Exams

It looks like it’s not only the SAT’s that have a gender and race bias. Even the simple California Exit Exams are biased. Now, I might be a bit biased here due to having competed in mathematics for many years and being an accounting student, but I just want to roll my eyes.

A test can’t be biased. It’s a piece of paper that has no opinion about the person making markings on it. However, asking a student his gender and race before the test has been shown to have an impact on the scoring. Reminding a girl or a student of non-white or non-Asian ethnicity that they are not white or not Asian causes them to do worse. Or better, depending on their personality. But mostly worse.

And yes, being Asian helped. When white boys were given tests that asked their race when sitting next to Asian boys, they would do worse than if they had not been asked their race since they expected the Asian boys to be smart.

The moral? Don’t ask the gender or ethnicity before a test. Do it after the exam if you absolutely have to. There goes a large part of the bias.

(For the record, I don’t understand how people still find the exit exam difficult. It tests basic arithmetic and reading skills one should have learned by the fourth grade.)

 

Not quite the point

I sometimes regret that psychology has become an official science. If it wasn’t, then maybe people wouldn’t take every single psychological study at face value and consider it fact. Like this one. That, or they should be required to bold the words ON AVERAGE and IN SOME CASES. And the fact that individual differences are far larger than gender differences.

 

Women, sports, and too much Cosmo

Oh gender stereotyping, how I love you. Apparently women don’t like sports. (The blog post is making the opposite point, I however don’t actually have Cosmo to refer to.)

Personally, I’m not a big fan of sports. I find them rather boring to watch, and I’m not too good at them. But that’s my personal quirk and has very little to do with my gender and a lot more to do with the fact that I have no patience or attention span.

Also, I will most certainly not watch something just because a guy sitting next to me wants. (Of course, in my personal case it is far more likely to be a battle of Battlestar Galactica v. Star Trek rather than football v. a romantic comedy). What I find very interesting is that the people quoted in the article are supposed to be good at getting couples to stay together. HOWEVER, their advice is actually going against this goal. Couples that stick to traditional gender roles and interests are more likely to break up or get divorced than more adrogynous couples. (Androgynous here being used to describe gender roles rather than actual gender.)

Look at it this way, who has more in common and more to talk about: a stay-at-home mom who’s life revolves around her children and her businessman husband who spends his entire day surrounded by numbers or a two individuals who both work in the same industry? Generally, two people who share a job or interests or hobbies or anything else in common will get along better than two people who are nearly strangers to each other.

 

Literacy in Afghanistan

I come from four generations of college educated women. (Five if you count a two year teacher’s college.) I will be the first to admit that I am extremely biased about education for women. I simply cannot comprehend what it would be like to not be able to read. But for 23% of the world’s women, illiteracy is a fact of life.

There are a variety of reasons for this. In poorer countries, daughters are almost always the first ones to be pulled from school – or to be simply never sent at all. With literacy comes power. A woman who can read and write is more likely to know her rights and have more control in over her life.

In Afghanistan, only 12.6% of women are literate in comparison with 46% of men. (Circa 2000) But this does not stop these women. No matter their age, they still try to learn if given a small chance. It is especially moving to see that there is an entire “village council” that is composed entirely of women.

The fact that these women sign with their thumbs but wish to learn to write oddly enough reminds me of Charlemagne. He could not write and was forced to sign his signature with his thumb or seal, but he desperately wished to learn. Even though he acknowledge that he was probably too old to learn, he still kept a tablet under his pillow, hoping to at least learn to sign his name.

It just goes to show – you can’t stop the human spirit. Or the power of knowledge.

 

Something Odd

I can’t quite figure out what it is, but something about this article rubs me the wrong way. I think it was supposed to be a “poor girl rises up against all odds” kind of story, but it somehow failed. Instead, it reads more like “please help send my daughter to an expensive study abroad program.” When mixed with the fact that she will be going to two such programs in the summer, well, it just leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

 

The Eternal Breastfeeding Battle

Breastfeeding. Do it or don’t, either way you are doomed. I don’t think I have ever managed more than a week of serious perusal of psychological journals and modern (and not so modern) parenting magazines and books without stumbling across someone with a strong opinion on the subject. Even my father, who has never had to personally deal with the topic nor has had any constant contact with small children for 19 years now, has an opinion.

Every side is quick to whip out research and studies and counter studies and argue until they are blue in the face. Apparently, the newest trend is that breastfeeding helps the mother’s health even decades down the line. The problem with any study on breastfeeding is that it is inherently flawed. You cannot force a mother to randomly breastfeed or not – it will always be her choice. Because of this, other factors begin to influence the outcome. And as recent xkcd comic said – correlation does not cause causation.

For a breastfeeding study’s results to have any meaning, the scientists have to take into account the mother’s health history and risks, socio-economic standing, working status, family history, and a host of other factors. A mother with a high socio-economic standing is far more likely to breastfeed – and she is more likely to have a higher level of health care. So which factor actually caused her increased health? Without in depth research, it is hard to say.

 

Bear Goggles

Interesting.

While the bear goggle effect does exist and there is evidenced to support it, apparently age is not part of it. I wonder how this also ties into the “closing hour” effect. (As it gets closer to closing time at a bar, people begin to look more and more desirable as partners. But only if you don’t already have someone to go home with/to.)

 

Driving Safety, Part Two

And just as I post this up…

…I get a link to this. Because apparently, Korean women need more help parking then men. And women are automatically worse drivers then men. Reverse discrimination, at its most pink.

 

Driving Safety

I realize that there is a lot of controversy going both ways, but this sounds like an excellent idea to me. I know when I was first learning how to drive, I actually felt a lot better when there was a large, homemade sign in the back of the car identifying me as a student driver. I would have felt even better if it was possible to have it on top of the car done in neon lights.

Just knowing that people on the road knew that I was not very good at what I was doing made me feel better. Plus, they would give me a wide enough berth that if I did mess up in a new and creative way, the damages would be very limited. (Ironically, I was actually a pretty decent driver and had no major problems while learning how to drive – aside from a refusal to go over 20 mph.)

While the idea still needs some work and there are various problems that the article points out, I do think that in general it will make the roads a bit safer and some young drivers much less nervous.

 

A Fashion Don’t

Me and fashion have never gotten along very well. Oh, I always knew what looked pretty and what was just ottricious and what you would never, ever wear in public. That part was easy. Going into a store and walking out with clothes that fit has and always will be a nightmare. At under five feet and with an adult, curvy, body my shopping options are limited. Most stores don’t stock clothes that would fit me without tailoring. Thankfully, I at least always had the option of altering my clothes down to fit me.

Other women are not as lucky. The average woman’s size is far larger than what most fashion forward stores stock. As usual, the situation is not true for men. An average man can walk into most stores and find clothing that will fit and be fashionable and still fit into his budget. For a woman, the situation becomes more complex. The fashionable clothes simply are not sold in sizes that an average woman can wear. And the clothes that are designed for average and larger sized women are often of a fashion more commonly found on those who are in their fiftieth decade.

It seems that our culture today is embracing the thin ideal to such an extent that it is ignoring everything that does not fit. (No pun intended.)