta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows that men and women have different perspectives on climate, with huge implications in terms of policymaking. For that reason, diverse leadership is essential.Paola Profeta, Dean for Diversity Inclusion and Sustainability, Professor of Public Economics, Director of Axa Research Lab on Gender Equality, Bocconi UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236692024-03-07T13:03:50Z2024-03-07T13:03:50ZWhite men dominate the environment sector – here’s how to encourage more diverse voices<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579142/original/file-20240301-16-bo8mjl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bringing a diversity of people to the table and giving plenty of opportunities for everyone to have their say is key to ensuring real inclusivity. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/diverse-business-people-on-meeting-298996202">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early 2021, I observed a meeting of 25 people working on climate change policy in Bristol as part of my research into creating a <a href="https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/gsc/view/journals/gscj/2/2/article-p86.xml">just and fair climate transition</a>. I was struck by how the conversation was dominated by one group: white men. From that moment, inequality in decision-making became a major part of my climate justice research. </p>
<p>I drew a table in my notebook with four headings: white men, white women, minoritised men and minoritised women. Every time someone spoke, I put a tick in the relevant column. By the end of that meeting, white men had three times as many ticks as the rest combined. I took a picture of the table and sent it to my research partner, <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/people/person/Alice-Venn-3bb91446-28d7-46b3-81cb-aa84c262282f/">Alice Venn</a>. </p>
<p>“Should I keep recording this data?” I asked. Venn approved of this approach, so data on gender and race became central to <a href="https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/gsc/view/journals/gscj/2/2/article-p86.xml%E2%80%8B">our study</a>.</p>
<p>We observed various meetings including steering groups, member consultations and board meetings for nine hours over the course of six months. During that time, white men spoke for 64% of the time and represented 40% of participants. A slightly higher percentage (41%) of white women were present in the meetings we observed, but they spoke for just 33% of the time.</p>
<p>By comparison, minoritised women made up 14% of participants in meetings and spoke 2% of the time. Minoritised men made up 5% of participants in meetings and spoke only 1% of the time. </p>
<p>This is no great surprise. The environment sector is notoriously <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/11/too-white-green-sector-launches-work-scheme-to-be-more-diverse">one of the least diverse</a>, with only 3.5% of people working in environmental jobs identifying as being from an ethnic minority. In the <a href="https://www.race-report.uk/news/2023-press-release-environmental-charity-sector-boosts-participation-for-racial-diversity-initiative">environmental charity sector</a>, that figure is 6%. This compares quite starkly with an average across the UK workforce of 15% of employees from racial or ethnic minorities. </p>
<p>Diverse voices and critical discussions are key to making robust, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriklarson/2017/09/21/new-research-diversity-inclusion-better-decision-making-at-work/?sh=7924784e4cbf">inclusive and future-proof decisions</a>. If a group of people who come from similar backgrounds (whether because of race, class or gender) assess a decision they are making for flaws, they are unlikely to find them because they are likely to agree with one another.</p>
<p>There may then be unexpected pushback against policies such as 15-minute neighbourhoods (where residents can reach all the facilities they need within a 15-minute walk, bike ride or journey on public transport), because groups who do not benefit from those schemes have not been consulted and their dissent has not been anticipated. </p>
<p>In Bristol, our observations of meetings found that participants showed very little critical engagement with existing policies, such as cycling route safety planning that centred around men commuting, or expansion plans for Bristol airport. Often, there was no space or time in meetings to be critical of existing ideas and narratives, or to challenge existing policy processes and systemic problems. </p>
<p>Climate justice was only mentioned in one of the nine meetings we observed. Climate vulnerability was not mentioned at all. Meetings felt very busy, filled with packed agendas, with little opportunity to make radical suggestions for change.</p>
<h2>Changing the dynamic</h2>
<p>Even with a mix of women and men or representative examples of minoritised people in the room, these people <a href="https://hbr.org/2014/06/women-find-your-voice">won’t necessarily speak up</a>. Women are less likely to have <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01492063231173421">influence in board meetings</a> and struggle to be heard in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/14/us/zoom-meetings-gender.html">online meetings</a>.</p>
<p>A good chair will be aware of these dynamics and take steps to ensure inclusivity, perhaps by setting up small group tasks to build confidence or monitoring who is speaking and calling on quieter people directly. </p>
<p>Another technique, known as the “2-2 method”, involves asking “what are two reasons someone would agree, and two someone would disagree?” before opening the floor for critique. An open workplace culture where people feel they can trust leadership even if they are critical is also important, and will make more open and inclusive meetings easier to conduct.</p>
<p>From observations in our study, women tend to take longer to answer a question, which gives space for men to jump in or interrupt. One of the female participants told us: “I notice men tend to talk over me and interrupt me, a lot.”</p>
<p>Minoritised individuals may be more reticent to speak if they feel they won’t be listened to. <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/09/is-your-board-inclusive-or-just-diverse">Previous research shows that</a> some board members worry they will be tokenised by being asked to represent huge groups – this <a href="https://media.frc.org.uk/documents/FRC_Board_Diversity_and_Effectiveness_in_FTSE_350_Companies.pdf">puts undue pressure</a> on them to be the spokesperson for their race or ethnicity, and does not treat them as an individual with worthy opinions. Being aware of these dynamics and getting it right as an employer or community leader is key to making change and ensuring everyone feels able to speak up.</p>
<h2>A diversity redesign</h2>
<p>As a follow-up from our study, we are training members of the environment sector in Bristol. We have been working with the UK-wide, equalities-led social enterprise <a href="https://www.diversitytrust.org.uk/">The Diversity Trust</a> and video production company <a href="https://beestonmedia.com/">Beeston Media</a> to provide a series of workshops and videos about making more inclusive decisions, creating an open workplace culture, and recruiting and retaining diverse staff. </p>
<p>So far we’ve held three workshops, each attended by more than 25 people from a wide range of sectors and organisations. Three more workshops are planned for spring and summer 2024.</p>
<p>As a result, the <a href="https://thebaccc.org/about/#:%7E:text=The%20Bristol%20Advisory%20Committee%20on,the%20Bristol%20One%20City%20Boards.">Bristol Advisory Committee on Climate Change</a> has already changed its recruitment policies. The committee has widened its definition of an expert, moving away from a research-based definition and explicitly noting that lived experience and community knowledge can be accepted as expertise. </p>
<p>Meeting space policies have also been redesigned at several organisations – for example, by implementing the 2-2 method and ensuring that chairs avoid tokenism and use micro-affirmations to build confidence. </p>
<p>We are monitoring the impact of these changes with one-to-one support calls, surveys and peer-to-peer support groups. One testimony stated that “the training you have been running has been so valuable in helping environmental organisations to develop better equality, diversity and inclusion practice”.</p>
<p>Improvements to embrace a more diverse and inclusive environmental sector are critical to ensuring a greener, fairer and more sustainable future for all. But this transition needs to be designed with people, rather than imposed on them. The shift can begin in a boardroom, steering group, or committee meeting. Any institution that pays attention to how it makes decisions, and who is consulted, will help to ensure the green transition is as inclusive as possible. </p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><strong><em>Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?</em></strong>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alix Dietzel receives funding from PolicyBristol for this study.</span></em></p>The environment sector is notoriously dominated by white men. But diverse voices and critical discussions about climate policies are key to making good, inclusive decisions about the future.Alix Dietzel, Senior Lecturer in Climate Justice, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246912024-03-05T20:57:58Z2024-03-05T20:57:58ZWomen want to climb the corporate ladder — but not at any price<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578677/original/file-20240115-27-31qawf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women are just as interested in opportunities for advancement as men are. However, they find them less attainable because of their busy schedules.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The consulting firm <a href="https://www.spencerstuart.com/">Spencer Stuart</a> recently published a study <a href="https://www.spencerstuart.com/-/media/2023/december/f500-profiles/fortune-500-csuite-snapshot-profiles-in-functional-leadership.pdf">of top management at Fortune 500 companies</a>, the 500 richest companies in the United States.</p>
<p>The analysis focused specifically on the gender of the people in these positions, their functions and the source of their appointments, whether they came from inside or outside the organization.</p>
<p>Studying the composition of top management, often referred to as the C-Suite, is particularly important since it allows us to see how many women make it to the position of CEO in an organization.</p>
<p>Respectively Dean of the John Molson School of Business, and an expert for several decades on the place of women in the upper echelons of the business world, we will discuss the main findings of the Spencer Stuart study.</p>
<h2>Starting points</h2>
<p>Three conclusions in particular caught our attention:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Men represent 60 per cent of the select group that constitutes top management. Men principally occupy the positions that offer the greatest potential for appointment as CEO, <a href="https://www.spencerstuart.com/-/media/2021/december/lastmile/the-last-mile-to-the-top-future-ceos-who-beat-the-odds.pdf">according to the history of appointments to such positions</a>. These include, for example, Chief Operating Officer, Head of Division and Chief Financial Officer;</p></li>
<li><p>Although women are increasingly present in top management positions (40 per cent), they are still found in the positions of Head of Human Resources, Head of Communications, Head of Diversity and Inclusion and Head of Sustainable Development. In other words, women are in so-called support functions that, while important for organizations, are unfortunately perceived as having little impact on shareholder equity and financial performance;</p></li>
<li><p>Appointments to top management positions that lead to the position of CEO come mainly from within the company. What does this mean? That an intimate knowledge of the organization gained over a long period is valued and that there is generally a promotion process in place to feed the succession pool.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Global overview of the situation</h2>
<p>Our experience over the last few decades allows us to draw similar conclusions about Canada. So we wanted to check whether this situation was similar in other countries.</p>
<p>A report by the International Labour Organization called <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_700953.pdf">“The Business Case for Change”</a> provides an overview of the position of women in the upper echelons of power in 13,000 companies operating on every continent.</p>
<p>As in the United States and Canada, the gender divide between positions that could be called support jobs, and those that contribute directly to an organization’s profitability, appears to be widespread. According to the authors of this study, it is also referred to as a “glass wall,” since it limits the pool of potential female candidates for the position of CEO.</p>
<p>But how can this phenomenon be explained?</p>
<h2>Stereotypes, biases and prejudices</h2>
<p>First of all, gender stereotypes and prejudices come into play from childhood.</p>
<p>They have an impact on the toys children play with, the subjects they study, their lives and their future careers.</p>
<p>Girls — generally speaking — aspire to become doctors, teachers, nurses, psychologists and veterinary surgeons. As for boys, they want to become engineers and <a href="https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/smashing-gender-stereotypes-and-bias-and-through-education">work in IT and mechanical fields</a>.</p>
<h2>Organizational culture</h2>
<p>Secondly, organizational culture is a <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_700953.pdf">mirror of our society and its traditions</a>.</p>
<p>It therefore conveys biases regarding the leadership potential of women compared to men.</p>
<p>According to the International Labour Organization survey cited above, 91 per cent of the women questioned agreed or strongly agreed that women lead as effectively as men. However, only 77 per cent of men agreed with this statement.</p>
<p>Arguably, this leadership bias has an impact on the recruitment, appointment, talent development and “stretch assignment” processes that pave the way for career progression.</p>
<p>There is also reason to believe that these biases are equally present on boards of directors, which are responsible for appointing CEOs and which are still predominantly composed of men.</p>
<h2>Different life goals</h2>
<p>Finally, women and men have different preferences and career goals.</p>
<p>According to a study by Harvard Business School professors Francesca Gino and Alison Wood Brooks entitled <a href="https://hbr.org/2015/09/explaining-gender-differences-at-the-top">“Explaining the Gender Differences at the Top,”</a> women are just as interested in opportunities for advancement as men are. However, they find them less attainable because of their busy schedules. As a result, women have to more seriously take into account the compromises and sacrifices they will have to make to occupy positions of high responsibility and power.</p>
<p>The authors are careful to point out that these results do not mean that women are less ambitious, but that career success means different things to different people. For some, it takes the form of power. For others, it can mean making colleagues happy and helping to make the world a better place in a collaborative and supportive environment.</p>
<p>This research is in line with that of Viviane de Beaufort, a professor at the École supérieure des sciences économiques et commerciales (ESSEC). In a survey of the career aspirations of 295 French women managers, she found that women do want to rise to the highest positions. <a href="https://www.academia.edu/80171918/WP_CERESSEC_CEDE_ESSEC_Viviane_de_Beaufort_2022_avec_le_collectif_WOMEN_BOARD_READY_ESSEC">But not at any price</a>.</p>
<h2>What determines career paths?</h2>
<p>This article therefore raises the following question:</p>
<p>Can we, as women, one day hope to be CEOs or fulfill our professional dreams despite the biases, prejudices, stereotypes and barriers we have to overcome?</p>
<p>Simone de Beauvoir wrote in 1949 in her essay “The Second Sex”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Women determine and differentiate themselves in relation to men, not men in relation to women: they are inessential in relation to what is essential. He is the subject, he is the absolute, she is the other.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This excerpt reminds us that the skills and knowledge required to perform strategic functions have always been defined in terms of the male exercise of power in an environment where the organization’s performance is judged almost exclusively by financial success and growth of shareholder value.</p>
<p>It’s time to think about new career paths and skills that are not defined by gender, but rather, by an organization’s mission and objectives. These goals must take into account <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/07/the-c-suite-skills-that-matter-most">how they contribute to creating a better world</a>, as much as ensuring the financial success of organizations.</p>
<p>Functional skills must be valued as much as softer skills such as emotional intelligence, empathy, a sense of community and boldness.</p>
<p>Breaking down glass walls also means that organizations and their boards have a responsibility to identify and encourage women to take up positions where they can gain experience and develop their leadership skills in front line rather than support roles.</p>
<p>In such a context, women, as much as men, will have a better chance of reaching the highest positions in a company while remaining true to themselves — and doing so on equal terms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224691/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Women are increasingly present in top management positions, but they end up in so-called support functions, which rarely lead to CEO positions.Louise Champoux-Paillé, Cadre en exercice, John Molson School of Business, Concordia UniversityAnne-Marie Croteau, Dean, John Molson School of Business, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210612024-03-05T14:00:11Z2024-03-05T14:00:11ZHispanic health disparities in the US trace back to the Spanish Inquisition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578113/original/file-20240226-18-qx2l6e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=346%2C479%2C3693%2C2076&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Class, gender and religion influenced health care in early modern Spain and Latin America.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/diego-velazquez-christ-in-the-house-of-martha-and-mary">Diego Velázquez/The National Gallery</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many of the significant <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2022/06/14/hispanic-americans-experiences-with-health-care/">health disparities and inequities</a> Hispanic communities in the United States face are tied to a long history of health injustice in the Hispanic world.</p>
<p>The health landscape of early modern Hispanic societies, particularly from the late 15th to 18th centuries, was a <a href="https://history.wisc.edu/publications/The-Gray-Zones-of-Medicine-Healers-and-History-in-Latin-america/">complex interplay</a> between professional and nonprofessional providers shaping health care. The convergence of Indigenous, African and European practices, both in Spain and the Americas, affected how clinicians treated their patients.</p>
<p>This all played out against the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781139032698.009">backdrop of the Inquisition and colonization</a>, when the Catholic Church prosecuted heresy. Consolidating religious norms promoted health care through charitable activity, such as the creation of hospitals, but also created challenges between the authority of the Catholic Church and competing health care initiatives. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bowdoin.edu/profiles/faculty/mboyle2/index.html">My research</a> focuses on how health and medical practices in early modern Latin America and Spain are represented through cultural artifacts, including literature, recipe books, the Inquisition and convent records. In our book, my colleague <a href="https://charleston.edu/spanish/faculty/owens-sarah.php">Sarah Owens</a> and I explore how <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487505189/health-and-healing-in-the-early-modern-iberian-world/">gender norms affected</a> medicine and health care. We also consider how popular representations of health and medicine in culture inform widely held beliefs and biases about these experiences.</p>
<p>Understanding the historical roots of health disparities in Hispanic communities can <a href="https://salud-america.org">help address them</a> both locally and globally today. </p>
<h2>Interplay of medical practices</h2>
<p>Latin America and Spain in the late 15th to 18th centuries were home to a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Medical-Cultures-of-the-Early-Modern-Spanish-Empire/Slater-Lopez-Terrada-Pardo-Tomas/p/book/9780367669225">number of medical practices</a>, including traditional medical knowledge and remedies and the professionalization of medicine through new universities and licensing systems. </p>
<p>Early modern <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/aes.3633">medical humanists</a>, or Renaissance clinicians, took up medical treatises by the ancient Greek and Roman physicians, including those of Galen and Hippocrates, and revived them in the context of “learned” medical instruction through European universities. The study of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139027649.015">Paracelsianism</a>, or the theories of Swiss physician Paracelsus, though more contested among practitioners because of its connections to the supernatural and occult, also affected a variety of health practices across early modern Spain and colonial Latin America. With the publication of anatomical treatises at the start of the 16th century, including the work of Renaissance physician <a href="https://lccn.loc.gov/2021667096">Andreas Vesalius</a>, the study of anatomy slowly and dramatically changed medical practice.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578303/original/file-20240227-28-t93eef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black and white engraving of four people surrounding the bedside of a man lying prone, with one of the people tending to a wound on his back by candlelight" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578303/original/file-20240227-28-t93eef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578303/original/file-20240227-28-t93eef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578303/original/file-20240227-28-t93eef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578303/original/file-20240227-28-t93eef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=797&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578303/original/file-20240227-28-t93eef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578303/original/file-20240227-28-t93eef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578303/original/file-20240227-28-t93eef.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1002&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An 18th century engraving depicts a woman soothing a wound on Don Quixote’s back.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://wellcomecollection.org/works/yca32vbf/images?id=j557f5kw">William Hogarth/Wellcome Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Traditional healing practices varied significantly but often provided accessible and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/heq.2021.0099">culturally compatible care</a>, including reduced language barriers. Many people in Hispanic communities still rely on these practices today. Discussions about the legitimacy and health effects of folk remedies in Latin America, such as varieties of herbal and holistic medicine and other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/1746-4269-7-9">animal-based remedies</a>, are ongoing.</p>
<h2>Gender and medicine</h2>
