Does gender determine journalists' professional views? A reassessment based on cross-national evidence

Research into journalism and gender to date has found somewhat contradictory evidence as to the ways in which women and men practice journalism. While some scholars claim that women have inherently different concepts and practices of journalism and that this has led to a feminization of journalism, others have found little evidence to suggest that men and women differ significantly in terms of their role conceptions. While numerous studies have been conducted into this issue around the world, few have taken a truly comparative approach. This paper presents results from a large-scale comparative survey into gender differences in journalists’ professional views in 18 diverse countries around the world. Results suggest that women and men do not differ in any meaningful ways in their role conceptions on neither the individual level, in newsrooms dominated by women, nor in socio-cultural contexts where women have achieved a certain level of empowerment.

Gender differences in Australian students' relationships with school science

This paper explores issues of gender in Year 10 Australian students‘ experiences of science at school, their self-reported ability in science and their perceptions of science as a subject choice for senior secondary school. A sample of 3759 Year 10 students from across Australia responded to Likert-style questions related to these issues, with findings showing gender differences in perceptions of science, self-rated ability, and reasons for choosing not to study further science. Moreover, interesting contrasts were revealed in patterns of difference of self-rated ability for boys and girls across single-sex and co-educational schools.

Gender stereotypes of personality : universal and accurate?

Numerous studies have documented subtle but consistent sex differences in self-reports and observer-ratings of five-factor personality traits, and such effects were found to show well-defined developmental trajectories and remarkable similarity across nations. In contrast, very little is known about perceived gender differences in five-factor traits in spite of their potential implications for gender biases at the interpersonal and societal level. In particular, it is not clear how perceived gender differences in five-factor personality vary across age groups and national contexts and to what extent they accurately reflect assessed sex differences in personality. To address these questions, we analyzed responses from 3,323 individuals across 26 nations (mean age = 22.3 years, 31% male) who were asked to rate the five-factor personality traits of typical men or women in three age groups (adolescent, adult, and older adult) in their respective nations. Raters perceived women as slightly higher in openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness as well as some aspects of extraversion and neuroticism. Perceived gender differences were fairly consistent across nations and target age groups and mapped closely onto assessed sex differences in self- and observer-rated personality. Associations between the average size of perceived gender differences and national variations in sociodemographic characteristics, value systems, or gender equality did not reach statistical significance. Findings contribute to our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of gender stereotypes of personality and suggest that perceptions of actual sex differences may play a more important role than culturally based gender roles and socialization processes.

Journalism, gender, feminist theory and news reporting on the Australian Football League

This article reports on a review of selected theory and practice in sports journalism to determine if the prominence of female journalists reporting the news of a major sporting movement, and industry, the Australian Football League (AFL) could be attributed to a feminist response to the traditional domination of male values in the sports media complex. The article reviews selected literature to establish that, on the evidence presented, male values have traditionally dominated the news. It then considers feminist theory and alternative feminist responses to the domination of male values in the newsroom. Consideration is also given to Australian research on the ‘seriousness’ of sports news and its coverage (or lack thereof) of more ‘feminine’ news values including human interest stories, stories about culture and those on serious social issues. Interviews with a select group of female journalists who write about the AFL for The Age newspaper in Melbourne are recounted, with a focus on the journalists’ work experiences. The article concludes by drawing together the research findings to demonstrate that, although feminine news values are represented in only a small proportion of AFL news stories, there is evidence to suggest they are afforded a high degree of presentational prominence which reflects the needs and expectations of a female audience. It shows that female journalists do play a meaningful role in the AFL media and that, given the evidence presented, a feminist response to the traditional domination of male values in the sports media complex could indeed be applicable, and taking place.

Bits and bumps : gender, comedy and the body.

This paper examines some of the ways in which gender impacts upon contemporary physical comedy. According to the late Christopher Hitchens (2007, 2), women are too concerned with the seriousness of their reproductive responsibility to make good comedy; as slapstick film director Mack Sennett (in Dale, 2000, 92) maintained: “No joke about a mother ever got a laugh”. This article proposes a method of understanding what happens to the body in the comic moment, then draws upon Kristeva’s notion of abjection to help understand how gender inflects the creation of physical comedy.

