If you’re wondering whether musical instruments can be graded according to whether they’re perceived as masculine or feminine, the answer is yes (such perceptions can be graded). For an example study, look no further than the Journal of Research in Music Education, Volume: 29 issue: 1, page(s): 57-62, Issue published: April 1, 1981, where you’ll […]
Tag: Gender
Theory of Everything: Gendered Exploitation of Cockfighting Roosters
Here’s another entry in the competition for A Theory That Explains Everything. This one is a study published in the year 2010: “Roosters, hawks and dawgs: Toward an inclusive, embodied eco/feminist psychology,” pattrice jones, Feminism Psychology, vol. 20 no. 3, August 2010, pp. 365-380. The author (who spell her names with all lowercase letters) explains: “The gendered […]
Computerised gender classification (part 2, shoes etc)
The previous article in this series drew attention to the possibilities offered by eyebrows in the field of automated computerised gender classification. But eyebrows are by no means the only choice available to classifiers. For a recent (2015) roundup of the options on offer, see the work of Yingxiao Wu, Yan Zhuang, Xi Long, and […]
Computerised gender classification (part 1: eyebrows)
Can you tell a person’s gender from just a glimpse of their eyebrows? Could a computerised system do the same? To find out, a project was undertaken by Yujie Dong (of the Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University) and Damon L. Woodard (now at the Biometrics and Pattern Recognition Lab, University of […]
Male/female physicists compared, fictionally
This chart compares the personality traits of male and female physicists, all of whom are fictional. It’s part of the study “Portrayal of Physicists in Fictional Works,” Daniel Dotson, Comparative Literature and Culture, Volume 11, Issue 2 (June 2009) Article 5.
Who Looks Where How Often
“Gender Differences for Specific Body Regions When Looking at Men and Women,” Johannes Hewig, Ralf H. Trippe, Holger Hecht, Thomas Straube and Wolfgang H.R. Miltner, Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, vol. 32, no. 2, June 2008, pp. 67–78 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10919-007-0043-5). (Thanks to Nicole Bordes for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany, report: […]
Talking About Talking
“Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men?”, Matthias R. Mehl, Simine Vazire, Nairán Ramírez-Esparza, Richard B. Slatcher and James W. Pennebaker, Science, vol. 317, no. 5834, 2007, p. 82 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1139940). The authors, who are variously at the University of Arizona, at Washington University and at the University of Texas, report that: Women are generally assumed […]