<p>As health care became more professionalized during the early modern period, some women found ways to practice medicine in more formalized contexts, while others continued to work as healers or herbalists. These practices alternated between <a href="https://iberian-connections.yale.edu/articles/healing-in-madrid/">success and suspicion</a> during the Spanish Inquisition. Accusations of sorcery and witchcraft along with sexualities outside heterosexual norms often collided with practices of health and medicine. </p>
<p>But just as pregnancy and child–rearing are not the only medical events that shaped early modern women’s lives, women medical providers <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487505189/health-and-healing-in-the-early-modern-iberian-world/">weren’t only witches</a>. Nuns in Arequipa prepared treatments in convents, and mothers and daughters made medicine within households in Madrid.</p>
<p>From Fernando de Rojas’ 1499 tragicomedy “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/1xhs-0330">La Celestina</a>,” about the go-between who crafts love potions and repairs hymens, to the 2019 Colombian TV series “<a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/80205595">Siempre Bruja</a>,” about a 17th century Afro-Colombian witch who finds herself in present-day Cartagena, the cultural legacy of witchy women healers in the Hispanic world continues to be deeply felt.</p>
<h2>Class, race, geography and language</h2>
<p>The transfer of plants, animals and diseases across the Atlantic also profoundly affected health outcomes. </p>
<p>European diseases <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/latamcaribbean/2020/08/07/the-history-of-epidemics-in-latin-america-has-much-to-tell-us-about-covid-19/">such as smallpox</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-smallpox-devastated-the-aztecs-and-helped-spain-conquer-an-american-civilization-500-years-ago-111579">devastated Indigenous populations</a>. Meanwhile, plants from the Americas offered <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/34839?language=en">novel treatments</a> for a number of illnesses globally. Peruvian <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2875-10-144">cinchona bark</a> is a natural source of quinine that proved effective against malaria, a disease prevalent in both Europe and the Americas. Other plants <a href="https://utorontopress.com/9781487527204/chocolate/">such as cacao seeds</a> found various medicinal and ritual uses, including relieving exhaustion or anxiety or improving weight gain.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5FpPpn086eI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Columbian Exchange was not mutually beneficial.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But access to this range of treatment methods was unequal, especially <a href="https://nursingclio.org/2018/02/22/health-care-in-colonial-peruvian-convents/">across social class and geography</a>. Wealthier nobility in urban centers often had much greater access to scarce resources across the Iberian empire. </p>
<p>Health outcomes were also often linked to <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469630878/the-experiential-caribbean/">racial and ethnic hierarchies</a>. Patients were classified as Spanish, mestizo – mixed European and Indigenous – or African slaves in treatment records. These documents show evidence of uneven access to care, while there is also evidence that some exchanges in care practices <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0424.12553">across these hierarchies</a> were possible.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578307/original/file-20240227-20-vpjsg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Yellowed manuscript with written text inscribed in ink down the page" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578307/original/file-20240227-20-vpjsg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578307/original/file-20240227-20-vpjsg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578307/original/file-20240227-20-vpjsg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578307/original/file-20240227-20-vpjsg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578307/original/file-20240227-20-vpjsg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578307/original/file-20240227-20-vpjsg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578307/original/file-20240227-20-vpjsg8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Grammar of the Castilian Language’ codified Spanish.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2021667003">Antonio De Nebrija/World Digital Library via Library of Congress</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Forced displacement as well as language discrimination also affected health access and outcomes. Spanish wasn’t <a href="https://www.publicbooks.org/whose-spanish-anyway/">standardized as a language</a> until the publication of Antonio de Nebrija’s “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44015843">Grammar of the Castilian Language</a>” in 1492, inscribed to Queen Isabel with the reminder that “language has always been the companion to empire.” </p>
<p>For example, while Arabic and Hebrew were widely spoken throughout the Iberian Peninsula before the forced expulsions of the Inquisition, politics around language resulted in centuries of stereotypes and discrimination against Muslim and Jewish medical providers, who had to navigate <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Medicine-Government-and-Public-Health-in-Philip-IIs-Spain-Shared-Interests/Clouse/p/book/9781138246379">alternative licensing methods</a> to practice medicine in Spain and its colonial territories. </p>
<h2>Understanding the story of medicine</h2>
<p>More than 400 years later, inequities in and commodification of Hispanic health and wellness continue. </p>
<p>Luxury travelers are sold wellness via <a href="https://oursoulfultravels.com/wellness-spas-in-mexico/">Mayan purification rituals</a>, among other assorted local remedies and practices that can be purchased, marketed and monetized. Wood from the Palo Santo tree, which healers have used for centuries for spiritual cleanings and pain relief, continues to be grown all over the Americas, including Mexico, Peru and Ecuador, and is now bought and sold globally to bring “<a href="https://www.womenshealthmag.com/life/a30793415/what-is-palo-santo/">good vibes</a>.”</p>
<p>Considering these early modern health practices and inequities allows for deeper engagement with health care systems today. Informed critical thinking about medicine and health care <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/10/16/2018-jefferson-lecture-focuses-contribution-humanities-medicine">across disciplines</a> is a powerful way to consider how these histories continue to shape current values and practices, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.5744/florida/9781683402619.001.0001">ongoing disparities in health care</a>.</p>
<p>One such discipline is <a href="https://theconversation.com/literature-inspired-my-medical-career-why-the-humanities-are-needed-in-health-care-217357">narrative medicine</a>. Using the tools of the humanities, physicians can broaden their view of their patients from simple metrics to human beings with stories to tell. This process involves perceiving and incorporating patients’ personal experiences, valuing narration of the past and recognizing the significance of the encounter between doctor and patient. While much of this research focuses on English-language narratives, cross-cultural and bilingual research <a href="https://www.lclark.edu/live/news/48656-neh-grant-to-support-bilingual-materials-for">in Spanish</a> is expanding the field. </p>
<p>It is estimated that by 2060 there will be more than <a href="https://latino.ucla.edu/research/latino-population-2000-2020/">111 million Latinos</a> in the United States. Understanding the historical legacies that have shaped wellness and care practices, including the factors that determine care quality and access, can promote more equitable and culturally nuanced health outcomes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Margaret Boyle received funding from the Fulbright Program and the George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Fellowship for this research.</span></em></p>Early modern societies in Latin America and Spain saw a convergence of traditional medical knowledge and the professionalization of medicine. The resulting differences in access to care endure today.Margaret Boyle, Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Director of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies Program, Bowdoin CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2243292024-02-29T13:41:06Z2024-02-29T13:41:06ZCaitlin Clark’s historic scoring record shines a spotlight on the history of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578745/original/file-20240228-20-s0zoch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C126%2C3091%2C1622&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">University of Iowa guard Caitlin Clark celebrates after making the game-winning shot against Michigan State on Jan. 2, 2024.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/iowaguard-caitlin-clark-of-the-iowa-hawkeyes-celebrates-news-photo/1895743985?adppopup=true">Matthew Holst/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When University of Iowa women’s basketball star Caitlin Clark <a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/recap/_/gameId/401601593">drained a 3-pointer</a> against the University of Michigan on Feb. 15, 2024, she secured the NCAA women’s scoring record.</p>
<p>Announcers noted that Clark had surpassed <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-husky-basketball/remembering-kelsey-plums-historic-husky-career-as-caitlin-clark-closes-in-on-her-scoring-record/">Kelsey Plum’s 3,527 points</a>. But few added that there was still one more Division I women’s scoring title remaining.</p>
<p>That one belonged to guard <a href="https://www.lynettewoodard.com/">Lynette Woodard</a>, who scored 3,649 points while playing for the University of Kansas from 1978 to 1981. Her record was set before the NCAA offered women’s championships, when the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, or AIAW, was in charge.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.espn.com/womens-college-basketball/recap/_/gameId/401601613">When Clark surpassed Woodard’s AIAW milestone</a> on Feb. 28, 2024, in the fourth quarter of a game against the University of Minnesota, it opened up another chance to revisit this buried piece of sport history.</p>
<p><a href="https://researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/collection/data/36723004">The AIAW</a> launched in 1972. Within a decade it was bigger than the NCAA, with nearly 1,000 member colleges and universities. It sponsored 19 sports in three divisions, was the sole organization for women’s intercollegiate athletics and the only one led by women. And the NCAA destroyed it through what SUNY Cortland sports management professor Lindsey Darvin described as a “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/women-college-sports-ncaa-aiaw-11617422325">hostile takeover</a>.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://iro.uiowa.edu/esploro/outputs/doctoral/Inside-the-AIAW-the-philosophy-people/9983949592502771">scholar of sport, gender and American culture</a>, I study the AIAW as a key moment in sports history that has been buried, and I’m currently writing a book exploring its philosophy, impact and legacy.</p>
<p>In any history of women’s sports in the U.S., you’ll hear a lot about <a href="https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/advocacy/what-is-title-ix/">Title IX</a>, the federal law dictating that female college athletes must receive equal opportunities in sports.</p>
<p>But you’ll rarely hear about the AIAW, a sporting body led by women that fundamentally changed intercollegiate sports. Its student-centered governance model continues to resonate as college athletes chip away at the power of the NCAA, whether it’s through the <a href="https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/2023/12/04/what-is-ncaa-transfer-portal-what-to-know/71799335007/">transfer portal</a> or <a href="https://www.on3.com/nil/deals/">name, image and likeness deals</a>.</p>
<h2>Designed for women, by women</h2>
<p>Throughout the early part of the 20th century, female college students participated in physical education classes <a href="https://www.academia.edu/36681888/_Gendering_the_Gym_A_History_of_Women_in_Physical_Education">focused on health and wellness</a>. There were few opportunities for organized team sports.</p>
<p>By the 1960s, however, women students demanded school-sponsored intercollegiate teams and championships like the men had. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/women-college-sports-ncaa-aiaw-11617422325">Women professors of physical education agreed.</a>. But they had watched the NCAA commercial model of sport descend into exploitation and scandal under what historians have called the “<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-512/171481/20210310124813181_20-512%20tsac%20Historian%20Amicus%20Br-final2-PDFA.pdf">cynical fiction</a>” of amateurism. As the NCAA remained exclusively male, there was an opportunity to create something different for women’s athletics. </p>
<p>The AIAW emerged from that momentum – an intercollegiate athletic governance organization designed for and by women, dedicated to creating high-level competition while maintaining focus on the well-being and education of student-athletes.</p>
<p>Under the AIAW, all teams and athletes were supported equally, not singled out for their ability to generate revenue. They had a right to due process, an appeals system and student representatives on local and national committees. The organization ran on dues from member schools and eventually some advertising and media contracts.</p>
<p>Women’s athletic programs were led by physical educators turned coaches and administrators. Some of the most famous coaches in women’s basketball got their start under the AIAW, including <a href="https://scarletknights.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/coaches/c-vivian-stringer/2805">C. Vivian Stringer</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/sports/ncaabasketball/pat-summitt-obituary.html">Pat Summit</a> and <a href="https://gostanford.com/sports/womens-basketball/roster/coaches/tara-vanderveer/4516">Tara VanDerveer</a>, who recently broke <a href="https://www.si.com/college/2024/01/22/tara-vanderveer-stanford-all-time-winningest-coach-idaho-career">the all-time record for college basketball wins</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to Woodard, other notable AIAW players include <a href="https://wbhof.com/famers/ann-meyers-drysdale/">Ann Meyers-Drysdale</a>, <a href="https://www.hoophall.com/hall-of-famers/nancy-lieberman/">Nancy Lieberman</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/sports/basketball/lusia-harris-dead.html">Lusia Harris</a>, who was recently the subject of an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPFkcoTfr7g">Oscar-winning documentary</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young woman with short hair poses while dribbling a basketball and wearing a red, white and blue Team USA jersey." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/578090/original/file-20240226-24-tb725t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After starring at the University of Kansas, Lynette Woodard went on to play for the Harlem Globetrotters, Team USA and the WNBA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lynette-woodard-point-guard-for-the-united-states-womens-news-photo/1224415230?adppopup=true">Tony Duffy/Allsport/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Title IX backlash</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that Title IX, which was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/title-ix">signed into law in 1972</a>, had a big influence on the growth of women’s college sports, mandating that educational activities, including athletics, should be the same for men and women.</p>
<p>Congress passed Title IX just before the AIAW’s first championship season, and the law spurred calls for more equitable resources for women’s sports. </p>
<p>There was immediate backlash from male-dominated sporting organizations, including the NCAA, which saw the addition of women’s sports as a loss for men’s sports. Walter Byers, then the NCAA’s executive director, said, “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2019-10-02/college-athletics-reform-ncaa-doomsday-title-ix">The possible doom of college sports is near</a>.” One college football official <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/06/22/title-ix-anniversary-legacy/">told reporter Sally Jenkins</a> that women’s sports advocates were trying “to tear the shirts off our backs.” </p>
<p>Despite the fearmongering, college sports continued to thrive. Nonetheless, over the past 50 years, even though nearly all schools have been <a href="https://www.womenssportsfoundation.org/advocacy/what-is-title-ix/">out of athletic compliance with Title IX</a>, none has lost federal funding for violations. As Title IX scholar Sarah Fields <a href="https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1851&context=sportslaw">has written</a>, “Without punitive damages, the law is limited: it is toothless.”</p>
<p>All along, change has come not from the law’s mere existence but from students filing complaints and lawsuits, and the determination of administrators to use the law to carve out and protect athletic opportunities for women. During the 1970s, those administrators were almost all in the AIAW.</p>
<h2>The NCAA elbows its way in</h2>
<p>By the late 1970s, the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare had laid out clearer standards for athletic compliance with Title IX.</p>
<p>While the NCAA and AIAW were not subject to the law, their member institutions were, and the two organizations’ efforts to collaborate failed. Instead, the NCAA, which had long fought Title IX’s application in athletics, changed course and set its sights on taking control of women’s sports. </p>
<p>The NCAA offered women’s championships in all three divisions for the first time during the 1981-82 school year. Leveraging all of its presumed legitimacy and financial resources, the 75-year-old men’s athletic organization <a href="https://www.si.com/college/2022/06/14/aiaw-ncaa-womens-college-basketball-league-title-ix-daily-cover">offered all-expenses-paid women’s championships on the same weekends as the unpaid AIAW championships</a>.</p>
<p>The strategy worked. The AIAW lost significant members and ceased operations in mid-1982, despite the fact that women athletes, coaches and administrators <a href="https://andscape.com/features/forty-years-later-the-ncaas-takeover-from-the-aiaw-still-isnt-perfect/">preferred its educational model and leadership structure</a>. </p>
<p>The NCAA made vague promises to support women’s athletics but refused to give women more than token representation on its governance boards. Women student-athletes were, for the first time, led by a male-dominated governance organization.</p>
<p>To this day, <a href="https://ncaagenderequityreview.com/">institutional sexism remains entrenched in the NCAA</a>.</p>
<p>Women hold only <a href="https://www.ncaa.org/news/2022/6/23/media-center-title-ix-report-shows-gains-in-female-participation-though-rates-lag-increases-by-men.aspx">41.3% of head coaching positions for women’s teams and 23.9% of athletic director positions</a> – roles that were largely held by women under the AIAW. A recent gender equity review found that the organization <a href="https://kaplanhecker.app.box.com/s/y17pvxpap8lotzqajjan9vyye6zx8tmz">under-resourced nearly all of its women’s championships</a>, a result of <a href="https://kaplanhecker.app.box.com/s/xc1v5gjnmk4ndku1s2n2n1net4fwczeh">gender bias and its focus on making money</a>.</p>
<p>The NCAA and its corporate partners would like you to believe that their organization is the be-all and end-all of college sports. </p>
<p>But the story of the AIAW – created by and for women, rejecting the crass commercialism of the NCAA and empowering student-athletes to speak up – offers ideas for a more equitable future for college sports.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diane Williams does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Before being pushed aside by the NCAA, the AIAW, which was designed for and by women, governed women’s college athletics.Diane Williams, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, McDaniel CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2218662024-02-19T19:04:04Z2024-02-19T19:04:04Z‘I was who I wasn’t’: McKenzie Wark’s memoir of late transition envisions a less gender-restrictive world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576367/original/file-20240219-24-miu7bl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C2404%2C1193&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">McKenzie Wark.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MackenzieWark1.jpg">BaixaCultura, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>McKenzie Wark is a cultural and social critic who teaches at the New School in New York. Her new memoir, <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/3113-love-and-money-sex-and-death">Love and Money, Sex and Death</a>, is structured as a series of letters to people she has known: her younger self, her mother and sister, her ex-wife of 20 years, more recent lovers, some fictional people – even a god. </p>
<p>In this series of letters, Wark speaks to her past and imagines possible futures. She muses about how her life has changed since coming out as transgender in 2017 at the age of 56, but she also writes evocatively and fiercely about the loss of her mother as a child, her life and relationships in New York, and her visions for a less gender-restrictive world. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Love and Money, Sex and Death: A Memoir – McKenzie Wark (Verso)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>This is a book which has a lot to say about being trans, but it deliberately avoids becoming a linear story of discovery of a “true” self. Instead, Wark shows us how a “self” is made from its relationships, through “fights and feuds”, through “covens of care”. There is a continual sense of her reconstructing herself through and with others. </p>
<p>This is conveyed in the style and form of the book. Part of the beauty of an epistolary memoir is that Wark gets to write throughout in the second person, giving the book a feeling of intimacy. The concept of “writing to a younger self” in the first and last chapters allows Wark to reconstruct a life in hindsight, retro-engineering the story to fit her late change of identity. </p>
<p>This is done with a light touch. Wark writes to her younger self as to another, someone she knows well, but who has their own problems, perspectives and choices. Stories of the past are as much “about” the present self as the facts of what actually happened. Wark writes: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When one transitions to another sex, the past comes back as if in a different medium. Memories tell not of who one was but who one wasn’t. I was who I wasn’t for the longest time. Transition brings rushes of the past back. Shots for an incomplete home movie. I had to edit memory as I edited flesh.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These “edited memories” are told in ways that foreshadow, without reducing to, any story of “I was always a woman”. Wark complains that trans people are always pushed to tell essentialist stories about their gender. She presents her life as a series of encounters and experiments, which happened to turn out this way, but might have gone another. “I’m writing this to your own future, or a possible one at least,” she writes on the first page, addressing a young McKenzie.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m not going to say you are a girl, or that you always were. You’ve been reading transsexual memoirs on the sly already and not finding yourself in that ‘born in the wrong body’ story. You feel like your body is already a girl’s body. […]
Maybe some sorts of transsexual people ‘always knew’, but you didn’t. You’re always swerving, blindly falling through gender.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Wark’s vulnerability and openness about failures, letting people down, not knowing the plot, is part of the book’s aesthetic. But this does not make it a sad story, even as it canvasses death and failed love. As Jack Halberstam argues in <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-queer-art-of-failure">The Queer Art of Failure</a>, failure can open up alternate possibilities for life and love. </p>