The Australian mining industry and the ideal mining woman : mobilizing a public business case for gender equality

Despite ongoing ‘boom’ conditions in the Australian mining industry, women remain substantially and unevenly under-represented in the sector, as is the case in other resource-dependent countries. Building on the literature critiquing business-case rationales and strategies as a means to achieve women’s equality in the workplace, we examine the business case for employing more women as advanced by the Australian mining industry. Specifically, we apply a discourse analysis to seven substantial, publically-available documents produced by the industry’s national and state peak organizations between 2005 and 2013. Our study makes two contributions. First, we map the features of the business case at the sectoral rather than firm or workplace level and examine its public mobilization. Second, we identify the construction and deployment of a normative identity – ‘the ideal mining woman’ – as a key outcome of this business-case discourse. Crucially, women are therein positioned as individually responsible for gender equality in the workplace.

Gender, emotions and fly-in fly-out work

This paper explores the emotional life of fly‑in fly‑out (FIFO) workers and their families, through an analysis of more than 500 postings made on an online chat forum for mining families. Building on literature on fly‑in fly‑out workers and understandings of emotions as socially constructed, analysis shows how posters to the forum, typically women whose male partners are FIFO workers, construct gendered emotional identities for their partners (sometimes referred to as 'Mr Miner'), and for themselves, as 'mining women', 'mining widows' or the 'mining missus'. Inherent in the creation of gendered emotional subject positions is the process of women undertaking emotion work on and behalf of themselves, their male partners and their children. The findings demonstrate the overarching normative dimensions of women's emotional self‑transformations in the service of their mining partners' careers and the attendant reproduction of everyday patriarchal relations in the private lives of mining families.

Journalism students’ professional views in eight countries : the role of motivations, education, and gender

The global trend toward university-based journalism education has led to a growing scrutiny of students’ experiences at university and the extent to which professional views may be shaped there. Three main influences have been identified in the literature: students’ preferences for certain news beats, their gender, and students’ stage of progression in a journalism program. Typically, however, analyses have focused on only one potential influence within one particular country at a time. Arguing that a comparative approach is needed, this article examines potential influences on journalism students’ role perceptions across eight countries. Results suggest that students’ motivations, and the amount of time they have spent in a program, play a part in influencing their professional views while gender has little influence.

Introduction - research ethics : women, sex, and gender in biomedical research

The ethical governance of biomedical research is an area of intense international debate. Scholars argue about who should regulate and how, the appropriate role for ethics committees, what kind of research should be included, and who should be involved in monitoring compliance. A particular aspect of these debates concerns the inclusion of women as research participants and the efforts to ensure that researchers consistently investigate questions of sex and gender in health research. There is increasing evidence of the role of sex in the manifestation and course of some illnesses and their treatment. Moreover, evidence suggests that gendered expectations also affect health outcomes. This special issue investigates how researchers are addressing these issues and debates the appropriate roles of policy makers, ethicists, and lawyers in ensuring that sex and gender differences are taken into account in the development, conduct, and reporting of health research.

Age and gender differences in objectively measured physical activity in youth

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate age and gender differences in objectively measured physical activity (PA) in a population-based sample of students in grades 1–12. Methods Participants (185 male, 190 female) wore a CSA 7164 accelerometer for 7 consecutive days. To examine age-related trends, students were grouped as follows: grades 1–3 (N = 90), grades 4–6 (N = 91), grades 7–9 (N = 96), and grades 10–12 (N = 92). Bouts of PA and minutes spent in moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) and vigorous PA (VPA) were examined. Results Daily MVPA and VPA exhibited a significant inverse relationship with grade level, with the largest differences occurring between grades 1–3 and 4–6. Boys were more active than girls; however, for overall PA, the magnitudes of the gender differences were modest. Participation in continuous 20-min bouts of PA was low to nonexistent. Conclusion Our results support the notion that PA declines rapidly during childhood and adolescence and that accelerometers are feasible alternatives to self-report methods in moderately sized population-level surveillance studies.

