Gender Gaps in PhDs [Interactive Graphic]

 Scientific American recently published an article on the PhD gender gap. The article included an interactive feature where students can look at the gender difference in PhD by country (56 nations are included) and also by subject area.   If you plan to talk about the underepresentation of women in certain subject areas OR if you plan to talk about global differences in gender roles, this tool should help your students visualize the differences.

(Link here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-nations-fare-in-phds-by-sex-interactive/)

Search for Words in Move and TV SubTitles [Interactive Feature]

Many of use have students who use content anaylsis as method of observation.  This tool was created by Benjamin Schmidt, history professor at Northeastern, and will likely be useful to students performing content analyses as well as professors covering the sociology of media in their classrooms.  You can type words into the search boxes and the tool searches TV and movies dialogue (It is based on Subtitles). You can filter the results by TV show, movie genres, etc. Clicking on the line will actually direct you to the specific  texts.

I think it is interesting  way to show how the media reflects and constructs culture.

Here is the link to the tool: http://movies.benschmidt.org/

For example, I looked at he usage of gay vs. lesbian over time and posted the information below.  You can see that TV shows are much more likely to mentions "gay" than they are to mention "lesbian". Ask your students to speculate on why.  [The large spike in 1951 seems to come from one particular i Love Lucy episode. Unfortunately, you don't always know the context of the word.]

I still wan to play around with this more and haven't yet used it in class but it seems like a great tool.

Racial Profiling and Hoodies [Video]

Racial Profiling is not funny at all- and that make it hard to start a good conversation about the issue.

This Key & Peele comedy sketch may help you break the ice on this difficult topic. Ask your students to look for the ways that neighbors respond to "a man with a hoodie". The ending might surprise you.

Needlessly Gendered Products

When I teach students about gender, I like to hold a conversation about how we attach meaning and value to certain objects. Most students will realize how gendered meanings are attached to baby clothes and toys; however, they don't always see how the meanings are attached to products that they use and buy every day. My hope is that if we can get our students to see how we attach value to objects, we can also get them to see how we attach meanings to bodies.

Ellen gets the conversation started with a funny video about "lady pens"




You can also show them this Buzzfeed list: http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinchack/pointlessly-gendered-products#ziat4b

A great academic blog post on this subject can be found here. Thanks to D'Lane Compton and Tristan Bridges for starting the converstion : http://yourqueerprof.com/on-queering-parenting-and-gender-neutrality/2013

My Princess Boy Does Gender Creativity [Video]

This video introduces Dyson, a young boy who likes to wear dresses, and the story of how his mother came to write the book My Princess Boy.  I believe that introducing students to Dyson helps them understand the idea of gender creativity/fluidity.

Link to video

Judith Butler Explains Gender as Performative [Video]

In this video clip, Judith Butler discusses the doing gender theory, specifically focusing on how gender is not just performance, but is also performative.

Here's a quote from the interview: "It’s one thing to say that gender is performed and that is a little different from saying gender is performative.  When we say gender is performed we usually mean that we’ve taken on a role or we’re acting in some way and that our acting or our role playing is crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to the world.  To say that gender is performative is a little different because for something to be performative means that it produces a series of effects. We act and walk and speak and talk in ways that consolidate an impression of being a man or being a woman."

Link to video

Boys Will Be Girls: Doing Gender Comedy Skit [Video]

This comedy skit by Harvard Sailing Team captures gender stereotypes in a way that students find funny and relatable.  It can be used to begin conversations about gender norms, interaction routines, and the performance of gender.

Note: you may want to alert your students to the discussion of potentially triggering dieting behaviors

Link to video 

(Dis)Ability and Masculinity [Video]

This video is a commercial from Guinness depicted men in wheelchairs playing basketball.  I use this video during a week on the intersections of gender, health, and bodies.  I find it is useful to illustrate some of our assumptions about masculinity.  For example, I ask:

• What assumptions do we have about masculinity and bodies?
• What characteristics or qualities in men does this ad valorize?

It would be nicely paired with this article: Coston and Kimmel. 2012. “Seeing Privilege Where It Isn’t: Marginalized Masculinities and the Intersectionality of Privilege.” Journal of Social Issues 68(1): 97-111.

Link to video

What do we imply by saying "run like a girl"? [Video]

What do we mean when we say that someone “runs like a girl” or “throws like a girl”?  What does this imply about girls?  About femininity in general?  I use this video to illustrate the power of language and the everyday effects of patriarchy.

Quoted from the Always campaign:
"Using #LikeAGirl as an insult is a hard knock against any adolescent girl. And since the rest of puberty's really no picnic either, it's easy to see what a huge impact it can have on a girl's self-confidence.
We're kicking off an epic battle to make sure that girls everywhere keep their confidence throughout puberty and beyond, and making a start by showing them that doing it #LikeAGirl is an awesome thing."

""In my work as a documentarian, I have witnessed the confidence crisis among girls and the negative impact of stereotypes first-hand," said Lauren Greenfield, filmmaker and director of the #LikeAGirl video. "When the words 'like a girl' are used to mean something bad, it is profoundly disempowering. I am proud to partner with Always to shed light on how this simple phrase can have a significant and long-lasting impact on girls and women. I am excited to be a part of the movement to redefine 'like a girl' into a positive affirmation.""

Link to video

Is Going to College Worth It? [Interactive Tool]

Thanks the NPR's Here & Now for bringing this interesting interactive tool to my attention.  The tool called, Take the Plunge, was designed by Fusion.  Other than the depressing personal reality that male college dropouts on average will have higher lifetimes earnings that female PhDs, the tool is very useful and helps students visualize the idea of going in to debt before climbing higher than those who have no student loans.

You can access the tool here: http://static.fusion.net/lifetime_earnings/

The online tool uses data from PayScale to show the median lifetime earnings for people based on their gender, level of education, degree type, and gender.  If you want more information about the data, click on the Methodology link on the lower left hand corner or the Analysis section on the menu bar located across the top of the screen. If you would like to see some examples, check out the "Featured Charts" on the same menu bar.



Some of my thoughts on this

• Figuring out how to add new people to the chart was a bit confusing at first, but I eventually got the hang of it. Don't  get discouraged.  
• It would have been great to also see Race/Ethnicity on here. I didn't really see any mention of why it was not there -perhaps it is not something that PayScale collects?
• I had some questions on using past data to predict future outcomes.   Fusion Senior editor Felix Salmon gave his take on that in the NPR Interview (Listen Here). I'm not sure if I agree but this would be a great discussion point for more advanced methods courses.
• Despite all of that, I think this is a great visualization and I hope it will get students talking about the cost of education.s