<p>Wark is often cynical about the future: “There’s no past, no arcadia. But no future either.” All the same, the book carries the strong themes of care and desire for revolution or utopia, which make it a deeply optimistic work.</p>
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<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/judith-butler-their-philosophy-of-gender-explained-192166">Judith Butler: their philosophy of gender explained</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Vulnerability and receptivity</h2>
<p>While not sure she was always a woman, Wark writes that she “need[s] to feel feminine”. This does not just mean that she needs to paint her nails (although that, too). It is an overtly sexual “femme” desire: to be exposed, penetrated, made to feel her own vulnerability, openness and receptivity. </p>
<p>One of the things the book does is to enact the queer understanding that this “femme” does not need to be the property of people of any particular gender. Even though she has transitioned into womanhood, Wark maintains a deliberate blurriness about what gender means. Ultimately, she suggests, there can be more revolutionary potential in failing to live up to a single gendered identity than in trying to achieve authenticity. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I wouldn’t say that being trans now is living my truth. I’d say it’s a better fiction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the first chapter of part three, McKenzie and “Veronica”, an elegant trans woman friend, talk over lunch in an expensive New York restaurant. Amid cocktails, disagreements and speculations about the other guests’ sexuality, McKenzie presents a full-fledged theory of trans women as utopian avant-garde. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The trans woman bears the burden of the absurdity of gender. She is the scapegoat for what everyone imagines they’re denied. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Precisely because trans women are accused of being deceptive, Wark suggests, they can lead towards a world where people are not constantly in thrall to unattainable “true” models of gender, but instead “make our being together with reference only to each other”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576411/original/file-20240219-22-andlwy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">McKenzie Wark.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/photo/author/60623.McKenzie_Wark">Goodreads</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The “Venus” chapter is addressed to a Black trans woman friend who committed suicide during COVID lockdown. It reports on the Brooklyn Liberation for Trans Lives protests for Black trans women. Here, Wark reflects that she has given up her status as a man, but become a middle-class white woman, a “Karen” (a name she had previously chosen for herself). </p>
<p>Following from the scenes in expensive New York restaurants, this (inevitably) feels a bit tokenistic at first. It finishes, though, in such a blaze of anger and ragged grief, of political will for revolution, connection and shared fate that we can glimpse a form of alliance that might be possible when the privileged are prepared to let themselves be undone. </p>
<p>The “hindsight” structure of the memoir means that the reader is always aware of time. Wark counts the years between herself and her past, herself and her future. “Your life as a woman will be brief,” she says to her younger self. “She’ll die young.”</p>
<p>In many ways this is a book about growing older. It addresses the themes of maturing and how priorities in relationships change over time: the gaining of a warmer, less anxious perspective. </p>
<p>Time was necessary for Wark to become her (if that is what she has done) self. The “trade-off with late transition” is ever-present, for better and worse. There is an insistent sense of time shortening ahead of her. But as with her sense of gender, Wark’s sense of time is fluid, often felt through music – jazz when she was younger, rave and ambient later. Time is felt in Wark’s writing, more than measured. It has a music of its own.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How long have we been here? How long are we dancing? […] We are in a pocket in time where there’s more time […] We go into weightless days, seconds, millennia. On the other side of the measure of beats is a time without measure.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576336/original/file-20240218-22-cja5ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">McKenzie Wark’s new memoir is fast moving and kaleidoscopic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nito/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-essentialism-and-how-does-it-shape-attitudes-to-transgender-people-and-sexual-diversity-203577">What is essentialism? And how does it shape attitudes to transgender people and sexual diversity?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Freedom and joy</h2>
<p>Wark often assumes an educated reader. Phrases like “This was postmodern aesthetics as Oedipal break-up” will make sense to some readers, but not others. Wark draws on her career as a media theorist, but is also happy to laugh at her “weird brain labour”. There are many funny (although still sometimes painful) moments. Of the dating app Tinder, she writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>when I say I’m trans, they say it’s OK because they’re into kink. (Then ghost me.) They say they have several selves, only one of them female. (They all need a bath.)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One of the delicious things in this book is the sense of freedom that it invokes. Wark has lived a life of experimentation, following impulses, paying little heed to social conventions. She acknowledges that, at times, this has made her unreliable or even cruel. She does not shy away from responsibility and regret. But overall there is a sense of joy: a “capacity for delight”, as she says of a lover. At heart, these letters are love letters. </p>
<p>There is always more in a book than you can convey in a review, especially a book as fast-moving and kaleidoscopic as this one. But it could perhaps be summarised as a book written from the other side of multiple processes of undoing – loss of loved ones, restructuring of the body and identity, confrontations with violence and prejudice. </p>
<p>Love and Money, Sex and Death ricochets between sparkling defiance, unravelled grief, and furious hope. It always seeks connection with the others it addresses. It combines the personal and political through a philosophy of intimate coalition, in the name of a world where all can find a home and freedom. It’s a fun, wild, devastating ride. Read it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Love and Money, Sex and Death ricochets between sparkling defiance, unravelled grief, and furious hope.Anna Szorenyi, Lecturer in Gender Studies, University of AdelaideCambrey Payne, PhD candidate, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231702024-02-13T16:22:48Z2024-02-13T16:22:48ZThe real threat to gender-diverse children is the politicization of care issues like puberty blockers and detransition<p>Under the pretext of protecting children, Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-transgender-puberty-blockers-1.7107486">said he is opposed</a> to the use of puberty blockers for gender-diverse children.</p>
<p>“I think that we should protect children and their ability to make adult decisions when they’re adults,” Poilievre said.</p>
<p>Poilievre is one among many politicians to wade into debates surrounding gender-affirming health care in recent years. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/danielle-smith-unveils-sweeping-changes-to-alberta-s-student-gender-identity-sports-and-surgery-policies-1.7101053">proposed controversial policies that would affect gender-diverse youth</a>, including prohibiting puberty blockers for children aged 15 and under.</p>
<p>But the growth of politicization and misinformation on this issue — on top of already <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479899371/trans-medicine/">longstanding ideological battles</a> over the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/closing-of-camh-clinic-fans-controversy-over-gender-questioning-children/article_ba7595a8-f367-53bc-bc8e-f19555880bf4.html">care of minors</a> — probably pose a bigger threat to gender-diverse people than puberty blockers.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pablo-Exposito-Campos">We are researchers</a> who study the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BH8jEdkAAAAJ&hl=en">experiences of transgender</a> and gender-diverse people who have accessed gender-affirming health care. <a href="https://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender/2014/09/17/photos-meet-first-trans-man-win-gay-games-gold-powerlifting#:%7E:text=Last%2520month%252C%2520Kinnon,before%2520the%2520competition.">One of us is transgender</a> and also a parent. And <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9qiUwT0AAAAJ&hl=es">we are among a few</a> who also research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-073584">detransitioning</a> — the process of discontinuing or reversing a gender transition. </p>
<p>We both personally know countless people who have been helped by transitioning, as well as others who were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0293868">let down by the promises of gender-related treatments</a> that can have <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10281751/alberta-says-it-consulted-widely-in-drafting-controversial-transgender-rights-policy/">life-altering consequences</a>.</p>
<p>We have noticed that what is presented as “fact” in these debates has distorted real complexities of gender-affirming health care, creating a rift between conservative and progressive information outlets. The result has left many in the dark about what is really at stake.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GmzDMeLLPPA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre speaks to the media about puberty blockers and trans children.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Fertility and gender-affirming medicine</h2>
<p>Take the <em>New York Times</em> as an example. Two opinion columnists recently wrote about gender-affirming care for minors, making drastically different remarks about the fertility implications of this care. </p>
<p>Opinion columnist <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/opinion/politics/life-without-regret.html#:%7E:text=Most%2520chilling%2520to,become%2520biological%2520parents.">Lydia Polgreen</a> asserted that it is a “mistaken belief” that infertility routinely results from treatments for gender-diverse children, while <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/opinion/transgender-children-gender-dysphoria.html#:%7E:text=hormone%2520therapy%2520discontinue%2520its%2520use%2520within%2520four%2520years%252C%2520though%2520the%2520effects%252C%2520including%2520infertility%252C%2520are%2520often%2520irreversible.">Pamela Paul</a>, writing about detransition, claimed that hormonal therapy causes “often irreversible” infertility.</p>
<p>But the reality of fertility and gender-affirming treatments is in the details. Research on fertility outcomes is lackluster to begin with, but outcomes are highly sensitive to whether <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-8553202">puberty blockers were taken prior to starting cross-sex hormones and the stage of puberty</a>.</p>
<p>For children who start puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones without ever undergoing natal puberty, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5979264/#:%7E:text=The%20Endocrine%20Society,cross%2Dsex%20hormones.">infertility is presumed</a> because reproductive maturity is not achieved, and saving sperm or eggs for the future is <a href="https://transcare.ucsf.edu/guidelines/fertility#:%7E:text=Currently%2520it%2520is,undergoing%2520natal%2520puberty.">not possible</a> with current assisted reproductive technologies. However, for transgender people who begin cross-sex hormones after undergoing at least some natal puberty, fertility does not seem to be permanently affected. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.xcrm.2022.100858">Early</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2022.0023">research</a> indicates that for those who went through natal puberty, taking cross-sex hormones alone is <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/fertility-treatment-trans_ca_5ddeebdce4b00149f728e7c0#:%7E:text=The%2520actual%2520egg,whenever%2520we%2520are.">unlikely to cause permanent sterility</a>.</p>
<h2>Puberty blockers</h2>
<p>The history of transgender medicine and reproductive rights has been fraught with injustice. When puberty blockers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-011-9758-9">were first tested for use with gender dysphoric youth</a>, transgender adults were being coercively sterilized. In 2014, the Netherlands struck down a policy requiring <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/01/netherlands-apologizes-transgender-sterilizations#:%7E:text=The%20Dutch%20government%20has%20apologized%20to%20transgender%20people%20for%20previously%20mandating%20surgeries%2C%20including%20sterilization%2C%20as%20a%20prerequisite%20for%20legal%20gender%20recognition.%20During%20a%20Cabinet%20meeting%20this%20week%2C%20government%20officials%20also%20announced%20plans%20to%20compensate%20people%20who%20underwent%20the%20operations.">sterilizing surgeries to legally change genders and paid out financial reparations as an apology</a>.</p>
<p>Pediatric gender medicine is a <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/gender-affirming-care-for-adolescents-separating-political-polarization-from-medicine">relatively new field</a>, and while the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-med-043021-032007">evidence base is growing steadily</a> it also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.16791">shows its novelty</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, fertility is not the only issue at stake with puberty blockers. There are uncertain <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2018.1557284">impacts on bone health, neurodevelopment and social development</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/15/magazine/gender-therapy.html#:%7E:text=Shrier%2520also%2520quoted,stage%2520of%2520development.">sexual function</a> — issues clinicians and researchers are paying close attention to. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mother and child and a doctor seen from behind" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575131/original/file-20240212-22-do3611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575131/original/file-20240212-22-do3611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575131/original/file-20240212-22-do3611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575131/original/file-20240212-22-do3611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575131/original/file-20240212-22-do3611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575131/original/file-20240212-22-do3611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575131/original/file-20240212-22-do3611.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poilievre gives the wrong impression by saying that ‘we should protect the rights of parents to make their own decision with regards to their children,’ because, given the age of the child, parents are typically involved in the decision to start puberty blockers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A team of Dutch clinicians who were among the first to offer transgender children puberty blockers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdac029">recently acknowledged</a> that these drugs may not be just a “pause button” to explore identity, as originally intended. Instead, they should be thought of as the first step of a medical gender transition, because a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jsxmed/qdac029">majority eventually go on to take hormonal treatments</a>.</p>
<p>But there are also major <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192895400.003.0008">consequences involved in delaying or withholding treatment with puberty blockers</a>, which could hurt transgender girls more than boys. Testosterone’s effects on the body can be difficult to reverse, so undergoing a masculinizing puberty could render transfeminine kids more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-022-01632-5">vulnerable to future anti-trans discrimination</a>. Irreversible body changes from puberty can not only heighten distress and reduce social acceptance, but also contribute to a need for future surgeries.</p>
<p>Given that puberty may occur as early as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/science/early-puberty-medical-reason.html#:%7E:text=But%2520the%2520study,observed%2520in%2520boys.">eight or nine years old</a> for some children, this is a high-stakes medical decision never taken lightly by families or clinicians. <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-transgender-puberty-blockers-1.7107486">Poilievre gives the wrong impression</a> by saying that “we should protect the rights of parents to make their own decision with regards to their children,” because, given the age of the child, parents are typically involved in the decision to start puberty blockers.</p>
<p>However, there is <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2024-16010-001">always some risk of getting it wrong</a> — in either direction.</p>
<h2>Detransition debate</h2>
<p>Puberty-blocking drugs are not the only politicized topic in gender-affirming health care. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2022-073584">Detransition also tops the list</a>. </p>
<p>On one side, opponents of gender-affirming care distort studies to argue detransition has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/02/opinion/transgender-children-gender-dysphoria.html#:%7E:text=Studies%2520show%2520that%2520around%2520eight%2520in%252010%2520cases%2520of%2520childhood%2520gender%2520dysphoria%2520resolve%2520themselves%2520by%2520puberty%2520and%252030%2520percent%2520of%2520people%2520on%2520hormone%2520therapy%2520discontinue%2520its%2520use%2520within%2520four%2520years%252C">reached epidemic proportions</a> and draw from testimonies of regretful detransitioners as a “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/stop-mutilation-girls-gender-affirming-care#:%7E:text=Yet%2520the%2520harrowing%2520stories%2520of%2520former%2520trans%252Didentified%2520individuals%2520serve%2520as%2520a%2520cautionary%2520tale%2520against%2520medical%2520transitioning">cautionary tale against medical transitioning</a>.” </p>
<p>Proponents retort by dismissing detransition either by alluding to its <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/gender-affirming-care-what-it-means-and-why-its-in-the-news#:%7E:text=However%252C%2520research%2520says,of%2520family%2520support">“rarity,” using outdated</a> and <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2024/02/transgender-youth-health-care-regret-pamela-paul-nyt-data.html">flawed studies</a>, or by <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/gender-affirming-care-what-it-means-and-why-its-in-the-news#:%7E:text=Detransitioning%2520or%2520reversing,related%2520care%2520needs.">decoupling the experience from regret</a>.</p>
<p>As a result, the public is exposed to two different sets of “facts,” none of which reflect the heterogeneity that we and others have encountered in <a href="https://slate.com/technology/2023/12/trans-health-care-detransition-research-studies-new.html">researching detransition</a> — different <a href="https://actaspsiquiatria.es/index.php/actas/article/view/36">psychological, medical and social motives</a> for detransitioning; a range of emotions including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2402">regret, resilience, and satisfaction</a>; expansive patterns of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224499.2023.2244926">identity discovery and fluidity</a>. All of it must be studied for gender-related medical care to continue being evidence-informed.</p>
<p>But threats, or outright restrictions, from politicians will not advance this care. What is badly needed from governments is investments in higher quality research and systems of care so treatments can be accessed in the safest possible terms. There are currently gaps in the <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293868#:%7E:text=We%20found%20that,accessing%2C%20care%20services.">Canadian gender-affirming care system</a> affecting access, quality, and safety.</p>
<h2>Guidelines, dilemmas and the need for high-quality research</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A stethoscope and a transgender flag in the shape of a heart" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575130/original/file-20240212-18-4obcs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575130/original/file-20240212-18-4obcs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575130/original/file-20240212-18-4obcs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575130/original/file-20240212-18-4obcs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575130/original/file-20240212-18-4obcs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575130/original/file-20240212-18-4obcs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575130/original/file-20240212-18-4obcs3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Debate should not centre on whether to ban treatments or not, but how to build an accessible and high-quality health and social care system that can support all gender-diverse people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This area of health care already <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2022.2100644">has guidelines</a> developed through a review of the evidence and <a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/gender-affirming-care-for-adolescents-separating-political-polarization-from-medicine#:%7E:text=In%2520September%25202022,in%2520the%2520process.">international expert consensus</a>. But that does not mean the science is settled or that the medicine has no room for improvement.</p>
<p>Gender-affirming care is riddled <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10508-018-1287-3">with ethical</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-020-01762-3">dilemmas</a> that have <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/bell-v-tavistock-transgender-health-care.html#:%7E:text=There%2520are%2520signs,after%2520anguishing%2520month.">spilled over into an explosive political situation</a>. The changing landscape of transgender health care, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/apa.16791">debates about puberty blockers</a> and <a href="https://www.nysun.com/article/lawsuits-by-regretful-detransitioners-take-aim-at-medical-establishments-support-for-gender-transition-treatments-for-minors">detransition</a> are all low-hanging fruit for opportunistic politicians like Poilievre.</p>
<p>On the polarization of these topics, anthropologist and medical doctor <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-8553202">Sahar Sadjadi</a> — who <a href="https://doi.org/10.14506/ca34.1.10">studied in-depth some of the first American pediatric gender clinics</a> — wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It is tempting to take the opposite position of one’s enemy, by defending all medical interventions currently associated with gender transition in children and insisting that they are safe and save children’s lives.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But by not being able to tolerate some of the unknowns, or banning treatments outright, we miss a crucial opportunity to advance knowledge that is needed to help gender-diverse children and their families.</p>
<p>Debate should not centre on whether to ban blockers, but on how to build a high-quality health and social care system that can support all gender-diverse people. Doing so depends on our collective ability to tolerate complexity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223170/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kinnon R. MacKinnon receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