Taxation determinations as de facto regulation : private equity exits in Australia

The Australian Taxation Office (AT)) attempted to challenge both the private equity fund reliance on double tax agreements and the assertion that profits were capital in nature in its dispute with private equity group TPG. Failure to resolve the dispute resulted in the ATO issuing two taxation determinations: TD 2010/20 which states that the general anti-avoidance provisions can apply to arrangements designed to alter the intended effect of Australia's international tax agreements net; and TD 2010/21 which states that the profits on the sale of shares in a company group acquired in a leveraged buyout is assessable income. The purpose of this article is to determine the effectiveness of the administrative rulings regime as a regulatory strategy. This article, by using the TPG-Myer scenario and subsequent tax determinations as a case study, collects qualitative data which is then analysed (and triangulated) using tonal and thematic analysis. Contemporaneous commentary of private equity stakeholders, tax professionals, and media observations are analysed and evaluated within a framework of responsive regulation and utilising the current ATO compliance model. Contrary to the stated purpose of the ATO rulings regime to alleviate complexities in Australian taxation law and provide certainty to taxpayers, and despite the de facto law status afforded these rulings, this study found that the majority of private equity stakeholders and their advisors perceived that greater uncertainty was created by the two determinations. Thus, this study found that in the context of private equity fund investors, a responsive regulation measure in the form of taxation determinations was not effective.

Gender, sexuality, and rurality in the mining industry

Sexuality is a subject that has been, at best, marginal in the significant body of literature that has examined gender and mining in contemporary Western nations. This is despite the fact that academics have circled, if not almost bumped into the topic in closely related discussions of hegemonic masculinity and mining work, and of patriarchal familial relations and mining communities. This scholarship has documented what has been and remains women’s primary relationship to mining—that is, as a “mining wife.” How patriarchal relations are manifest in and emerge from this state of affairs has been critiqued with research on the gendered implications of housing arrangements in mining towns, the division of household labor, changing shift-work mining rosters, and the gendered consequences of strikes and mine closures (Williams 1981; Gibson 1992; Gibson-Graham 1996; Rhodes 2005; McDonald, Mayes, and Pini 2012). Despite the centrality of the heterosexual relationship—and indeed heteronormativity—to these discussions, scholars of gender and mining have had little to say on the subject of sexuality. In response to this lacuna, this chapter takes an exploratory lens to the subject of sexuality and the mining industry. We approach the task from the perspective that the mining industry is gendered as masculine. That is, definitions of mining mobilize around masculinized notions of physicality, technical competence with machinery, and strength, as well as emphasize the harshness and dirtiness of the work (Mayes and Pini 2010).

Gender differences in physical activity and determinants of physical activity in rural fifth grade children

This study determined if gender differences in physical activity could be accounted for by differences in selected social-cognitive determinants of activity behavior. Some 334 fifth grade, predominantly African-American students provided information regarding after-school physical activity and the hypothesized determinants of activity behavior. Boys reported significantly greater participation in vigorous (greater than or equal to 6 METs) and in moderate to vigorous (greater than or equal to 4 METs). Relative to girls, boys demonstrated higher levels of physical fitness, greater self-efficacy in overcoming barriers to physical activity, greater amounts of television watching, and higher levels of participation in community sports and physical activity organizations. When mean physical activity scores for girls and boys were adjusted for the effects of these determinant variables, the significant gender difference in physical activity remained. However, adjustment for self-efficacy in overcoming barriers and community sports reduced the gender gap by 5% and 7%, respectively. In contrast, adjustment for television watching increased the gender gap by about 8%. Results indicated perceived confidence in overcoming barriers to physical activity and participation in community physical activity programs are factors related to the gender difference in physical activity.