Notices by Amy Diehl, Ph.D. (amydiehl@mstdn.social)

Study of 61 nations finds higher sexism predicts lower GDP, lower "global peace index" (more militarization, lower safety and security), greater antidemocratic practices & shorter lifespans. Sexism truly harms us all, men, women, children.
https://theconversation.com/sexism-linked-to-social-ills-for-men-and-women-finds-largest-cross-cultural-study-of-its-kind-247183

Zuckerberg exhibits "fragile masculinity," which means clinging to notions of rigid masculinity when feeling insecure and pressured to “man up."
https://theconversation.com/mark-zuckerberg-thinks-workplaces-need-to-man-up-heres-why-thats-bad-for-all-employees-no-matter-their-gender-247539

A type of office housework is helping others with their work. As this woman engineer notes, her male colleagues avoided helping others by being "outright rude or dismissive to those asking for assistance, deterring people from reaching out again."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/woman-worked-tech-industry-15-214617926.html

“If a return to masculine energy means all these bros paying fealty to the new bully on the block, that gives us new insight into what masculinity really means.”
-Dr. Juliet Williams
https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2025/01/17/mark-zuckerberg-meta-workforce-masculine-energy/77755286007/

While Biden affirming the Equal Rights Amendment is good, the last minute timing is a problem. Making the statement even a few weeks earlier would have allowed the Biden administration more time to legally force the archivist to publish it.
https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5264378/biden-era-national-archivist-constitution

I spoke about lookism bias against women at work with Dahlia Stroud for the Stressed But Well Dressed Podcast. Lookism is traditionally defined as a beauty bias, where attractive people have advantages that unattractive people do not. However, for women, it is a general appearance bias. In our research, no matter what the women looked like, they were criticized or actively discriminated against. Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7cBBe7gGo39AlGWyyJbIyS?si=Il2sOAM-QhG5AwxyJ-YThg&nd=1&dlsi=f30b0a71c2ff4027

Study (N=520) over 25 years finds women consistently did majority of cooking, cleaning, groceries, laundry. Parenthood widened the gap. Decisions made early in relationships about the distribution of chores persisted over the life of those relationships.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/women-housework-division-labour-1.7426763

Study of 86,000 scientists in 38 countries in gender balanced fields finds only 26% of women continue their publishing careers after 19 years vs 36% of men. "Gender balance does not really guarantee equal chances of survival in science."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00021-6

While CEOs who force RTO claim that it enables collaboration, research finds that video remote communication increases personal & professional bonds, as employees learn non-work info about each other & see each other as more authentic, human & trustworthy. https://hbr.org/2024/11/research-how-wfh-can-actually-strengthen-bonds-between-coworkers

Not listed in any of the tech billionaires morning routines: care-taking responsibilities.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14244963/The-morning-rituals-tech-billionaires-swear-led-success.html

Study finds CEOs use of war metaphors (a masculine framing) signals undue risk to financial analysts. Better to use metaphors that emphasize collaboration, long term stability and measured ambition to signal strategic prudence, not reckless competition.
https://hbr.org/2025/01/research-when-ceos-use-war-metaphors-analysts-worry

Bias is persistent in real estate development. When two women co-owners of a development firm made a proposal to buy land, the real estate broker said no. They asked a male developer to make the same offer to the same broker. It was accepted immediately. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/realestate/female-real-estate-developers-discrimination.html

Study finds that while men lose 17 minutes of their life with each cigarette they smoke, women lose 22 minutes.
https://www.ndtv.com/science/each-cigarette-costs-men-17-minutes-women-22-minutes-of-life-study-warns-7363248

When population rates fall, women are blamed and pressure is put on them to have more children, which includes removing bodily autonomy. But population decline isn't necessarily a bad thing, as our planet can't sustain infinite growth.
https://www.wired.com/story/women-autonomy-birth-rates-gender-rights/

see Scientific American article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/population-decline-will-change-the-world-for-the-better/

While Amazon claims the goal of RTO is to increase collaboration, survey finds many employees (45%) aren’t even assigned to the same office as their manager and 38% said they only worked alongside a fraction of their team members—either 20% or less.
https://www.fastcompany.com/91248618/exclusive-amazons-rto-policy-nearly-half-corporate-workers-looking-new-jobs

Study (N=1,200) finds people interacting with biased AIs became more likely to underestimate women's performance and overestimate white men's likelihood of holding high-status jobs.
https://techxplore.com/news/2024-12-bias-ai-amplifies-biases.html

Just as we need more women in STEM and leadership roles, we need more men in caregiving roles.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/opinion/male-nurses-equality.html?unlocked_article_code=1.iU4.BkyD.9kEwSJL9oRs4&smid=url-share

Washington DC adds $10K to child care worker pay via a tax on residents earning >$250K. The result: teachers are less likely to quit, more child care slots, children receive better care. Cost is $53M with an estimated 23% return on investment.
https://www.npr.org/2024/12/12/nx-s1-5203084/child-care-pay-equity-tax-dc

Study finds 35K AI nonconsensual intimate images (deepfake porn) of 26 Congress members (25 women;1 man). 1 in 6 Congresswomen have been a victim. The goal is to tell women to stay out of political offices which often works as they are scared of harassment. https://19thnews.org/2024/12/ai-sexually-explicit-deepfakes-target-women-congress/

Women may use AI less than men for because AI is male-typed, they don't have time to experiment, or they think it is cheating. All valid. But AI is not going away. It is important for all of us to learn when AI is useful, when it isn't, and AI ethics. https://time.com/charter/7200546/what-to-do-about-ai-adoption-gender-gap/