He is a member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pablo Expósito-Campos receives funding from the Predoctoral Research Fellowship Program of the Government of the Basque Country, Spain. He is a student member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and a member of the "Gonad, identity, and sexual differentiation" Working Group of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (GT-GIDSEEN).</span></em></p>On both sides of the transgender care debate, what is presented as ‘fact’ distorts real complexities of gender-affirming health care, leaving many in the dark about what is really at stake.Kinnon R. MacKinnon, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, York University, CanadaPablo Expósito-Campos, Predoctoral researcher in Psychology, Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko UnibertsitateaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2228972024-02-11T19:07:44Z2024-02-11T19:07:44ZHILDA data show women’s job prospects improving relative to men’s, and the COVID changes might have helped<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574298/original/file-20240208-30-m3prdb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=215%2C257%2C3550%2C1856&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/business-people-shaking-hands-finishing-meeting-605124179">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest <a href="https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/hilda/publications/hilda-statistical-reports">HILDA survey</a> shows Australia’s gender gap in employment continuing to close, with progress beginning on the earnings gap. </p>
<p>Remarkably, the progress has continued notwithstanding the disruptions caused by COVID; there are indications they may even have helped.</p>
<p>Funded by the Australian government and managed by the Melbourne Institute, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey is one of Australia’s most valuable social research tools.</p>
<p>HILDA examined the lives of 14,000 Australians in 2001 and has kept coming back each year to discover what has changed. By surveying their children as well, and in future surveying their grandchildren, it is building up a long-term picture of how the lives of Australians are changing.</p>
<h2>Employment lifting</h2>
<p>The full span of the surveys through to the results for 2021 released this morning shows shows the proportion of women aged 18 to 64 in paid employment climbed from 64.3% in 2001 to 74.1% in 2019 before dipping during COVID and then bouncing back.</p>
<p>Separate labour force figures collected by the Bureau of Statistics suggest it might be as high as <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/employment-and-unemployment/labour-force-australia-detailed/dec-2023#all-data-downloads">76%</a> by now, indicating that COVID may have merely dented rather than turned back progress.</p>
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<p>For men of that age, the proportion in paid employment has changed little during those two decades, fluctuating between 80% and 84%, allowing the gap in employment between men and women to narrow eight percentage points.</p>
<p>Older women aged 65 to 69 are also much more likely to be employed. Most of the gain has taken place since 2009 when one in ten women of that age were in paid employment, a figure that has since climbed to one in four, not too far off the one in three men of that age employed.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/older-women-are-doing-remarkable-things-its-time-for-putdowns-to-end-199500">Older women are doing remarkable things – it's time for putdowns to end</a>
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<p>Much of the increase would be due to the phased increase in the female pension age between <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/SuperChron">1995 and 2004</a> and the further increase in both the male and female pension age between <a href="https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/wayne-swan-2007/media-releases/secure-and-sustainable-pension-reform-age-pension-age">2017 and 2023</a>. Broader social and economic changes such as the increase in two-earner couples will have also played a role.</p>
<p>While men remain well ahead in full-time employment, that gap is narrowing too. The proportion of women aged 18 to 64 employed full-time has climbed from around 35% to around 40% while the proportion for men has stayed close to 70%.</p>
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<p><a href="https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/2874177/HILDA-report_Low-Res_10.10.18.pdf">Previous HILDA reports</a> have shown the arrival of children remains an important driver of divergence in the labour market experiences of men and women.</p>
<p>The arrival of a couple’s first child sees hours of paid work of the mother plummet and in many cases not recover for more than a decade. It has almost no effect on the paid working time of fathers. </p>
<p>Time spent on housework and child care, by contrast, rises dramatically for mothers and actually falls slightly for fathers.</p>
<p>If the gender gap in employment is to be eliminated, it is clear couples with children will need to share the load more equally. </p>
<h2>Wages lifting</h2>
<p>Male and female earnings have been converging slower than male and female employment, but the pace has picked up.</p>
<p>In 2001, women employed full-time earned on average 79% of what men earned. As recently as 2016, they still earned only 78% of what men earned. </p>
<p>But, since then, their earnings relative to male earnings have shot up, hitting 86% in 2021. </p>
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<p>The gap in earnings of all employees – full-time and part-time – is greater because women are more likely to be employed part-time, but growth in the number of women employed full-time means this gap is closing faster. Average female earnings have climbed from 66% of male earnings in 2001 to 75% in 2021.</p>
<h2>How COVID might have helped</h2>
<p>While the pandemic seemed to hurt women’s employment prospects <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/womens-work/">more</a> than men’s, longer term it seems to be improving the relative position of women.</p>
<p>HILDA shows the proportion of employees working from home in 2020 and 2021 has increased substantially. </p>
<p>The proportion working any hours at home climbed from 25.1% in 2019 to 37.3% in 2021. The proportion working only at home climbed from 3.5% to 17.7%. </p>
<p>There has also been a sizeable rise in the proportion of employees reporting an entitlement to work from home, from 35% in 2019 to 45%. </p>
<p>While the increases were greatest in the regions that experienced extensive lockdowns – Victoria, NSW and the ACT – working from home increased in almost all parts of Australia.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hilda-finds-working-from-home-boosts-womens-job-satisfaction-more-than-mens-and-that-has-a-downside-195641">HILDA finds working from home boosts women's job satisfaction more than men's, and that has a downside</a>
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<p>HILDA shows women have been more likely to work from home than men since COVID, even after accounting for differences in the occupations and industries in which they work.</p>
<p>This is probably because of an increase in the number and types of jobs that can be worked at home by mothers with caring responsibilities. </p>
<p>But this latest 2021 HILDA survey also reveals another gender gap in the labour market: women are more likely to work while unwell, including working at the workplace while unwell. </p>
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<p>There are health risks from working from home while unwell and also career risks from working at home. Being physically present in the workplace is likely to assist with <a href="https://theconversation.com/hilda-finds-working-from-home-boosts-womens-job-satisfaction-more-than-mens-and-that-has-a-downside-195641">career advancement</a>.</p>
<p>“Out of sight” can mean “out of mind” when it comes to promotions.</p>
<h2>Some small steps on sharing the caring</h2>
<p>Also providing a glimmer of hope for closing the gender gaps in the labour market is that, among parents with children, we’ve seen an increase in the time men have been spending on household chores and looking after the children. </p>
<p>The improvement accelerated slightly in 2020 and 2021, via both an increase in the hours worked on domestic chores by men and a slight decrease for women. </p>
<p>But there is a long way to go. In 2021, mothers of dependent children were still spending 75% more time on unpaid housework and child care than their male partners.</p>
<p>The mothers spent <a href="https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/hilda/publications/hilda-statistical-reports">53 hours</a> per week. Their male partners spent 30 hours.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hilda-survey-at-a-glance-7-charts-reveal-were-smoking-less-taking-more-drugs-and-still-binge-drinking-223004">HILDA survey at a glance: 7 charts reveal we're smoking less, taking more drugs and still binge drinking</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222897/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Wilkins receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The gender wage and employment gaps are narrowing, and working from home is helping drive the change.Roger Wilkins, Professorial Fellow and Deputy Director (Research), HILDA Survey, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2210782024-02-08T13:40:56Z2024-02-08T13:40:56ZThe myth of men’s full-time employment<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572004/original/file-20240129-25-80mw1z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C46%2C5114%2C3478&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">He's not alone.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businessman-made-redundant-royalty-free-image/643678742">Image Bank/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Men’s employment in the U.S. reached a 20-year high in 2023, with <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2023/october/mens-falling-labor-force-participation-across-generations/">nearly 90%</a> of men ages 25 to 54 in the workforce, according to <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/labor-force-participation-rate-for-people-ages-25-to-54-in-may-2023-highest-since-january-2007.htm#:%7E:text=Among%20men%20ages%2025%20to,pandemic%20level%20in%20April%202023.">the Bureau of Labor Statistics</a>. This supports the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243216649946">broad expectation</a> – some might say stereotype – that full-time employment is the norm for American men. </p>
<p>Yet examining employment at a single point in time leaves out important information about whether people are able to maintain stable work. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231197031">Our recent study</a> of male baby boomers’ working lives – spanning more than two decades – tells a very different story. </p>
<p>In fact, men’s labor force participation has been <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001">steadily declining</a> since the 1970s, and workers are experiencing greater labor market precarity – that is, shorter job spells, greater job insecurity and more long-term unemployment. </p>
<p>In our research <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VoDOQ44AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">as experts</a> in the study of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zTqwiBYAAAAJ&hl=en">people’s employment</a> over time, we have <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-016-0464-z">previously challenged the myth</a> that most women “opt out” of the workforce, establishing that the majority of women work steadily and full time. That led us to suspect that the picture of men’s employment could also be incomplete.</p>
<p>To understand these long-term trends, we studied data from about 4,500 men collected over more than 25 years. We were looking for patterns in the amount of time these men spent employed, unemployed and looking for work, and out of the workforce and not looking for work. </p>
<p>We were surprised to find that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231197031">only 41%</a> of late baby boomer men – those who were between 14 and 21 years old in 1979 – worked steadily and continuously, which we defined as working almost every week of the year between ages 27 and 49. This is a cohort of men who were widely thought to have taken a “<a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Career_Mystique/dIDgkBiqMO8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=phyllis+moen+roehling&pg=PP13&printsec=frontcover">lockstep</a>” approach to work: entering the labor market when they finished their schooling and remaining employed until retirement.</p>
<p>We found most men didn’t fit this stereotype. About a quarter didn’t reach steady employment until they were nearly 50. Another quarter either found themselves increasingly unemployed and out of work as they aged or able to find only intermittent work. Finally, a smaller group of men left the labor market entirely – some leaving paid work at relatively young ages, while others leaving as they reached middle age.</p>
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<h2>Problems with precarity</h2>
<p>We don’t know exactly why these men followed such a wide range of work patterns during what economists call their “prime earning years.” But we think increasing labor market precarity – which researchers say is driven in large part by <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_State_of_Working_America/WdM77z0HUcAC?hl=en&gbpv=0">increases in layoffs</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjab012">decreases in unionization</a> – played a big role. </p>
<p>For example, we found that men who worked as “<a href="https://usa.ipums.org/usa/volii/occ1980.shtml#operator">operators, fabricators and laborers</a>” or in “<a href="https://usa.ipums.org/usa/volii/occ1980.shtml#precision">precision production, craft and repairs</a>” were at greater risk of unemployment. These are jobs that provided our own grandfathers with good, well-paying work, but they are also jobs that have become <a href="https://arnekalleberg.web.unc.edu/books/good-jobs-bad-jobs/">increasingly rare</a> since the 1970s.</p>
<p>We also found that men were at greater risk if they lived in counties with a higher unemployment rate or in states with more unionized jobs when they first entered the labor market. That latter point likely put them at greater risk of job loss <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023116656847">when those jobs went overseas</a> in the 1980s and 1990s.</p>
<p>Men who experienced unemployment, more job turnover before the age of 25 or transportation barriers to finding a good job also followed less steady work patterns, suggesting that they may have been forced to take “bad jobs” that provided fewer opportunities to move up the ladder or to earn a living wage.</p>
<p>Our findings paint a troubling portrait of employment in America. If this kind of unsteady employment characterizes the work patterns of the baby-boom generation, what awaits those of us who follow them? Is there anything we can do about it?</p>
<h2>Ideas for improvement</h2>
<p>The good news is there are solutions for workers, employers and the federal government. Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231231197031">research</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/07308884231162949">shows</a> that a college degree could protect men from the risk of unemployment or time out of work. The government can support this goal by <a href="https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/academy/multimedia/pdfs/publications/researchpapersmonographs/CFUE_Economic-Impact/CFUE_Economic-Impact.pdf">making college more affordable for workers</a>, as the current administration has <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/29/a-proclamation-on-national-college-application-month-2021/">proposed doing</a>. </p>
<p>For employers, our findings suggest that making work less precarious – in other words, making it more stable, with better pay and more schedule control – would be a win-win proposition. Research suggests that employers consistently <a href="https://hbr.org/2019/06/the-financial-case-for-good-retail-jobs">underestimate the costs</a> of losing employees. Given how hard it’s been for employers to stay fully staffed – especially in retail and service work – making jobs more appealing to workers could pay off in terms of retention. </p>
<p>Walmart, for instance, has <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/12/the-right-thing-to-do">increased pay and schedule control</a> for its workers. Such moves have been shown to benefit both the employers, through the <a href="https://equitablegrowth.org/improving-u-s-labor-standards-and-the-quality-of-jobs-to-reduce-the-costs-of-employee-turnover-to-u-s-companies/">reduction in employee turnover costs</a>, and the employees, through improved work conditions and work benefits.</p>
<p>The government could also implement policy changes, such as the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/20">Protecting the Right to Organize Act</a>, to promote workers’ right to unionization, since unionization is consistently linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2017.08.003">higher wages</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122411414817">lower levels of inequality</a>. </p>
<p>We don’t think the U.S. needs the jobs that our grandfathers held to return; instead, it needs to turn today’s available jobs into good jobs. The recent National Labor Relations Board “<a href="https://www.nlrb.gov/sites/default/files/attachments/pages/node-9558/joint-employer-fact-sheet-2023.pdf">joint employer</a>” ruling, for example, should do this by making it easier for workers at national chains to unionize across franchises, which could improve the working conditions of millions of people in the service industry.</p>
<p>Finally, government can take action to make unemployment a less miserable experience. Our findings, both here and elsewhere, suggest that unemployment does considerable harm to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/07308884231162949">workers’ careers</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08982643221091775">and health</a>. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/section-5-benefit-levels-increase-ui-benefits-to-levels-working-families-can-survive-on/">Reforming the current unemployment insurance</a> system by expanding eligibility and creating progressive wage replacement rates may make it easier for workers to <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w27574">find jobs that better fit their skill set</a>, which <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Tolls_of_Uncertainty/DkgHEAAAQBAJ?hl=en">our research</a> suggests could help them return to stable employment.</p>
<p>Our findings are the canary in a coal mine. They suggest that for future generations, steady employment may be a thing of the past. But the good news is that we can heed the warning and take steps to give everyone access to better jobs and more stable employment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Damaske receives/has received funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, the American Sociological Association, and the Pennsylvania State University and its Population Research Institute.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrianne Frech has received funding from the National Institutes of Health.</span></em></p>Think the norm is to join the workforce straight after school, work for five decades and then retire? Think again.Sarah Damaske, Professor of Sociology and Labor and Employment Relations, Penn StateAdrianne Frech, Associate Professor of Population Health, Ohio UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2202072024-02-06T21:56:31Z2024-02-06T21:56:31ZThe motherhood pay gap: Why women’s earnings decline after having children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572551/original/file-20240131-19-fg2aeg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=760%2C416%2C7407%2C5003&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The birth of children results in large earnings losses that are not equally distributed within heterosexual couples.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Inequalities between men and women persist in many areas, with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1787/4ead40c7-en">women still earning less than men on average</a>. An even more striking difference is the “motherhood pay gap” that happens when women have children. Also known as the “family gap” or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20180010">child penalties</a>, women’s earnings plummet after the birth of a child, while men’s barely budge.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.12.1.137">Many studies</a> have investigated the causes of gender inequalities and concluded that women have been unable to catch up to the earnings level of men in part <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/684851">because of parenting responsibilities</a>. </p>
<p>Why does this happen? Children have a negative effect on women’s productivity in the labour market by substantially reducing their <a href="https://www.britannica.com/money/human-capital">human capital</a>, which translates into a significant <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/260293">decrease in their earnings</a>. </p>
<p>After the birth of children, mothers tend to turn towards part-time jobs, roles with flexible working hours or positions that offer work conditions more favourable to family life — all of which tend to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/23.5.543">pay lower wages</a>.</p>
<p>Employers, in return, may see part-time employees as less committed and productive, especially when relying on <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/heuristics">heuristics</a> — mental shortcuts for solving problems — to judge worker quality, as opposed to actual information about their performance. This can result in <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2911397">fewer bonuses and promotions</a> for these employees. </p>
<h2>The effects of parenthood</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20180010">Evidence from Denmark</a>, one of the most egalitarian countries in the world, points to a long-term child penalty of around 20 per cent in earnings. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2023-015">Our research</a> reveals a similar situation in Canada. We used data from Statistics Canada’s Longitudinal and International Study of Adults coupled with historical administrative records from 1982 to 2018. </p>
<p>We compared what happened to men’s and women’s earnings after the birth of their first child for Canadians who had their first child between 1987 and 2009. Using an event study methodology, we followed individuals’ employment income over a period of five years before the birth of the child to 10 years after.</p>
<p>We observed large and persistent negative effects of parenthood for mothers, but not fathers. Mothers’ earnings decrease by 49 per cent the year of birth, with a penalty of 34.3 per cent 10 years after. Fathers’ earnings appear largely unaffected.</p>
<h2>Unequal effects of children</h2>
<p>The birth of children results in large earnings losses that are not equally distributed within heterosexual couples. Fathers stay on the same earnings track, while women experience penalties that persist over the years. This is especially true for <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2023-015">mothers of multiple children or those with a lower education level</a>. </p>
<p>This impoverishment triggered by the birth of a child can have significant economic impacts <a href="https://espace.inrs.ca/id/eprint/13576">should the couple separate</a>. In Canada, nearly <a href="https://doi.org/10.25318/3910005101-eng">one-third of marriages</a> end in divorce. </p>
<p>Women are typically <a href="https://doi.org/10.4054/DemRes.2016.35.50">financially disadvantaged</a> following a separation. This disadvantage may be attributable to pre-separation factors, such as the unequal division of labour during the marriage and lower earnings for women, but also to women’s prolonged absences from the labour force due to family responsibilities.</p>
<h2>Equal pay for equal work</h2>
<p>In this context, it’s crucial to ask ourselves if there are measures that could eliminate, or at least reduce, the economic impact associated with family responsibilities on mothers’ earnings and employment. </p>
<p>We investigated the role of family policies, since they were in part designed to encourage maternal employment and promote more equal sharing of parenting responsibilities between partners. </p>
