10 ms·

The author is a woman. Which seems typical these days with regards to articles talking about men. Or maybe it's just that more sociologists are women (?).

gearhart 11y ago
My apologies - I didn't even check. I'm not sure that changes my view on the piece though, it felt remarkably objective.
- throwaway999888 11y ago
  > I'm not sure that changes my view on the piece though, In the spirit of gender equality, it shouldn't in any case. ;)
  - mreiland 11y ago
    The discussion is around gender, the gender of the author does actually make a difference in how the article is received (as it should). People get stupid around gender. If this were an article about christian and muslims, no one would blink at using the religion of the author to help decipher intent.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      Why are you interested in deciphering intent in the first place?
      - toyg 11y ago
        Because pure objectivity in social sciences is a myth, a utopic state at the best of times? We all have biases when it comes to deciphering human behaviour -- the best scientists will try to shed them harder than others, but they'll likely still retain some. On top of that, you have to consider that social sciences (including economics) are "Schrodinger objects": as you observe and describe them, they change. Once you understand that, you can leverage the dynamic for personal or political gain, which is extremely common.
rayiner 11y ago
Womansplaining?
jonesb6 11y ago
Completely anecdotal but I intentionally took a number of sociology courses (despite majoring in a vastly different field) and this was my impression as well. While many of the 101 and low-level courses were closer to 50/50 higher level courses seemed to have a larger and larger majority women. So it would make sense that more sociology-styled articles are indeed written by women. Still anecdotal though.
- throwaway999888 11y ago
  Do you know if there was some correspondence with seniority and teaching higher or lower level courses? One way or the other. It seems to be that some things that are female dominated at lower levels, like undergraduate studies, might still be either more gender balanced or male dominated at higher levels, like research. Whether that is due to a glass ceiling or whatever else, I don't know; you'd have to ask a sociologist about that.
  - im2w1l 11y ago
    Generation effect
  - disgruntledphd2 11y ago
    This was the case for me, during my UG and PG studies in psychology. 90% female undergraduate (approx 36 girls, 4 guys including me). Around 80% female postgraduate. About 75% male lecturer/senior lecturer/professor. One of our lecturers brought it up, and I suggested that it might be due to more guys doing psychology in the past, but he refuted this, saying that the gender skew had been like that since he started in the field. My only real explanation for this is unconscious/institutional sexism.
chillingeffect 11y ago
Wonder no more. The American Sociological Association reports data from the National Science Foundation in the U.S. showing over 20 consecutive years of enrollment skewed about 2:1 in favor of women [1]. [1] http://www.asanet.org/research/stats/gender/graduate_enrollment.cfm http://www.asanet.org/research/stats/gender/graduate_enrollm... BTW, this is a hell of an article. It describes an "intransigent masculinity," yet women are not supposed to let men define their femininity? And it blames mass shootings on "masculinity." But take a look at this hocky-stick graph of the frequency of the history of mass-shootings in the U.S. [2]. There's something more than "masculinity" going on here: [2] http://thesocietypages.org/feminist/files/2015/07/Mass-Shootings-Frequency.png http://thesocietypages.org/feminist/files/2015/07/Mass-Shoot...

gearhart 11y ago

My apologies - I didn't even check. I'm not sure that changes my view on the piece though, it felt remarkably objective.

throwaway999888 11y ago
> I'm not sure that changes my view on the piece though, In the spirit of gender equality, it shouldn't in any case. ;)
- mreiland 11y ago
  The discussion is around gender, the gender of the author does actually make a difference in how the article is received (as it should). People get stupid around gender. If this were an article about christian and muslims, no one would blink at using the religion of the author to help decipher intent.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Why are you interested in deciphering intent in the first place?
    - toyg 11y ago
      Because pure objectivity in social sciences is a myth, a utopic state at the best of times? We all have biases when it comes to deciphering human behaviour -- the best scientists will try to shed them harder than others, but they'll likely still retain some. On top of that, you have to consider that social sciences (including economics) are "Schrodinger objects": as you observe and describe them, they change. Once you understand that, you can leverage the dynamic for personal or political gain, which is extremely common.

rayiner 11y ago

Womansplaining?

jonesb6 11y ago

Completely anecdotal but I intentionally took a number of sociology courses (despite majoring in a vastly different field) and this was my impression as well. While many of the 101 and low-level courses were closer to 50/50 higher level courses seemed to have a larger and larger majority women. So it would make sense that more sociology-styled articles are indeed written by women. Still anecdotal though.

throwaway999888 11y ago
Do you know if there was some correspondence with seniority and teaching higher or lower level courses? One way or the other. It seems to be that some things that are female dominated at lower levels, like undergraduate studies, might still be either more gender balanced or male dominated at higher levels, like research. Whether that is due to a glass ceiling or whatever else, I don't know; you'd have to ask a sociologist about that.
- im2w1l 11y ago
  Generation effect
- disgruntledphd2 11y ago
  This was the case for me, during my UG and PG studies in psychology. 90% female undergraduate (approx 36 girls, 4 guys including me). Around 80% female postgraduate. About 75% male lecturer/senior lecturer/professor. One of our lecturers brought it up, and I suggested that it might be due to more guys doing psychology in the past, but he refuted this, saying that the gender skew had been like that since he started in the field. My only real explanation for this is unconscious/institutional sexism.

chillingeffect 11y ago

Wonder no more. The American Sociological Association reports data from the National Science Foundation in the U.S. showing over 20 consecutive years of enrollment skewed about 2:1 in favor of women [1]. [1] http://www.asanet.org/research/stats/gender/graduate_enrollment.cfm http://www.asanet.org/research/stats/gender/graduate_enrollm... BTW, this is a hell of an article. It describes an "intransigent masculinity," yet women are not supposed to let men define their femininity? And it blames mass shootings on "masculinity." But take a look at this hocky-stick graph of the frequency of the history of mass-shootings in the U.S. [2]. There's something more than "masculinity" going on here: [2] http://thesocietypages.org/feminist/files/2015/07/Mass-Shootings-Frequency.png http://thesocietypages.org/feminist/files/2015/07/Mass-Shoot...