The gender disparity in the economics discipline is no secret. For UC Berkeley undergraduates, a glance around the classroom is enough evidence of an imbalance. As a part of the nationwide Undergraduate Women in Economics (UWE) Challenge, we attempted to quantify this apparent disparity. The data collection described below is a first step in this … Continue reading »
gender
What do young women want from Bernie Sanders?
I’ve been watching the cross-generational dialogue here on the Berkeley Blog between Ph.D. candidate Peggy O’Donnell and professor emerita Robin Lakoff, which started with Lakoff’s interesting observation about how Hillary Clinton is being “hyperinterpreted” and concluded with O’Donnell’s defense of young women who vote for Bernie Sanders. Meanwhile, over in my corner of UC Berkeley, I’ve … Continue reading »
What Clinton’s campaign reveals about women and power
There are many ways to measure the power difference between men and women. In social science, power is the ability to influence another person’s behavior. Exercising power can be brutal, as when men target women for sexual harassment and violence — which has had the cumulative effect of influencing what women wear, how they walk, who … Continue reading »
Listening to her: Hillary’s dilemma
As the 2016 presidential campaign season begins in earnest, voters can confidently expect increasing amounts of attention from the pundits and other media inhabitants to candidates’ messages: how they introduce themselves personally to potential voters, and why they believe they should be victorious. This is just as it ought to be. But there is one … Continue reading »
My Hillary prediction
I am now in a position to make a prediction: Hillary Rodham Clinton will not be the Democratic candidate for president in 2016. Remember: you read it here first. Why do I think that? Because I have been following the rants of the commentariat on the topic for the last couple of years, and I … Continue reading »
Work hours and the pay gap
Twenty-five years ago, Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild coined the phrase “stalled revolution” to describe how far American women had come since the 1950s. What she meant (in my reading) is that, although gender relations in America, from workplace to bedroom, had changed radically, the pace of change had slowed tremendously. The quicksand that bogged the … Continue reading »
Oral contraceptives should be in vending machines and cigarettes on prescription
I am continuing my weekly blog built around the large undergraduate class I co-teach on Poverty and Population. The philosophy of the class has been well summarized by the economist Partha Dasgupta in a recent Science article. He pointed out that, “Family planning is not subject to the play of free markets; it is biased … Continue reading »
Diversity in economics
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, in an interview earlier this month, pointed out that there are no women on the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). There also happen to be no female ministers in the Treasury. Carney suggested, “What we have to do at the Bank of England is grow top female economists all the … Continue reading »
A 165 year-long struggle for women’s rights continues
On July 19, 1848, the Seneca Falls Conference launched a challenge to US society: extend the revolution to encompass women, not just men. The point was made in a provocative text, the “Declaration of Sentiments” drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Rhetorically, by using the Declaration of Independence as a model, the Declaration of Sentiments sharply … Continue reading »
For women in science, it’s still chilly out there
Biological anthropologist Kate Clancy — who is getting media attention for a poorly acknowledged fact of life in field science: the chilling effect of sexual harassment — writes as follows: Survival in field-based academic science can’t just be about who can put up with or witness abuse the longest – that is not an appropriate … Continue reading »
You can’t have it all, but you might get a “thank you”
“Having it all” has been trending for two weeks, ever since Anne-Marie Slaughter’s blockbuster essay “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All” went live on the website of The Atlantic magazine. “It’s time to stop fooling ourselves,” says the Princeton professor and former State Department official. “The women who have managed to be both mothers … Continue reading »
How to lie with statistics: Job losses, women, and presidential candidates
In case anyone hasn’t heard yet, yesterday apparent Republican candidate for president Mitt Romney rolled out his argument for the women’s vote in November. And it was a doozy: 92.3% of jobs losses during the Obama presidency belonged to women. 92.3%! Can you believe it???!! Well, no. You can’t. Not that the numbers are made … Continue reading »
“Lady Di of the 10th century?”: Poor Eadgyth!
“She was a beautiful English princess who married one of Europe’s most powerful monarchs and dazzled subjects with her charity and charm.” Thus did AP reporter Raphael G. Satter start a widely-reproduced story in January that the LA Daily News headline writer reduced to “Lady Di of the 10th Century“. (The Huffington Post more soberly … Continue reading »