<p>Specifically, we focused on the extension of parental leaves in Canada and the introduction of <a href="https://www.mfa.gouv.qc.ca/en/services-de-garde/programme-contribution-reduite/Pages/index.aspx">reduced contribution child-care services for families in Québec</a>. We found suggestive evidence that these policies can help reduce child penalties. </p>
<p>“Equal pay for equal work” policies, such as the federal government’s <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/services/jobs/workplace/human-rights/overview-pay-equity-act.html">Pay Equity Act</a>, also have the potential to make a substantial difference. These policies can raise the fairness and attractiveness of the labour market for women and reduce the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/jel.20160995">potentially negative impact of experience-based pay</a> for mothers. </p>
<h2>More benefits down the line</h2>
<p>In addition to having a positive effect on the economic situation of women, encouraging employment for mothers could help eliminate the stigma around the division of labour within couples by exposing children to a more symmetrical model of remunerated and unpaid work. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017018760167">recent study</a> using data from 29 countries showed that employed mothers were more likely to transmit egalitarian values to their children both at work and at home. Girls with employed mothers ended up working more themselves: they worked more hours, were better paid and held supervisory positions more often than girls with stay-at-home mothers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A toddler sits on the lap of a women, presumably her mother, in front of a desk. She is smiling and touching a laptop while her mother smiles down at her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573140/original/file-20240202-17-6ybyzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573140/original/file-20240202-17-6ybyzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573140/original/file-20240202-17-6ybyzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573140/original/file-20240202-17-6ybyzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573140/original/file-20240202-17-6ybyzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573140/original/file-20240202-17-6ybyzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573140/original/file-20240202-17-6ybyzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Employed mothers are more likely to transmit egalitarian values to their children both at work and at home.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The result was not observed in boys. However, boys who grew up with employed mothers were more involved in family and domestic responsibilities as adults than men whose mothers were not in the labour market. The girls also spent less time doing household chores. </p>
<p>Working mothers appear to have an intergenerational impact favouring gender equality, both within the family and in the labour market.</p>
<p>We all know raising children is time-consuming. Children, of course, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/675070">benefit from this parental time investment</a>. But bringing up children is also costly. Our research quantified one kind of cost: the lower earnings trajectory. Knowing how these costs are shared among the two parents is key to enable better decision making, for policymakers, but ultimately, for parents, future parents and their children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220207/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marie Connolly received funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture and CIRANO. The analysis in this article was conducted at the Quebec Inter-university Centre for Social Statistics, which is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Statistics Canada, the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture, the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé and Québec universities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Haeck received funding from the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture and CIRANO. The analysis in this article was conducted at the Quebec Inter-university Centre for Social Statistics, which is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Statistics Canada, the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Société et culture, the Fonds de recherche du Québec - Santé and Québec universities.</span></em></p>New research shows that women’s earnings are negatively impacted by having children, while men’s aren’t. The effects can be long-lasting and contribute to the gender pay gap.Marie Connolly, Professor of Economics, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Catherine Haeck, Full Professor, Economics Department, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225792024-02-02T18:51:32Z2024-02-02T18:51:32ZAlberta’s new policies are not only anti-trans, they are anti-evidence<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/albertas-new-policies-are-not-only-anti-trans-they-are-anti-evidence" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>What did Alberta Premier Danielle Smith get wrong in her new anti-trans policies? Spoiler alert — everything. </p>
<p>Let’s spend some time fact-checking Smith. </p>
<p>She recently promised a <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/10255444/alberta-parental-rights-legislation-introduction/">new “parental rights” policy</a> would be introduced by her United Conservative Party government.</p>
<p>Like other experts, <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-parental-rights-legislation-increases-risk-of-harm-for-alberta-students">we worried these policies would mimic the parental rights legislation</a> recently introduced in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.</p>
<p>But we grossly underestimated the breadth of the Alberta measures.</p>
<p>Smith <a href="https://globalnews.ca/video/10264944/danielle-smith-unveils-albertas-proposed-guidelines-on-parental-consent-gender-affirming-care-rules">has unveiled a suite of policies</a> that directly attack trans and gender-diverse children and youth in Alberta. Spanning health care, education and sports, these policies extend well beyond the expected changes to the use of chosen names and pronouns in schools.</p>
<p>Smith intends to implement the most <a href="https://egale.ca/egale-in-action/egale-canada-and-skipping-stone-foundation-condemn-albertas-attack-on-2slgbtqi-people-and-promise-legal-action/">extensive, draconian and unbalanced proposals</a> of any conservative province to date, all under the guise of “preserving choice” for kids. </p>
<p>As we explain below, these policies are at odds with research about gender-affirming care, curriculum and sports. </p>
<p>As a result of ignoring the evidence, these policies could cause significant harm to the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-2021-census-gender-age-dwelling-1.6432469">many transgender and non-binary youth</a> who live in Alberta or access gender-affirming care in the province (like youth from the Northwest Territories, for example).</p>
<h2>Evidence on trans-affirming care</h2>
<p>Smith’s new policy will forbid access to puberty blockers and hormone therapy for the purpose of gender reassignment or affirmation for youth 15 years of age and under, except for those who have already started those treatments. For youth 17 years and under, top and bottom gender reassignment surgeries are not permitted. </p>
<p>This particular policy deliberately spreads disinformation — <a href="https://www.centreforsexuality.ca/learning-centre/transitioning/">parents are already required to give consent</a> for their pubescent children to receive puberty blockers and for teenagers to access hormone replacement therapy. Bottom surgeries are <a href="https://www.grsmontreal.com/en/frequently-asked-questions.html">already restricted to adults</a>. </p>
<p>Puberty blockers slow down the onset of puberty and are often prescribed for <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/precocious-puberty/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20351817#:%7E:text=This%20usually%20involves%20medicine%20called,be%20given%20at%20longer%20intervals.">cisgender girls who experience puberty before 10 years old</a>. </p>
<p>According to <em>Scientific American</em>, puberty blockers have been <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-are-puberty-blockers-and-how-do-they-work/">studied extensively</a> and have been used safely since the 1980s. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5979264/">Any risks</a> associated with puberty blockers are already included in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/26895269.2022.210064">Standards of Care</a> for transgender patients, and are not being prescribed to pubescent youth <a href="https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/an-affirming-approach-to-caring-for-transgender-and-gender-diverse-youth">without careful consultation</a>. </p>
<p>Like all medicines, side effects are a risk but <a href="https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq/article-abstract/7/3/508/166964/The-Vulnerable-Child-Protection-Act-and">researchers caution</a> against <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/joim.13441">fear-mongering</a> in response to gender-affirming care. </p>
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<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.06.012">evidence about trans-affirming health care</a> for youth is clear — it saves lives. Evidence suggests that puberty blockers lead to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542%2Fpeds.2019-1725">positive mental health outcomes</a> and that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s13633-020-00078-2">biggest benefits</a> of gender-affirming hormone therapy (HRT) are realized when <a href="https://www.umass.edu/news/article/gender-affirming-care-can-save-lives-transgender-youth#:%7E:text=Nguyen%20was%20part%20of%20the,at%20age%2014%20or%2015.">HRT is started at age 14 or 15</a>. </p>
<p>Rather than restrict life-saving medical care, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0015028221000820">experts in fertility medicine</a> call for increased accessibility for trans people to fertility services.</p>
<h2>Sex education evidence</h2>
<p>Paralleling <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-parental-rights-law-1.7002088">Saskatchewan</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/gender-identity-policy-713-pronouns-school-1.6954807">New Brunswick</a>, Alberta youth 15 and under now require parental consent to use chosen names and pronouns at school. Notification is required for 16- and 17-year-olds to do so. </p>
<p>Classroom instruction on gender, sexuality and sexual orientation also now requires parental notification and opt-in. Finally, third-party resource materials on gender, sexuality and sexual orientation in schools need to be pre-approved by the ministry to make sure they’re “age-appropriate.”</p>
<p>Education experts agree that what is needed to <a href="https://www.actioncanadashr.org/resources/sexual-health-hub/sex-ed/sex-ed-preventing-violence-and-increasing-safety">protect youth — including cisgender and heterosexual kids — from potential abuse</a> is robust and consent-based sexual health education. Youth have the right to knowledge and skills about their bodies, consent, safe/unsafe touch and healthy relationships. </p>
<p>By creating conditions that could result in youth receiving no or limited information, <a href="https://content.c3p.ca/pdfs/C2K_SportEdition_ParentsGuide_eng.pdf">Smith has put children and youth at greater risk of violence and harm</a>. </p>
<h2>Risk of parental, peer rejection</h2>
<p>Requiring parental consent for youth to use their chosen name and pronouns at school could <a href="https://www.cp24.com/world/saskatchewan-pronoun-policy-doesn-t-do-enough-to-mitigate-harms-say-legal-professors-1.6602093">cause irreparable harm</a>. This process essentially requires schools to “out” youth to their parents, who may reject their children. </p>
<p>Smith incorrectly suggests that <a href="https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/alberta-premier-danielle-smith-discusses-gender-identity-policies?id=5b8e0a28-da27-4f0e-afe4-d771e34fbed1">parental rejection of 2SLGBTQIA+ kids is rare</a>. </p>
<p>According to a Canadian study by The Family Acceptance Project, 30 per cent of families reject their child when they come out, and <a href="https://familyproject.sfsu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/Family%20Acceptance%20Project-rr%20Overview.pdf">many are removed from their homes</a>. Among youth who are homeless, 20 per cent identify as 2SLGBTQIA+. </p>
<p>For those who experience family rejection, the rates of suicide are incredibly high. According to the <a href="https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf">2015 U.S. Transgender Survey</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/27703371.2023.2192177">79 per cent of those rejected by their families experienced suicidal ideation and 43 per cent have made a suicide attempt</a>. </p>
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<h2>Trans athletes evidence</h2>
<p>Smith’s policy will also ban trans girls and women athletes from participating in competitive women’s sports. They will be forced to play in gender-neutral or co-ed divisions.</p>
<p>Yet again, Smith hasn’t listened to the experts. <a href="https://www.cces.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/pdf/transgenderwomenathletesandelitesport-ascientificreview-e-final.pdf">Some scientists maintain</a> that trans women and girls have no <a href="https://www.cces.ca/transgender-women-athletes-and-elite-sport-scientific-review">“biological advantage”</a> over cisgender girls and women. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674725324">book on the topic</a> that reviewed evidence on testosterone determined there is no direct relation between the hormone and athletic performance. It found that while testosterone can be linked to muscle mass and muscle memory, there’s no connection to other capacities like endurance and flexibility.</p>
<p>High levels of athleticism are actually correlated with <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24616603/#:%7E:text=In%20addition%2C%20the%20possession%20of,as%20determinants%20of%20sport%20expertise">coaching and specialized training</a> — including access to competitive leagues — not to “biological sex.” </p>
<p>Trans sports participation is vital for health and well-being. That’s why the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport recommends “<a href="https://cces.ca/sites/default/files/content/docs/pdf/cces-transinclusionpolicyguidance-e.pdf">policies governing the participation of trans athletes should be evidence-based</a>.” According to a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.3266">study published by the <em>Journal of the American Medical Association</em></a>, youth participation in sport is associated with positive physical, mental and emotional well-being.</p>
<p><a href="https://indd.adobe.com/view/publication/40b5fe5b-48b2-48a3-81b2-8ed970144e66/1/publication-web-resources/pdf/Working_Towards_a_Sport_for_Them.pdf">Inclusive sports environments</a> — not segregated leagues — are associated with greater self-esteem and school retention.</p>
<h2>What’s the truth?</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://transpulsecanada.ca/results/report-health-and-well-being-among-trans-and-non-binary-youth/">survey data collected from 2,873 non-binary and trans people in Canada</a>, youth reported high levels of harassment (72 per cent), rejection from family (25 per cent) and suicide ideation (40 per cent). </p>
<p>In contrast, trans youth who are <a href="https://www.glsen.org/activity/inclusive-curriculum-guide">affirmed in schools</a>, <a href="https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc">health care</a> and in <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/lgbtq-participation-in-sports">sports</a> have better <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2023.2285984">self-confidence and relationships with their parents</a>.</p>
<p>Smith has <a href="https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/alberta-premier-danielle-smith-discusses-gender-identity-policies?id=5b8e0a28-da27-4f0e-afe4-d771e34fbed1">incorrectly warned</a> there are risks associated with affirmation and inclusion in schools for trans kids.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-alberta-election-the-stakes-are-high-for-2slgbtq-youth-205966">In the Alberta election, the stakes are high for 2SLGBTQ+ youth</a>
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<p>What the evidence actually demonstrates is what truly puts trans kids at risk are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12405">transphobic, misguided and ill-informed policies and practices</a> that deny them the right to live authentically and to express themselves fully without fear. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/federal-ministers-accuse-alberta-premier-danielle-smith-of-putting-trans-youth-at-risk-1.6751597">Federal cabinet ministers</a> are speaking out against Smith’s proposed restrictions. Ottawa may oppose the policies in court.</p>
<p>In Alberta, Skipping Stone Foundation in Calgary and Egale Canada — advocacy groups for 2SLGBTQI people — have <a href="https://egale.ca/egale-in-action/egale-canada-and-skipping-stone-foundation-condemn-albertas-attack-on-2slgbtqi-people-and-promise-legal-action/">publicly condemned Smith’s policies</a> and have partnered to file a court injunction. </p>
<p>These policies are clearly meant to satisfy Smith’s electoral base, but her government is now going to have to go head-to-head with the experts — and the evidence — in future legal battles. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a story originally published on Friday, Feb. 2. It includes more information on clinical guidelines for the prescription of puberty blockers for the purposes of gender-affirming care.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222579/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Corinne L. Mason receives funding from SSHRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Hamilton receives funding from SSHRC.</span></em></p>Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s anti-trans policies are likely meant to satisfy her base, but her government will now have to go head-to-head with the evidence in future legal battles.Corinne L. Mason, Associate Professor, Women's and Gender Studies, Mount Royal UniversityLeah Hamilton, Professor in the Faculty of Business & Communication Studies, Mount Royal UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2222882024-02-02T03:59:39Z2024-02-02T03:59:39ZAustralia’s young people are moving to the left – though young women are more progressive than men, reflecting a global trend<p>Recent research suggests <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998">a growing gender gap in political leanings</a> around the world. In Gen Z, the youngest voting generation, young women are becoming more progressive than men.</p>
<p>Young Australian women, too, are significantly shifting towards the political left – but so are young Australian men, although at a relatively slower rate. </p>
<p>I’ve analysed data from the Australian Election Study, spanning 1996 to 2022, to find out what’s happening.</p>
<p>Just 24.3% of Millennials born between 1980 and 1994 – 21.9% of men and 25.7% of women – said they voted for the Coalition in 2022, representing the lowest level of support for either major party among younger people in the 35-year history of the Australian Election Study. </p>
<p>A slightly higher proportion of Gen Z voted for the Coalition: 24.6%, with a gender breakdown of 34.0% of men and 19.8% of women. </p>
<p>(These numbers will slightly vary based on exact generational definitions – birth-year boundaries – and whether non-voters are excluded from the analysis.)</p>
<p>I found that Australian Millennial and Gen Z men are more conservative than their female counterparts, but are more progressive than men of previous generations at the same stage of life. Across genders, these generations also report being in the political centre less than previous ones.</p>
<p>This runs counter to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998">reported trends in most countries</a>, where women have been shifting left “while men stand still”. In fact, in some countries like Germany, signs suggest young men are moving right.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-explained-the-seismic-2022-federal-election-the-australian-election-study-has-answers-195286">What explained the seismic 2022 federal election? The Australian Election Study has answers</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A global youth political gender gap</h2>
<p>A substantial global gender gap has opened in the past six years, following decades of roughly equal ideological distribution. Young American women aged 18-30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male peers, according to US Gallup data.</p>
<p>Germany reflects a similar 30-point divide, while the UK sees a 25-point gap. </p>
<p>In 2022, almost half of Polish men aged 18-21 supported the far-right Confederation party, in contrast to just a sixth of women in that age group. In Germany, there are signs young men under 30 are moving towards <a href="https://theconversation.com/german-election-continuing-popularity-of-far-right-afd-has-roots-in-east-west-divide-167844">the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD</a>), actively opposing immigration more than their elders.</p>
<p>The pattern is reflected beyond the West, too. It is evident in China, Tunisia and South Korea – where, in the 2022 election, young men backed the right-wing People Power party and young women backed the liberal Democratic party.</p>
<p>In all these cases, the dramatic divide is either exclusive to the youngest generation or is far more pronounced than the gender gap in older generations. </p>
<h2>How I reached my findings</h2>
<p>After each federal election, the Australian Election Study survey asks respondents to place themselves on an 11-point ideological scale, where 0 is extreme left, 10 is extreme right, and 5 is often interpreted as neither left nor right (the political centre). </p>
<p>I analysed this data, using <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10361146.2021.1899131?scroll=top&needAccess=true">six generational categories</a>.</p>
<p>They were: </p>
<ul>
<li>War generation (born 1920s and came of age during WWII – 1,305 participants)</li>
<li>Builders (born between 1930 and before the end of the WWII – 4,133 participants)</li>
<li>postwar Baby Boomers (born 1946–1960 - 6,651 participants)</li>
<li>Gen X (born 1961-1979 - 5,229 participants)</li>
<li>Millennials or Gen Y (born 1980–1994 - 1,672 participants)</li>
<li>Gen Z (born after 1994 – a smaller size of 264 participants, which requires caution in statistical conclusions).</li>
</ul>
<p>A person’s position on the ideological scale is influenced by their age, gender and education.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/young-australian-voters-helped-swing-the-election-and-could-do-it-again-next-time-184159">Young Australian voters helped swing the election – and could do it again next time</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Women’s move to the left</h2>
<p>In Australia’s 2022 election, the Coalition received its lowest-ever share of the women’s vote – <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-explained-the-seismic-2022-federal-election-the-australian-election-study-has-answers-195286">just 32%</a>. Conversely, the Labor party attracted more women than men (albeit to a lesser extent).</p>
<p>Reasons included a fierce rise in feminist views following the global #MeToo movement, the Liberal government’s poor response to sexual assault claims, and the mistreatment of women within the Liberal party and the parliament.</p>
<p>This reflects the global analysis reported by <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998">The Financial Times</a>: the #MeToo movement has empowered young women worldwide to embrace fiercely feminist values, influencing their political outlook.</p>
<p>But the Coalition’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-explained-the-seismic-2022-federal-election-the-australian-election-study-has-answers-195286">loss of support among women</a> is not isolated to the 2022 election: it’s been happening since the early 2000s. </p>
<p><iframe id="533Jt" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/533Jt/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Men moving left too – but in lower numbers</h2>
