A person’s style of speech — not just the pitch of his or her voice — may help determine whether the listener perceives the speaker to be male or female, according to a University of Colorado Boulder researcher who studied transgender people transitioning from female to male.
The way people pronounce their “s” sounds and the amount of resonance they use when speaking contributes to the perception of gender, according to Lal Zimman, whose findings are based on research he completed while earning his doctoral degree from CU-Boulder’s linguistics department. (more…)
UD’s Armstrong Dunbar a featured expert in PBS series ‘The Abolitionists’
The Abolitionists, airing on PBS this month, is timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, but it offers viewers “a real understanding of the complexities of what it took to end slavery” beyond Lincoln’s proclamation itself, a University of Delaware historian featured in the series says.
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, associate professor of history with joint appointments in Black American Studies and in women and gender studies, was approached by creators of the three-part series to provide her perspective on the issues and individuals featured. The Abolitionists is part of the “American Experience” series and is scheduled to air Tuesday nights, Jan. 8, 15 and 22. (more…)
One of the most notable outcomes of the Nov. 6 election was the record number of women voted into Congress, including 20 women who will occupy seats in the U.S. Senate.
Christopher Berry, associate professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, recently discussed the effects of the increase in female U.S. senators. Berry co-authored a 2011 study that found congresswomen consistently outperform their male counterparts on several measures of job performance.
What implications will the increase of female representation have for the U.S. Senate?
Potentially of great interest to the constituents of the new female senators is our finding that they consistently bring home more federal projects and federal aid than their male counterparts. When you think about disasters like Hurricane Sandy, the ability to bring home federal aid for rebuilding efforts is really important. It is going to be good for their constituents and the states they represent. (more…)
Gender disparity in journalism still exists, but is improving
COLUMBIA, Mo. —The Pulitzer Prize in Journalism is one of the world’s most prestigious awards. Despite progress in the last few decades, gender disparities in the field of journalism have existed as long as the profession has. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that female Pulitzer Prize winners are more likely to have greater qualifications than their male counterparts in order to win the coveted award.
In a study to be published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Yong Volz, an assistant professor of journalism studies in the MU School of Journalism, along with Francis Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, studied biographical data from all 814 historical winners of the Pulitzer Prize from 1917 to 2010. They found that the majority of the 113 female Pulitzer Prize winners enjoyed access to greater resources than the average male winner. (more…)
What are the key ingredients to raising successful, self-sufficient offspring? A new life sciences study using 14 years of data on gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park indicates that cooperative group behavior and a mother’s weight are crucial.
“A female’s body weight is key in the survival of her offspring, and cooperation in the protection and feeding of young pups pays off in terms of the production of offspring,” said Robert Wayne, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA and co-author of the new research, published this week in the online edition of the Journal of Animal Ecology. (more…)
A study conducted by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany has shown that the male members of a sandpiper population who spend less time sleeping are more successful at mating with females and have more offspring.
The sandpiper mating season takes place during the summer in the Arctic Circle, when the sun practically never goes down. Males of the species compete to impress females by fighting with each other, defending territory, and flying over the females while making a hooting sound.(more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — New research out of Michigan State University reveals female athletes and younger athletes take longer to recover from concussions, findings that call for physicians and athletic trainers to take sex and age into account when dealing with the injury.
The study, led by Tracey Covassin of MSU’s Department of Kinesiology, found females performed worse than males on visual memory tests and reported more symptoms postconcussion.
Additionally, high school athletes performed worse than college athletes on verbal and visual memory tests, and some of the younger athletes still were impaired up to two weeks after their injuries. (more…)
In order to accurately identify skulls as male or female, forensic anthropologists need to have a good understanding of how the characteristics of male and female skulls differ between populations. A new study from North Carolina State University shows that these differences can be significant, even between populations that are geographically close to one another.
The researchers looked at the skulls of 27 women and 28 men who died in Lisbon, Portugal, between 1880 and 1975. They also evaluated the skulls of 40 women and 39 men who died between 1895 and 1903 in the rural area of Coimbra, just over 120 miles north of Lisbon. (more…)