<p>My analysis showed women are significantly more likely to be progressive than men. Across generations and political views, the gender gap has widened.</p>
<p>The most recent generation, Gen Z, appears to be the most progressive, with women in particular starkly preferring the left and placing themselves at the centre in dwindling numbers. </p>
<p>However, while Gen Z has more men than women on the right, it has less right-leaning men than any other generation – so it would be wrong to say our young men are rushing to the right, like in <a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/knLPC0YKANCgN1Y8UOBOPl?domain=ft.com">South Korea or Germany</a>. </p>
<p>The Australian data mirrors international trends, with a slight twist. Over the past decades, and across generations, Australian men and women have been moving to the left and away from the right. At the same time, they have moved away from the centre (though this is more pronounced for women). </p>
<p>Despite the gender gap, they are heading in the same direction.</p>
<p><iframe id="mpcnv" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/mpcnv/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Exploring the connection between gender and generation, I tailored my analysis to see what happened when other factors that influence political leanings were taken into account, like educational attainment, marital status and home ownership. </p>
<p><iframe id="Dc8RX" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Dc8RX/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Gender remained a significant influence, though this varies depending on the generation, with some generations more gender-divided than others.</p>
<p><iframe id="UB9PP" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/UB9PP/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Tertiary education was also significant. Women with a tertiary education are likely to be more progressive than those without one. The same applies to men, although to a lesser extent.</p>
<p>Men and women who are married and own a home are more conservative in their political views. Income itself is neither substantial, nor significant in its effect.</p>
<p><iframe id="45Ogp" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/45Ogp/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Implications for Australian politics</h2>
<p>The gender gap, along with many other factors, is reshaping how young Australians engage with politics. Acknowledging and addressing this divide is a vital step towards fostering an inclusive and representative democracy.</p>
<p>As better educated, younger women become a formidable force in shaping political landscapes, political parties risk losing touch with this influential segment if they fail to address gender-specific issues, such as those related to education, healthcare, childcare, and workplace equality.</p>
<p>The Coalition is definitely on notice, but all political parties must adapt their strategies to align with the evolving demographics. </p>
<p>The move to the left may not stop at left-of-centre parties, but continue further left, towards the Greens for example. Generational replacement may not necessarily continue to favour the Labor party if their party positions do not speak to young women in the next election.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Note: I wrongly synonymise “sex” and “gender” in my analyses, because survey research is yet to properly acknowledge and capture the gender diversity that exists in our society. However, I note it is impossible to truly understand the gender gap (and the progressive direction of younger people’s leanings) in politics if we continue to discuss the “modern” gender gap while still “traditionally” defining gender as a binary concept.</em> </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated 29.8% of Gen Z females voted for the Coalition, but the correct figure is 19.8%.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Intifar Chowdhury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Worldwide, young women are becoming more progressive than young men. It’s happening in Australia, too – with a twist. An analysis of the Australian Election Study yields surprising results.Intifar Chowdhury, Lecturer in Government, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2205442024-01-26T17:58:00Z2024-01-26T17:58:00ZWhat would Carl Jung tell you to do with your spreadsheet of life goals? Throw it away and embrace the feminine<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571591/original/file-20240126-22431-ca00qi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C33%2C2436%2C1912&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung#/media/File:ETH-BIB-Jung,_Carl_Gustav_(1875-1961)-Portrait-Portr_14163_(cropped).tif">Wikipedia/ETH-Bibliothek</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Current debates about gender have become <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/04/how-the-gender-debate-veered-off-track/673819/">polarised</a>. These divisive arguments tend to focus on narrowly defining “man” or “woman”, rather than considering archetypal underpinnings of the feminine and masculine. For psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung and post-Jungian thinkers, these concepts are crucial to understanding gender and wider cultural dynamics.</p>
<p>A Jungian perspective considers the feminine and masculine as concepts that are not specific to man or woman but germane to people of all genders. They are embedded in thousands of years of history, folklore and myth and their characteristics are <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2bXgBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=archetypes+across+cultures+carl+jung&ots=ERwaxWqeWO&sig=jz9trW7Qr3aTL8PQlMX1l52adVw">remarkably similar across time and cultures</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="The Venus von Willendorf sculpture" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571621/original/file-20240126-21-d13e8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571621/original/file-20240126-21-d13e8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571621/original/file-20240126-21-d13e8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571621/original/file-20240126-21-d13e8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571621/original/file-20240126-21-d13e8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571621/original/file-20240126-21-d13e8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571621/original/file-20240126-21-d13e8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Venus von Willendorf: keep her on your desk?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurine#/media/File:Wien_NHM_Venus_von_Willendorf.jpg">Wikipedia/Naturhistorisches Museum Wien</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jung’s understanding, expanded on by <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Feminist-Views-from-Somewhere-Post-Jungian-themes-in-feminist-theory/Gardner-Gray/p/book/9781138897823">others</a> relates the feminine to mythical and spiritual dimensions such as the moon, soul, creativity, inwardness, darkness, chaos, intuition and (active) receptivity. A masculine energy is often associated with the sun, spirit, light, (immediate) action, aspiration and outwardness. </p>
<p>The feminine is <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Ravaged_Bridegroom.html?id=mgk-AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">neglected</a> in patriarchal, neoliberal cultures that value rationality, action and ambition. We found this to be very much the case in a study of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00187267231199650">15 young women starting out in their professional careers</a>. These women set out their professional ideals in terms of upward momentum and ascension, speaking negatively of periods of stagnation and inaction. They appeared to apply linear, progressive reasoning to their work, for instance describing career goals as sequential “boxes to tick”.</p>
<p>The women in our study also appeared to shun cyclical, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiS6LfXqfaDAxVMWEEAHbEsAU0QFnoECBoQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fworklife%2Farticle%2F20201109-why-the-paradox-mindset-is-the-key-to-success&usg=AOvVaw0llMkgbZkKm2cVRTtPpk9o&opi=89978449">paradoxical thinking</a>, which might entail, for example, embracing periods of slowness during which we experience boredom and ennui. These periods can open us up to spontaneous and unexpected possibilities. </p>
<h2>The value of ‘nothingness’</h2>
<p>Adopting a feminine way of being encourages us to experience and embrace periods of inaction and depression, rather than continuously pursue upward momentum and productivity. This might seem to be the last thing we’d want in professional life, but that is not necessarily the case.</p>
<p>Renowned Jungian analyst Mary Louis von Franz <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Cat.html?id=Jsu0AAAAIAAJ">observes</a> how in many fairy tales there is “a long period of barrenness before the hero child is born”. She reflects that in periods of depression and when nothing is happening, “an enormous amount of energy accumulates in the unconscious”. But “nothingness” or being “unproductive” is not honoured in a society that values action and (quick) results.</p>
<p>The women we spoke with reflected on the difficulty of embracing periods of slowness in discussions of motherhood, for example. When discussing their careers and lives in the longer term, they often spontaneously discussed motherhood as something they desired. One woman described her uterus as making her “baby crazy,” explaining the sensation of a ticking clock: “I feel like the alligator in Peter Pan, the clock is in my belly.”</p>
<p>But for these women, maternal desire was complicated by career ambitions. Rather than embracing the paradox and value of motherhood as a <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Maternal_Desire/mr2SDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">meaningful journey with much to offer</a>, most participants anxiously anticipated what they would have to “give up” in terms of their career. </p>
<p>The two were seen as in conflict, with early motherhood – an inward period of deep reflection – understood as undermining professional goals and work productivity. Many felt their employers were implicitly unsupportive of working mothers, not valuing the slow, deep process of intuitive learning that motherhood fosters, and offering little in the way of alternative frameworks to include or support their participation in the workplace.</p>
<h2>Life in a spreadsheet</h2>
<p>A feminine way of being also encourages “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201109-why-the-paradox-mindset-is-the-key-to-success">both/and thinking</a>” – paradox and circularity that spark intuitive creativity. Such feminine energy embraces darkness, chaos, and spontaneous possibility. It seeks, as Jungian analyst Sylvia Perera <a href="https://junginla.org/product/descent-to-the-goddess/">explains</a>: “the potential of cleansing immersion in the darkness of the unknown”. But embracing such darkness may seem out of the question in a society that lauds rationality. We are not, in short, encouraged to let life happen.</p>
<p>Most of us instead adopt linear, rational thinking that hinders feminine creativity. In our study, women used bureaucratic metaphors to describe their existential plans and future life events. They spoke of marriage, careers and having children in terms of “ticking boxes” and “to-do lists”. For example, one woman described creating an Excel spreadsheet to organise her career goals, such as promotions and management aspirations, and life goals (detailing by when she needed to get married and buy a house).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman pointing her pen at a spreadsheet displayed on her computer monitor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571448/original/file-20240125-25-ydzrof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571448/original/file-20240125-25-ydzrof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571448/original/file-20240125-25-ydzrof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571448/original/file-20240125-25-ydzrof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571448/original/file-20240125-25-ydzrof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571448/original/file-20240125-25-ydzrof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/571448/original/file-20240125-25-ydzrof.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Hmm, it says here I’m an abject failure, yet I seem to be fabulous.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Planning life events as though they are “goals” turns them into markers of success or failure on a linear course, rather than <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Pregnant_Virgin/MyAFAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=the%20pregnant%20virgin">rites of passage</a> in a potentially far more cyclical life. We might, as a result, pursue such “events” at all costs. And if we don’t meet these markers, we might perceive that as “failure”, missing out on an opportunity to undergo a process of reflection that could provide wisdom and insight into the human condition.</p>
<p>When rejected for a promotion, for example, we could take time to reflect on why the rejection happened and how we can deal with rejection more generally. Which emotions does it provoke in us and where do they originate? The loss of the promotion can, if we allow it, open a different path – and one that is perhaps better aligned with our genuine sense of self.</p>
<p>People of all genders should consider turning toward the feminine by embracing periods of stagnancy and depression as vital to their development. And we could all benefit from valuing cyclical, paradoxical thinking as part of our personal growth. This involves understanding which aspects of ourselves are foregrounded, and which are the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-vH8DQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT9&dq=shadow+jung+zweig&ots=yKO2NVbOul&sig=_GC3y8c2tsgAMqGYNNgvKqEjT6M&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=shadow%20jung%20zweig&f=false">“shadowed”</a>, unconscious parts of ourselves that we strongly deny as existing or reject, but that can significantly affect us nonetheless.</p>
<p>Truly asking whether we are rejecting the inner archetypal feminine (or masculine) is a good place to start. Friends are usually better at spotting our shadow characteristics than we are, and often even more effective is a skilled psychoanalyst.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220544/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The legendary psychoanalyst would encourage us to embrace the feminine at work and at home by resisting the urge to see life as a linear, organised path.Aliette Lambert, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, University of BathGeorge Ferns, Senior Lecturer in Business and Society, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2185102024-01-09T19:15:38Z2024-01-09T19:15:38ZWanting to ‘move on’ is natural – but women’s pandemic experiences can’t be lost to ‘lockdown amnesia’<p>The COVID-19 pandemic was – and continues to be – hugely disruptive and stressful for individuals, communities and countries. Yet many seem desperate to close the chapter entirely, almost as if it had never happened. </p>
<p>This desire to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/03/13/brain-memory-pandemic-covid-forgetting/">forget and move on</a> – labelled “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/be70b24e-8ca0-4681-a23b-0c59c69a2616">lockdown amnesia</a>” by some – is understandable at one level. But it also risks missing the opportunity to learn from what happened.</p>
<p>And while various official enquiries and royal commissions have been established to examine the wider government responses (including in New Zealand), the experiences of ordinary people are equally important to understand.</p>
<p>As researchers interested in women and gender roles, we wanted to capture some of this. For the past three years, our research has focused on what happened to everyday women during this period of uncertainty and disruption – and what lessons might be learned.</p>
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<h2>Pandemic amnesia</h2>
<p>Individual memory can become vague as time goes on. But this can also be affected by broader narratives (in the media or official responses) that overwrite our own recollections of the pandemic.</p>
<p>Political calls to “<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/11/8/340">live with the virus</a>”, and <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018849569/sick-and-tired-of-the-sickness">media hesitancy</a> to publish COVID-related stories due to perceived audience fatigue, can create a collective sense of needing to “move on”. Looking back can be seen as questionable, or even attacked.</p>
<p>Indeed, misinformation and disinformation have been used, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Risk/Lupton/p/book/9781032327006">in the words</a> of leading pandemic social scientist Deborah Lupton, to “challenge science and manufacture dissent against attempts to tackle [such] crises”.</p>
<p>But as the memory scholar <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/17506980231184563?casa_token=Wrs8pMKoFqcAAAAA:N9DN9rb9XNopHSIF2af2q8z4Ue457oW6l-mqPtBlmUQSy6dw53DYhQWxgk8BLe3SyWIzlkXTnvAPrYw">Sydney Goggins has put it</a>, such “public forgetting leads to a cascade of impacts on policy and social wellbeing”.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-arderns-resignation-gender-and-the-toll-of-strong-compassionate-leadership-198152">Jacinda Ardern's resignation: gender and the toll of strong, compassionate leadership</a>
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<h2>A gendered pandemic</h2>
<p>Responding to the rapidly changing social, cultural and economic impacts of the pandemic, feminist scholars have highlighted the particular <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/Articles/10.3389/Fgwh.2020.588372/Full">physical and emotional toll</a> on women worldwide.</p>
<p>This has included <a href="https://academic.oup.com/biomedgerontology/article/77/Supplement_1/S31/6463712">social isolation and loneliness</a>, increased <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15487733.2020.1776561?src=recsys">domestic and emotional labour</a>, the rise in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7262164/">domestic and gender-based violence</a>, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13545701.2021.1876906">job losses and financial insecurity</a>. Black, Indigenous, minority and migrant women have <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/08912432211001302">felt these impacts</a> particularly keenly.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.777013552598989">same trends</a> have been observed in Aotearoa New Zealand. And whereas some countries embraced pandemic recovery strategies that recognised these gender differences, this <a href="https://theconversation.com/nz-budget-2021-women-left-behind-despite-the-focus-on-well-being-161187">hasn’t been the case</a> in New Zealand.</p>
<p>The gendered abuse of women leaders – former prime minister <a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-arderns-resignation-gender-and-the-toll-of-strong-compassionate-leadership-198152">Jacinda Ardern</a> and scientist <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/atthemovies/audio/2018913516/review-ms-information">Siouxsie Wiles</a>, for example – have been well documented. But the experiences of ordinary women, their struggles and strategies to look after themselves and others, have had much less attention.</p>
<h2>Experiences of everyday women</h2>
<p>Our study involved 110 women in Aotearoa New Zealand. We set out to understand how they adapted their everyday practices – work, leisure, exercise, sport – to maintain or regain wellbeing, social connections and a sense of community.</p>
<p>Despite many differences between the women in our sample, there were also shared experiences. We referred to the ruptures in the patterns, rhythms and routines of their lives as “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gwao.12987">gender arrhythmia</a>”.</p>
<p>The women responded to the psycho-social and physical challenges, such as disrupted sleep or weight changes, by creating counter-rhythms – taking up hobbies, exercising, changing diet.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-pandemics-disproportionate-impact-on-women-is-derailing-decades-of-progress-on-gender-equality-180941">The pandemic’s disproportionate impact on women is derailing decades of progress on gender equality</a>
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<p>The pandemic also prompted many to reflect on how their pre-pandemic routines and rhythms had caused various forms of “alienation”: from their own health and wellbeing, meaningful social connections, ethical and sustainable work practices, and pleasure.</p>
<p>The disruption of the pandemic caused many to reevaluate the importance of work in their lives. As one reflected: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>COVID-19 has made me reassess what is the most important thing. Is it making money? Actually, no, not at all.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others were prompted to question and challenge the gendered demands on women to “do everything” and “be everywhere” for everyone:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think as women, because we’re so good at multitasking, we just put so much on our plates. I think we need to learn just to say no, because we’re not superhuman. And ultimately, all of this responsibility is weighing us down.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Our research also highlighted how the pandemic affected women’s relationships with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1755458623000270?casa_token=KcmGBPnpKLQAAAAA:MmQhDue20CoR0f6lK8rjWfxtBSHsjpzjbJu8tIc03StdccyCvduAs3CUVPwk18rPbklx3_j8DEo">familiar spaces and places</a>. Leaving home for a walk, run or bike ride became important everyday practices that proved highly beneficial for most women’s subjective wellbeing. </p>
<p>Some came to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/01937235231200288">appreciate physical activity</a> for the general joys of movement and connection with people and places, rather than simply to achieve particular goals like fitness or weight loss. </p>
<h2>Special challenges for young women</h2>
<p>As part of our overall project, we also <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13668803.2023.2268818?needAccess=true">focused on 45 young women</a> (aged 16 to 25). This highlighted the importance of recognising how gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic circumstances intersect. </p>
<p>Listening to their <a href="https://www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/2023/11/07/the-invisible-glue-holding-families-together-during-the-pandemic/">pandemic stories</a>, we found young women played important roles in supporting their families and communities. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/covid-19-has-laid-bare-how-much-we-value-womens-work-and-how-little-we-pay-for-it-136042">COVID-19 has laid bare how much we value women's work, and how little we pay for it</a>
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<p>In particular, Māori, Pacific and others from diverse ethnic or migrant backgrounds carried increased responsibilities in the home, including childcare, cleaning, cooking and shopping. While many did so willingly, these extra burdens took a toll on their schooling, mental health and wellbeing.</p>
<p>For many young women, the pandemic was a radical disruption to their everyday lives and routines during a critical stage of identity development. They missed key milestones and events, and crucial phases of education and social development. </p>
<p>Many still grieve for some of those losses. And some are struggling to rebuild social connections, motivation and aspirations.</p>
<p>For example, some described being passionate and aspiring athletes before the pandemic. But social anxieties and body-image issues left over from lockdowns have been hard to shake, and have seen them <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2673-995X/3/3/55">struggle to return</a> to sport. </p>
<h2>The invisible work of migrant women</h2>
<p>We also looked deeply at the experiences of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-38797-5_9">12 middle-class migrant women</a>, and how prolonged border closures created real anxiety about “not being there” for families overseas. </p>
<p>As one nurse working on the front line of COVID care in NZ explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>About a year ago, the cases of COVID in my homeland were increasing so rapidly. My family were not very well and I was depending on social media […] trying to reach out to them. I was really scared at that time, not being able to see your family when they really need you, not being able to be with them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some of the women in our sample also experienced <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14649365.2023.2275761">increased anti-immigrant sentiments</a> which further affected their health and wellbeing – and their feelings of belonging. As one said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve become extremely sensitive. I cry about small things. My doctor said “go and get some fresh air, it’s good for you” […] I went outside for a walk, and someone shouted at me, screamed at me. I got terrified for my life. How do you expect me to have wellbeing when no one in the society accepts you?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This arm of the research suggests a real need for <a href="https://www.belong.org.nz/migrant-experiences-in-the-time-of-covid">investment in policies and support strategies</a> specifically for migrant women and their communities in any future global health emergency.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/new-zealanders-are-learning-to-live-with-covid-but-does-that-mean-having-to-pay-for-protection-ourselves-219698">New Zealanders are learning to live with COVID – but does that mean having to pay for protection ourselves?</a>
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<h2>Communities of care</h2>
<p>A key feature of our study was the highly creative ways women cultivated “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2043820620934268">communities of care</a>” during the pandemic. Even when they were struggling themselves, they reached out to friends and family – and particularly other women. </p>
<p>The majority of our participants were prompted to think differently about their own health and wellbeing, and what is important in their lives (now and in the future). </p>
<p>Throughout the pandemic, women have worked quietly, behind the scenes, in their families, communities and workplaces, supporting their own and others’ health and wellbeing. This invisible labour is rarely acknowledged or celebrated. </p>
<p>Many still feel the toll of economic hardship, violence and exhaustion. And less tangible feelings of disillusionment remain in a society that has so quickly “moved on” from the pandemic.</p>
<p>Acknowledging and addressing pandemic amnesia – personal and collective – is an important first step in documenting, learning from, and using these experiences to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953622008176">better prepare for future events</a>. Next time, we need to ensure the necessary support is available for those most in need.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The authors wish to acknowledge the other members of the research team: Dr Nikki Barrett, Dr Julie Brice, Dr Allison Jeffrey and Dr Anoosh Soltani.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218510/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holly Thorpe receives funding from a Royal Society Te Apārangi James Cook Research Fellowship.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Grace O'Leary, Mihi Joy Nemani, and Nida Ahmad do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>COVID was a ‘gendered pandemic’, with women carrying very different burdens to men. A three-year New Zealand research project aimed to overcome the urge to forget, and provide lessons for the future.Holly Thorpe, Professor in Sociology of Sport and Gender, University of WaikatoGrace O'Leary, Research Fellow, University of WaikatoMihi Joy Nemani, Senior Lecturer, Te Huataki Waiora School of Health, University of WaikatoNida Ahmad, Research Fellow, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2196172023-12-26T20:29:23Z2023-12-26T20:29:23ZNZ report card 2023: near the top of the class in some areas, room for improvement elsewhere<p>End-of-year results aren’t only for school and university students. Countries, too, can be measured for their progress – or lack of it – across numerous categories and subject areas. </p>
<p>This report card provides a snapshot of how New Zealand has fared in 2023. Given the change of government, it will be a useful benchmark for future progress reports. (Somewhat appropriately, the coalition seems keen on standardised testing in education.)</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that this exercise is for fun and debate. International and domestic indices and rankings should be read with a degree of caution – measurements, metrics and numbers from 2023 tell us only so much. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, it’s still possible to trace the nation’s ups and downs. As the year draws to an end, we can use these statistics and rankings to decide whether New Zealand really is the best country in the world – or whether we need to make some additional new year’s resolutions.</p>
<h2>International pass marks</h2>
<p>Overall, the country held its own internationally when it came to democratic values, freedoms and standards. But there was a little slippage.</p>
<p>Despite falling a spot, Transparency International ranked New Zealand <a href="https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022">second-equal</a> (next to Finland) for being relatively corruption-free. </p>
<p>In the Global Peace Index, New Zealand dropped two places, now <a href="https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/">fourth-best</a> for safety and security, low domestic and international conflict, and degree of militarisation.</p>
<p>The country held its ground in two categories. Freedom House underlined New Zealand’s near-perfect score of <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores">99 out of 100</a> for political and civil liberties – but three Scandinavian countries scored a perfect 100. The <a href="https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2023/">Global Gender Gap Report</a> recorded New Zealand as steady, the fourth-most-gender-equal country. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-winston-peters-right-to-call-state-funded-journalism-bribery-or-is-there-a-bigger-threat-to-democracy-218782">Is Winston Peters right to call state-funded journalism ‘bribery’ – or is there a bigger threat to democracy?</a>
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<p>Supplementary work by the United Nations Development Programme shows New Zealand making impressive strides in breaking down <a href="https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2023-06/gsni202302pdf_0.pdf">gender bias</a>.</p>
<p>The Index for Economic Freedom, which covers everything from property rights to financial freedom, again placed New Zealand <a href="https://www.heritage.org/index/">fifth</a>, but our grade average is falling. We also dropped a place in the World Justice Project’s <a href="https://worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/">Rule of Law Index</a> to eighth.</p>
<p>New Zealanders are about as happy as they were last year, still the tenth-most-cheery nation, according to the <a href="https://worldhappiness.report/">World Happiness Report</a>.</p>
<p>The Human Development Index did not report this year (New Zealand was 13th in 2022). But the <a href="https://www.prosperity.com/rankings">Legatum Prosperity Index</a>, another broad measure covering everything from social capital to living conditions, put New Zealand tenth overall – reflecting a slow decline from seventh in 2011.</p>
<p>The Economist’s <a href="https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/global-liveability-index-2023/">Global Liveability Index</a> has Auckland at equal tenth, with Wellington racing up the charts to 23rd. (Hamilton, my home, is yet to register.)</p>
<p>While New Zealand registered a gradual slide in the Reporters Without Borders <a href="https://rsf.org/en/index">Press Freedom Index</a>, at 13th position it still ranks highly by comparison with other nations.</p>
<h2>Could do better</h2>
<p>New Zealand has seen some progress around assessment of terror risk. While the national terror threat level has remained at “<a href="https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/our-programmes/national-security/counter-terrorism#:%7E:text=New%2520Zealand's%2520current%2520national%2520terrorism,Zealanders%2520both%2520here%2520and%2520overseas.">low</a>”, the <a href="https://www.visionofhumanity.org/maps/global-terrorism-index/#/">Global Terrorism Index</a> ranked the country 46th – lower than the US, UK and Russia, but higher than Australia at 69th.</p>
<p>The country’s previous drop to 31st in the <a href="https://www.imd.org/centers/wcc/world-competitiveness-center/rankings/world-competitiveness-ranking/">Global Competitiveness Report</a> has stabilised, staying the same in 2023. </p>
<p>On the <a href="https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/Home">Global Innovation Index</a>, we came in 27th out of 132 economies – three spots worse than last year. <a href="https://kof.ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/media/press-releases/2022/12/globalisation-index.html#:%7E:text=The%2520KOF%2520Globalisation%2520Index%2520measures,a%2520long%2520period%2520of%2520time.">The Globalisation Index</a>, which looks at economic, social and political contexts, ranks New Zealand only 42nd.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cop28-the-climate-summits-first-health-day-points-to-what-needs-to-change-in-nz-218809">COP28: the climate summit’s first Health Day points to what needs to change in NZ</a>
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<p>But the country’s response to climate change is still considered “highly insufficient” by the <a href="https://climateactiontracker.org/">Climate Action Tracker</a>, which measures progress on meeting agreed global warming targets. The <a href="https://ccpi.org/">Climate Change Performance Index</a> is a little more generous, pegging New Zealand at 34th, still down one spot on last year.</p>
<p>New Zealand’s overseas development assistance – low as a percentage of GDP compared to other <a href="https://www.oecd.org/dac/financing-sustainable-development/development-finance-standards/official-development-assistance.htm">OECD countries</a> – had mixed reviews. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://odi.org/en/insights/principled-aid-index-2023-in-a-weaponised-world-smart-development-power-is-not-dead/">Principled Aid Index</a> – which looks at the purposes of aid for global co-operation, public spiritedness and addressing critical development goals – ranks New Zealand a lowly 22 out of 29. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.cgdev.org/cdi#/">Commitment to Development Index</a>, which measures aid as well as other policies (from health to trade) of 40 of the world’s most powerful countries, has New Zealand in 19th place.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/nicola-willis-warns-of-fiscal-snakes-and-snails-her-first-mini-budget-will-be-a-test-of-nzs-no-surprises-finance-rules-218920">Nicola Willis warns of fiscal ‘snakes and snails’ – her first mini-budget will be a test of NZ’s no-surprises finance rules</a>
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<h2>Decent economic grades</h2>
<p>The economic numbers at home still tell a generally encouraging story:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>unemployment <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/unemployment-rate/">remains low at 3.9%</a>, still below the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/unemployment-rates-oecd-updated-november-2023.htm#:%7E:text=14%2520Nov%25202023%2520%252D%2520The%2520OECD,Figure%25202%2520and%2520Table%25201">OECD average of 4.8%.</a></p></li>
<li><p>median weekly earnings from wages and salaries <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/income-growth-for-wage-and-salary-earners-remains-strong/">continued to rise</a>, by NZ$84 (7.1%) to $1,273 in the year to June</p></li>
<li><p>inflation is rising, but the rate is slowing, <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/annual-inflation-at-5-6-percent/#:%7E:text=New%2520Zealand's%2520consumers%2520price%2520index,to%2520the%2520June%25202023%2520quarter.">falling to 5.6%</a> in the 12 months to September</p></li>
<li><p>and good or bad news according to one’s perspective, annual house price growth appears to be slowly recovering, with the <a href="https://www.qv.co.nz/price-index/">average price now $907,387</a> – still considerably down from the peak at the turn of 2022.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It’s worth noting, too, that record net migration gain is boosting economic measurements. In the year to October 2023, 245,600 people arrived, with 116,700 departing, for an <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/international-migration-october-2023/">annual net gain</a> of 128,900 people.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-hopes-private-investors-will-fund-social-services-the-evidence-isnt-so-optimistic-218512">The government hopes private investors will fund social services – the evidence isn't so optimistic</a>
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<h2>Room for social improvement</h2>
<p>In the year to June, <a href="https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2023/10/new-zealand-s-suicide-rate-increases-for-first-time-in-years.html">recorded suicides increased</a> to 565, or 10.6 people per 100,000. While an increase from 10.2 in 2022, this is still lower than the average rate over the past 14 years.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/statistics/quarterly_prison_statistics/prison_stats_september_2023">Incarceration rates</a> began to rise again, climbing to 8,893 by the end of September, moving back towards the 10,000 figure from 2020.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/maori-suicide-rates-remain-too-high-involving-whanau-more-in-coronial-inquiries-should-be-a-priority-217254">Māori suicide rates remain too high – involving whānau more in coronial inquiries should be a priority</a>
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<p>Child poverty appears to be <a href="https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/child-poverty-statistics-show-no-annual-change-in-the-year-ended-june-2022/">stabilising</a>, with some reports suggesting improvements in longer-term trends. While commendable, this needs to be seen in perspective: one in ten children still live in households experiencing material hardship.</p>
<p>The stock of <a href="https://www.hud.govt.nz/stats-and-insights/the-government-housing-dashboard/public-homes/">public housing</a> continues to increase. As of October, there were 80,211 public houses, an increase of 3,940 from June 2022.</p>
<p>In short, New Zealand retains some bragging rights in important areas and is making modest progress in others, but that’s far from the whole picture. The final verdict has to be: a satisfactory to good effort, but considerable room for improvement.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Gillespie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New Zealand was mostly stable in key international rankings and domestic socio-economic measures. But there are signs of slippage in some areas and not enough progress in others.Alexander Gillespie, Professor of Law, University of WaikatoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2167242023-12-07T21:08:46Z2023-12-07T21:08:46ZWhen ‘rights’ divide: Trans kids need supportive families<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/when-rights-divide-trans-kids-need-supportive-families" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Protests in support of “parental rights” have taken place across Canada in recent months. Many taking part in these demonstrations have railed against “gender ideology” in school curricula and <a href="https://canadians.org/analysis/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-parental-rights-protests/#">mixed bathrooms</a>. </p>
<p>Much of this rhetoric is based upon the transphobic fallacy that age-appropriate inclusive health education will somehow manufacture queer and trans children all over the place. </p>
<p>The rights of young people to determine their identities are being stripped away, beginning in <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-brunswicks-lgbtq-safe-schools-debate-makes-false-opponents-of-parents-and-teachers-207600">New Brunswick</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/saskatchewan-naming-and-pronoun-policy-the-best-interests-of-children-must-guide-provincial-parental-consent-rules-212431">Saskatchewan</a>. The rights of a trans and non-binary child or youth to be referred to by their name, and to be treated with respect by having their gender affirmed, are being eroded across Canada. </p>
<p>These policies put children and youth at risk, and they reinforce a false opposition between “parents’ rights” and children’s rights. </p>
<h2>Pitting parents against their kids</h2>
<p>Lacking support from family is one of the strongest predictors of trans and non-binary youth <a href="https://transpulsecanada.ca/results/report-health-and-well-being-among-trans-and-non-binary-youth/">attempting suicide</a>. Let that sink in. A trans kid’s family — their support, acceptance, dismissal or rejection — are the most important factor in whether a young person considers ending their life. </p>
<p>More than 10 years ago, researchers had already made strong connections between the support that trans youth received within their families and self-esteem, depression, suicidality, satisfaction with life and long-term overall <a href="http://transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf">mental health</a>.</p>
<p>The term “dead name” is used to denote the pre-transition name of a trans or non-binary person. This term exists for a reason, because forcing a child to deny their gender identity can cause their mental health to suffer.</p>
<p>If parents, educators, schools and provincial governments really care about the health and well-being of our youth, we must oppose enacting policies that create a false dichotomy between the “rights” of parents and the rights of children and youth. We must instead help families of trans and non-binary youth to come together instead of be torn apart.</p>
<p>Respondents in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2014.886321">research focused on minority stress and trans youth</a> reported daily bullying in school and higher levels of sexual and physical assault, with poorer mental and physical health overall compared to non-trans participants.</p>
<p>Data indicates 59 per cent of transgender and non-binary people in Canada <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2023.2278064">have reported being misgendered daily</a>, an experience that can be devastating to a young person <a href="https://transpulsecanada.ca/results/report-health-and-well-being-among-non-binary-people/">coming out into themselves</a>. </p>
<h2>Dangerous silencing</h2>
<p>Silences can be dangerous. I didn’t even hear the word “lesbian” growing up in 1980s, conservative Canadian suburbs. In this shiny, white, middle-class Protestant world, silence about all forms of difference was a constant. But when I moved into the world I realized how our lives were veiled in layers of embedded racism, homophobia and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173834">compulsory heterosexuality</a>.</p>
<p>To be clear, the silence and invisibility of lesbians, and even the invisibility of the word “lesbian” did not stop me from becoming a great big, card-carrying queer. </p>
<p>However, hearing the word at the right time might have stopped me from marrying a gay man at 19 and embarking upon a lavender marriage that was doomed from its inception. Silently and unconsciously we did what we “knew” to be the only road we could travel: we bought a house, we had babies, we spun through the tidal force of sanctioned heterosexuality and we still came out the other side flaming like rockets in the night, queers. </p>
<p>The invisibility we experienced and faced only made the road to authentic living and loving, much longer and harder, and it created so much more collateral damage. I tell this story because the way trans and non-binary youth are being repressed and made invisible today reminds me of the abyss of invisibility I faced. </p>
<p>So, when we pit the “rights” of parents against the rights of children and youth to have a safe, accepting and affirming family and school environment, we are assuming that these are in opposition. </p>
<p>Instead, we need to explore these questions through a systems lens. That is, we need to consider the whole: parents, siblings, the trans/non-binary youth, the school system, all of the systems in which the children or youth are swimming. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563473/original/file-20231204-17-96yucz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person holding another person's hand consolingly" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563473/original/file-20231204-17-96yucz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563473/original/file-20231204-17-96yucz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563473/original/file-20231204-17-96yucz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563473/original/file-20231204-17-96yucz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563473/original/file-20231204-17-96yucz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563473/original/file-20231204-17-96yucz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563473/original/file-20231204-17-96yucz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We must help families of trans and non-binary youth to come together instead of be torn apart.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Overcoming transphobia with family support</h2>
<p>There are situations where parents, teachers or others in a child’s life are irreconcilably transphobic, and this is not going to shift. However, in my extensive experience as a queer, gender non-conforming clinical psychologist, I have seen parents come around and find a way to affirm their child’s gender. </p>
<p>This was achieved through persistence, education and empathy. I had to make space for a parent’s fears, and even space for the transphobic comments and the concerns they produced (while shielding their children from those conversations).</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/family-support-protects-trans-young-people-but-their-families-need-support-too-202743">The family must continue to show up</a>, trying to find their way to their child. My job was to protect their child from their parents’ fear and transphobia while holding the parents as they tried to find their way. When this hard work by all parties was successful, the well-being of that child or youth was vastly improved and they finally had the support they needed to find their way through a frequently transphobic world. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-parents-can-support-a-child-who-comes-out-as-trans-by-conquering-their-own-fears-following-their-childs-lead-and-tolerating-ambiguity-158275">How parents can support a child who comes out as trans – by conquering their own fears, following their child's lead and tolerating ambiguity</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>I have also worked with families who could not overcome their views. A father who simply could not let go of rigid Catholic theological interpretations that cast his child as damaged, a mother who had experienced her own traumas in ways that made it very hard for her to be flexible, leaving her child out in the cold. </p>
<p>I have worked with many, many families over decades and most of the time, they can find their way to accepting and affirming their trans and non-binary child. For the few who can’t, what do we do in those situations? We certainly must not enact <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick-trans-lgbtq-higgs-1.6889957">laws and policies</a> to “protect” their “rights.” </p>
<p>Instead, we need find ways to support those young people whose parents deny their existence, experience and identity. So many just need to hear that they exist and learn that they are okay, just as they are.</p>
<p><em>Miles Cooke and Jamie Zarn, research assistants on Heather MacIntosh’s research team at McGill University, also contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216724/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather B MacIntosh receives funding from SSHRC</span></em></p>In the wake of transphobic protests, the ‘rights’ of parents are being falsely positioned in opposition to the rights of transgender and non-binary children rather than focusing on supporting families.Heather B MacIntosh, Associate Professor, Director, MScA Couple and Family Therapy, School of Social Work, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164882023-11-30T12:20:37Z2023-11-30T12:20:37ZGhana’s shea industry is not taking care of the women behind its growth<p>Ghana’s shea industry has a rich history. Shea – <em>nkuto</em>, <em>karite</em>, <em>galam</em> in some west African languages – is deeply embedded in the culture and tradition of the country’s northern regions. It is often considered a woman’s crop – women pick the fruit and extract its “butter” – and has acquired the name “woman’s gold” because rural women earn income from its sale. </p>
<p>The crop is not just locally important, though. Shea butter, derived from the nuts of the shea tree, has become a global commodity. It is used widely as an ingredient in the confectionery, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/shea-butter-market">report</a> by Future Markets Insights values the global shea butter market at US$2.75 billion. It’s expected to reach US$5.58 billion in 2033. In Ghana, shea is one of the <a href="https://www.gepaghana.org/export-statistic/non-traditional-export-statistics-2022/">top</a> export commodities. According to the Ghana Export Promotion Authority, the export of shea butter was <a href="https://www.gepaghana.org/export-statistic/non-traditional-export-statistics-2022/">estimated</a> to be worth US$92.6 million (38,792 tonnes) in 2022 and kernels US$20 million (36,162 tonnes) in 2021. </p>
<p>In spite of shea’s global prominence, primary actors in this sector aren’t reaping the benefits from these exports. Rural women, who are the primary producers, are also the <a href="https://sun.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma998897791203436&context=L&vid=27US_INST:27US_V1&lang=en&search_scope=Combined&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,shea%20butter&offset=0">lowest earners</a> in the shea value chain, with an annual income of about US$234 per capita.</p>
<p>The reasons behind this were the subject of my <a href="https://sun.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma998897791203436&context=L&vid=27US_INST:27US_V1&lang=en&search_scope=Combined&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,shea%20butter&offset=0">PhD dissertation</a>. I discovered that the shea environment was poorly regulated and “empowerment” policies had actually enabled poverty. </p>
<h2>Importance of shea</h2>
<p>Economically, shea has gained international prominence stemming from its properties and value. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Specifications-of-whole-and-processed-shea-butters_tbl1_272022836">Stearin</a>, a creamy fat, is used industrially as a cocoa butter equivalent in chocolate production and confectionery. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Specifications-of-whole-and-processed-shea-butters_tbl1_272022836">Olein</a> is used to make cosmetics.</p>
<p>Socially, activities in the shea industry confer on women a level of respect and power that they do not possess in other economic sectors. It’s also an area where women pass on indigenous knowledge from one generation to another by observing and participating in shea activities.</p>
<p>Shea trees also <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/12/1740">provide</a> carbon sinks and storage, improve soil fertility and promote better yields in agroforestry systems. </p>
<p>The shea industry is potentially a vehicle for economic development, environmental sustainability, gender empowerment and social progress.</p>
<h2>Shea policies</h2>
<p>These benefits are not all being realised, however.</p>
<p>Structural adjustment reforms were implemented in Ghana in the late 1980s and early 1990s to address economic woes. The shea export policy devised within that framework has been <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-modern-african-studies/article/abs/market-reforms-and-the-state-the-case-of-shea-in-ghana/E0584FCC3B95AF6A2026A14F7840C4F8">identified</a> as a watershed moment for the problems inherent in the industry. The state’s involvement in the economy was reduced, and this created the conditions for continued gender inequality and exploitation. The plight of women in the shea industry was not helped, either, by long-held gender norms and cultural underpinnings in northern Ghana.</p>
<p>Successive governments and institutions over the years have sought to revamp the industry through regulatory policies and interventions. A chapter of my <a href="https://sun.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma998897791203436&context=L&vid=27US_INST:27US_V1&lang=en&search_scope=Combined&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,shea%20butter&offset=0">PhD thesis</a> conducted in 2017 analysing the yearly budget statements from 2002 to 2017 noted the government’s knowledge of the persistent challenges of rural women. </p>
<p>These challenges relate to quality control and standardisation. Others are the lack of fair-trade practices, limited access to direct markets and resources, and challenges in land tenure and resource management. </p>
<p>Liberalising the shea market was expected to promote economic growth through reducing trade barriers and encouraging foreign investment. However, a downside was the breakdown of social contracts, leading to a “gold rush” mentality that prevails when there are no structures and regulations.</p>
<p>The 2008 <a href="http://gis4agricgh.net/POLICIES/GHANA'S%20TREE%20CROPS%20POLICY.pdf">Tree Crops Policy</a> was supposed to support agricultural growth, rural development and food security. A <a href="https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/COCOBOD-opens-Shea-office-amale-676131">Shea Unit</a> under the <a href="https://cocobod.gh/">Ghana Cocoa Board</a> was formed in 2011 to develop strategy for the sector. This unit was expected to become a Shea Development Board, responsible for introducing effective production, post-production and marketing initiatives. But it remains under the cocoa board. </p>
<p>The shea industry over time has been a niche where middlemen and women buy shea from rural women at low prices. Price negotiations are done on behalf of rural women on a mostly informal contractual basis. A chapter of my <a href="https://sun.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma998897791203436&context=L&vid=27US_INST:27US_V1&lang=en&search_scope=Combined&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,shea%20butter&offset=0">PhD thesis</a> analysing the cost structure and assigning a value to the unpaid labour of rural women reported the profit margin of a shea nut picker as Gh₵ 8.82 (66 US cents) while a middleman earned Gh₵ 49.5 (US$4) on a 100kg bag of shea nuts. Similarly, a shea butter extractor earned Gh₵ 1.92 (8 cents) while a middleman earned Gh₵ 63.42 (US$6) on a 25kg box of shea butter.</p>
<p>This is aptly captured in an interview:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are always here and we see people troop in for them (shea butter). Because
we don’t understand the English language they always request for Madam. She
directs us to sell to them at a certain amount. We don’t know the buyers. They
are those bringing them, we will just be sitting, and they will tell you that they are to buy shea, there is a buyer in, we will not even see the person. She is going to negotiate with the buyer till they finish buying.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Shea business model</h2>
<p>Even with the best of intentions, desired policy objectives can’t always be reached. It’s necessary to analyse why.</p>
<p>Empowering rural women shea actors to make choices and to transform those choices to desired outcomes must start by recognising them as knowledge producers and involve them as knowledge contributors in policies. Ghana needs to bring all the players in the shea industry together to develop a business model. Primary producers, middlemen, sourcing companies and government should collaborate. </p>
<p>Drawing from <a href="https://www.scirp.org/%28S%28351jmbntvnsjt1aadkposzje%29%29/reference/referencespapers.aspx?referenceid=2591801">lessons</a> on the marketing of cocoa in Ghana, this model should focus on:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>regulation of ceiling and floor prices of shea nuts and butter</p></li>
<li><p>promoting community-based rural producer groups</p></li>
<li><p>capacity building</p></li>
<li><p>quality improvement</p></li>
<li><p>preserving the shea landscape. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>There is also a need for a government instituted shea body to enforce a regulatory framework on the licensing and registration of activities and the promotion of partnerships between actors in the shea supply chain. It’s very important for the various stakeholders to keep working together to minimise undesirable effects of proposed interventions.</p>
<p>Shea is indeed golden. But there are real people living with the impact of weak institutional structures and policy frameworks. The most affected are rural women.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216488/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abiba Yayah was previously funded by the Trans-disciplinary Training for Resource Efficiency and Climate Change Adaptation in Africa II INTRA-ACP (TRECCAFRICA II). She is currently being funded for a Postdoctoral Fellowship by The Mark Grosjean Post-doctoral Fellow in Political Science at the University of Calgary.</span></em></p>Shea is a key economic crop for poor women in the northern parts of Ghana.Abiba Yayah, Postdoctoral Associate, University of CalgaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2130502023-11-29T13:40:27Z2023-11-29T13:40:27ZThere’s a financial literacy gender gap − and older women are eager for education that meets their needs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557150/original/file-20231101-21-xv252p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C9%2C6211%2C4128&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Knowledge is power − especially where money is concerned.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/senior-woman-using-calculator-while-going-through-royalty-free-image/1672859584">Rockaa/E+/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every day, families across the U.S. have to make difficult decisions about budgeting, spending, insurance, investments, savings, retirement and on and on. When faced with these choices, financial literacy – that is, knowing how to make informed decisions about money – is key.</p>
<p>Yet, Americans in general <a href="https://gflec.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/TIAA-Institute_GFLEC_P-Fin-Index-Finacial-literacy-and-wellbeing-in-a-five-generation-America_TI_Yakoboski_October-2021.pdf">aren’t very financially literate</a>. And recent research suggests <a href="https://helpageusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Report-V3-updated.pdf">women are less financially literate than men</a>, regardless of their schooling, income or marital status.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://cesr.usc.edu/people/staff/lilarabi">social scientist</a> who studies aging and the social safety net, I recently took part in a large analysis of older women’s financial literacy. My team and I found that men’s financial literacy scores were 25% higher than women’s on average, even though the two groups showed no difference in math skills or overall cognitive ability. </p>
<p>Black and Hispanic women saw an even greater financial literacy gender gap, with scores that were, on average, 40% to 45% lower than those of white, non-Hispanic men.</p>
<h2>Why financial literacy matters later in life</h2>
<p>This gap is a big problem, especially as women approach older age. Because they tend to live longer – almost <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2023.6041">six years</a> more than men, according to the latest figures – and <a href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w24429/w24429.pdf">leave the workforce earlier</a>, women face longer retirements. </p>
<p>And when they reach retirement age, women often have <a href="https://www.gao.gov/blog/growing-disparities-retirement-account-savings">inadequate savings</a>, in part because they face more <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1232354">family-related career interruptions</a> and are concentrated in <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2000/09/art3full.pdf">lower-paying jobs</a>.</p>
<p>Consider that in 2020, women who worked full time earned a median of <a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/womens-earnings/2020/home.htm">US$891 a week</a>, versus men’s $1,082. Their career interruptions, lower earnings and earlier retirements mean that female Social Security recipients get <a href="https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/factsheets/women-alt.pdf">only 80%</a> of the benefits that men do.</p>
<p>Financial education can’t erase the effects of decades of structural inequality, of course. But the evidence shows that it can <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2753510">make a difference</a> by helping women make more informed decisions for their future.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/swXHv0khiWY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A brief introduction to financial literacy concepts from New York University.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Demand for financial education is high</h2>
<p>Only 16% of women ages 40 to 65 have ever received any financial education, according to <a href="https://helpageusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Report-V3-updated.pdf">a survey of women my colleagues and I fielded in 2022</a>. Among African American, Native American and Asian American women, this figure falls to 8% to 10%.</p>
<p>Our survey also showed that behaviors that can help with financial security are patchy among respondents. Close to 30% never put money into an emergency fund or savings account, nearly 40% never put money into an investment or retirement account, and 60% have never talked to a financial professional. Tellingly, only 20% said they felt relaxed about their financial future.</p>
<p>But not all is doom and gloom: More than 70% of women in our survey said they were interested in receiving financial education. Demand was especially high among Hispanic/Latina (93%), Black (85%) and Asian American (80%) women.</p>
<p>Our survey respondents said they wanted to learn about long-term planning and other issues specific to their life stage, not just general money management principles. They also said they would prefer flexible programs that make it easy for busy people to participate, as well as those delivered by trusted agents in their communities, such as schools or community centers.</p>
<p>Right now, there aren’t many financial literacy programs specifically designed to address the needs of older women. But this research gives us a blueprint for future programs. Employers, financial service providers, community groups and national organizations all have an important role to play in empowering older women with the financial literacy skills they want and need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213050/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lila Rabinovich has received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Michigan Retirement and Disability Research Center, and other foundations and agencies.</span></em></p>Only a small fraction of women have received any financial education at all.Lila Rabinovich, Social scientist, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2181672023-11-23T17:24:26Z2023-11-23T17:24:26ZWhy the man-hating feminist is a myth – according to science<p>As part of the “Women Against Feminism” campaign that launched in 2014, social media posts have <a href="https://time.com/3028827/women-against-feminism-gets-it-right/">featured</a> young women holding placards with the message “I don’t need feminism because…” listing various reasons ranging from “I respect men” to “I am not a MAN-HATER”. </p>
<p>This perception of misandry – a hatred of men - is perhaps the most prevalent and enduring stereotype about feminism. By this account, feminism is not really a movement to end sexism and bring about gender equality, but rather it is wholly concerned with dislike of men. </p>
<p>While “Women Against Feminism” was ultimately eclipsed three years later by the #MeToo movement, it reflects a wider reality that stereotypes about feminism have caused women to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.2019.1644280">spurn</a> and even publicly denounce the movement. </p>
<p>But is it actually true that feminists tend to dislike men? Not according to our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03616843231202708">recent research</a>.</p>
<h2>A root cause of hatred</h2>
<p>Research evidence shows that awareness of negative tropes of feminists as “man-haters” reduces both women’s willingness to identify as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00348.x">feminists</a> and their support of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.2019.1644280">gender equality</a> initiatives. </p>
<p>The idea of the man-hater also animates <a href="https://xyonline.net/sites/xyonline.net/files/2019-12/Marwick%2C%20Drinking%20male%20tears%202018.pdf">hatred of feminism and of women</a> in the manosphere – websites that promote masculinity and misogyny – where it is used to promote opposition to gender equality and to justify acts of violence.</p>
<p>Of course, there are reasons to suspect that at least some feminists might hold negative attitudes toward men. A few even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/10/french-writer-book-pauline-harmange-i-hate-men-interview">advocate misandry</a> as a rational and authentic response to men’s violent, degrading and oppressive treatment of women. </p>
<p>In a way it would make sense for feminists to dislike a group that threatens their welfare and dignity. And we know that negative feelings toward advantaged groups in society can actually be an important driver of protest and other forms of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/abs/beyond-prejudice-are-negative-evaluations-the-problem-and-is-getting-us-to-like-one-another-more-the-solution/F5E01C0515257104E123D5B06D7ED714">collective action</a>. </p>
<p>But feminists, at least those subscribing to mainstream liberal beliefs, often see men and women as relatively similar to each other. And we know that perceived similarity promotes attraction and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(86)90041-7">positive attitudes</a> toward individuals and groups. </p>
<p>Feminists might therefore be expected to have positive attitudes toward men. Such views have been reflected in the words and actions of some prominent feminists.</p>
<p>The writer bell hooks (pen name) <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745317335/feminism-is-for-everybody/">explicitly called out the suffering of men</a>, particularly men of colour, under misogynistic systems. These sentiments were echoed by Emma Watson <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-watson-gender-equality-is-your-issue-too">at the UN in 2014</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gkjW9PZBRfk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Despite its longevity and impact, the misandry stereotype has been subject to little scientific scrutiny. The studies that have been done, like most in psychology, are limited by small samples that are often drawn exclusively from populations of university students from the US. </p>
<p>Previous investigations have also been hampered by the relatively few women who identified (at least openly) as feminists in these samples (as low as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2009.01491.x?casa_token=lkCQjmvHnHAAAAAA:nxml8c6lWc1mtTgJNGnmZ4eQhepiNwALk1weILgS-Hu8FyEEI3OLemerZkXieD4ZUHV7x-FrkLi1">17%</a>). </p>
<p>More recent polling data in the US <a href="https://www.kff.org/other/poll-finding/washington-post-kaiser-family-foundation-feminism-survey/">show that</a> 60% of women and 33% of men consider themselves as “feminist” or “strong feminist”. In the UK, 67% of 18-24 year-olds <a href="https://www.youngwomenstrust.org/our-research/young-womens-feminism-and-activism-2019/">identify as feminist</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more, the measures of attitudes toward men often conflate the overall positivity and negativity with stereotypes and ideological beliefs. For example, researchers may use statements such as “Men act like babies when they are sick,” to measure hostile attitudes to men. </p>
<p>The problem here is that research participants might agree with this statement even if they are very fond of men. They may just endorse specific social stereotypes about how men (over)react to illness. </p>
<h2>Digging deeper</h2>
<p>In our research, we recruited 9,799 participants across the US, China, South Korea, India, Japan, Taiwan, the UK and Poland. </p>
<p>We included various measurements of attitudes to men, and feminism itself - including the extent to which someone identified as feminist, their specific beliefs and their participation or support for feminist social action.</p>
<p>We generally included a way for participants to indicate whether they had positive or negative attitudes in absolute rather than just relative terms. For example, we often included “feeling thermometers” in which participants rated how they felt about men on a sliding scale, ranging from 0 (“very cold”) to 100 (“very warm”), with 50 being neutral (“neither cold nor warm”).</p>
<p>We found that feminists overall had positive attitudes toward men, scoring well above the scale mid-point on feelings of warmth, liking and trust. Feminists and non-feminists barely differed in their attitudes. These patterns were largely consistent across nine countries in three continents. </p>
<p>Similarly, participation in feminist action was associated with anger about the mistreatment of women, but not with negative attitudes toward men. Feminists’ attitudes toward men were in fact about as positive as men’s attitudes toward men.</p>
<p>In some countries, we asked people to tell us how positively or negatively they thought “feminists” felt toward men. This allowed a direct comparison of what feminists actually think and what people think they think - a true test of the accuracy of the misandry stereotype. People incorrectly stereotyped feminists as having more negative attitudes toward men than feminists actually reported.</p>
<p>On average, participants believed that feminists’ attitudes to men were negative in absolute terms. Feminist participants were not quite as wrong about the attitudes of fellow feminists, but still massively underestimated their peers’ warm feelings towards men. Importantly, this finding was replicated with a nationally representative sample of adults in the UK (a gold standard in research into social attitudes).</p>
<h2>Origins of the stereotype</h2>
<p>If the stereotype that feminists hate men is unfounded, where does it come from? Our results suggested two possible reasons. First, believing that feminists hate men is a convenient way to dismiss what they have to say. </p>
<p>This possibility was backed up by the fact that participants who scored highly on a measure of hostile sexism, viewing women as trying to usurp men’s power, were most prone to seeing feminists as man-haters.</p>
<p>Second, even pro-feminist participants made an important mistake. They thought that feminists see men and women as largely dissimilar to each other. In fact, feminist participants tended to see men and women as largely alike. </p>
<p>This makes sense given that women have historically been discriminated against on the basis of fictional gender differences, such as not being “rational” enough for certain jobs. </p>
<p>Ultimately, we hope that by showing that feminism is not synonymous with man-hating, we can contribute to a more informed and accurate discussion about gender relations. </p>
<p>After all, people should be making judgements based on fact, rather than fiction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Feminists are about as man-hating as men are.Aífe Hopkins-Doyle, Lecturer in Social Psychology, University of SurreyAino Lilja Petterson, Postdoctoral Fellow of Psychology, University of OsloRobbie Sutton, Professor of Social Psychology, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.