<![CDATA[io9: Gender]]> http://cache.io9.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: Gender]]> http://io9.com/tag/gender http://io9.com/tag/gender <![CDATA[Why are women more likely to use public transportation than men?]]> Stanford has a fascinating new study of gender disparities in public transportation use. In a nutshell, women are way likelier than men to use public transportation — and this disparity is greater among Asians and African Americans than other groups. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5879837&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Do girls naturally prefer dolls to trucks? Evidence from 2 primate studies]]> Are gender roles in-born, or are they imprinted upon us? Science blogger Paul F. Norris went searching for answers in the scientific literature and came up with two incredible studies... one on rhesus monkeys, and the other on chimpanzees. What he discovered sheds some thought-provoking light on the nature/nurture debate over gender identity. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5879647&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[There really is no difference between men and women's math abilities]]> There's a longstanding myth of a gender gap between boys' and girls' math performance, suggesting some basic biological difference in how the two genders approach math. It's deeply controversial and widely discredited. And now, a new study has completely debunked it. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5867401&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Science Fiction That's Not Only Anti-Woman, It's Anti-Science]]> You can't really be a fully fledged sexist prat without also being kind of a bad scientist. The science supporting the idea that women are less rational than men is looking flimsier all the time. So it's probably not a surprise that the outrageously sexist science fiction story that blew up the Internet, "Womanspace", is bad science as well as bad gender politics. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5860949&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Genetic study reveals that males drive language change]]> The spread of different languages in ancient times might seem like a difficult thing to track, but a big part of the story is actually hidden in our genes. Here's the twist: language change is a male-dominated phenomenon. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5839059&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Is your computer male or female?]]> Ships are 'she,' people have motherlands and fatherlands, but what about a picture of a baby with the number '1' on it? What about a nice beef stew? Or a chair? Strangely, we tend to assign genders to all of them in a fairly predictable way. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5835880&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Study shows that unemployed men don't mind homemaker roles]]> The recession has hit everyone hard, but more men than woman are finding themselves without a steady income, and new studies show these men are reevaluating what being a breadwinner means. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5834063&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[In a truly modern society, women sleep around just as much as men do]]> When the power imbalances between men and women are eradicated, say psychologists, women philander as often as men do. That's because sexual infidelity is related to power, not gender. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5812880&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Parasitic fish actually switch genders when they eat too much]]> No animal is more defined by what it eats than the cleaner fish. These helpful parasites are all born female, but the biggest eater becomes the dominant male...and then, as you might expect, institutes a strict diet for everyone else. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5812069&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[How Gertie the chicken mysteriously switched genders]]> Late last year, a British hen named Gertie stopped laying eggs. She then started crowing like a rooster, and suddenly her entire appearance seemed to morph into a male. So just what is going on here? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5795112&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Really, why would men ever want to watch "Game Of Thrones"?]]> The New York Times has taken a firm stand: Game of Thrones, the venerable paper argues, is for boys only. How bizarre is that? The show is obviously targeted exclusively at women. Here's why. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5792574&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[A protein that could destroy all men on Earth]]> We may be headed for an all-female future civilization. For one simple reason: Women have two X chromosomes, while men have only one. For the most part, this isn&apos;t a problem. But now it seems that this genetic setup could lead to a scenario where the elimination of one key protein could wipe out all men on the face of the planet, but leave women perfectly healthy. Or so a group of researchers says. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5774873&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Gender-bending migrant workers of colonized space]]> Jenn Manley Lee's beautifully rendered webcomic Dicebox follows two migratory workers hopping from colony to colony. Along the way, they encounter terrorist attacks, a spaceship crash, a healthy dose of intrigue, and the secrets of their own pasts. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5705340&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Does Science Fiction Make Your Workplace A Hostile Environment For Women?]]> Computer geeks: Tear down those science-fiction posters! Get rid of those Tron lightcycle toys! Your science-fiction bric-a-brac is scaring women away from IT, says a new study. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5427094&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Cycler Film Brings a Sex-Filled, Gender-Bending Jekyll and Hyde]]> Four days each month, Jill transforms. But instead of becoming a werewolf, she becomes a boy, with all that entails. Now Lauren McLaughlin's tale of gender identity, Cycler, is coming to the big screen. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5408497&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Strange Case of Seizures That Turned a Woman Into a Man]]> Researchers report an odd case in the latest issue of Epilepsy & Behavior. Whenever their patient had an epileptic seizure, she thought she'd become male - and that other women near her had turned into men too. What caused it? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5351169&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[The Men Who Make Battlestar Galactica Feminist]]> A recent article in Slate calls Battlestar Galactica a safe haven for "chauvinist pigs." But all you have to do is look at representations of men in this show to see its feminist side. (NSFW) More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5165920&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Kate Bornstein Weighs in on Last Night's Trannytastic Terminator]]> Last night, we met the first transgender person (that we know of) in the Terminator universe. We asked transgender activist and author Kate Bornstein for her opinion of the episode. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5111726&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Scientist Discovers Most Important Difference Between Men and Women]]> When you look into someone's face, you probably take a split second to figure out what gender they are. Now cognitive scientist Michael Tarr has determined one of the main ways your brain decides "male" or "female" - it's by analyzing the color of the person's skin. Men's faces tend to be redder, and women's are greener. More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5103793&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Female-Dominated Societies Are Violent, Say Anthropologists]]> Anthropologists have never directly observed a female-dominated society among humans, but many have speculated that such societies would be less violent than male-dominated ones. Now that postulate has been challenged by hard evidence. Bonobos, a primate species that is female-dominated and bisexual, have been observed repeatedly hunting and killing other apes in the wild. A group of evolutionary anthropologists will publish a paper in Current Biology tomorrow documenting evidence that the supposedly peaceful bonobos are as bloodthirsty as their male-dominated chimp counterparts. Evolutionary anthropologist Gottfried Hohmann, a co-author of the study, says this discovery might change how we understand male dominance in society:
In chimpanzees, male-dominance is associated with physical violence, hunting, and meat consumption. By inference, the lack of male dominance and physical violence is often used to explain the relative absence of hunting and meat eating in bonobos. Our observations suggest that, in contrast to previous assumptions, these behaviors may persist in societies with different social relations.
Now all that awesome feminist science fiction from the 1970s about women who fight like crazed weasels has been validated! Photo by Emmanuelle Grundmann. Primate hunting by bonobos at LuiKotale, Salonga National Park [Coming Oct. 14 in Current Biology] More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5062446&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Could You Live in a World Without Women?]]> With the Y: The Last Man film coming in 2010, we’ll soon get a big-screen treatment of Brian K. Vaughan’s world without men. All-female societies are not uncommon in science fiction, from culturally advanced utopias to post-apocalyptic sex comedies. Far less common are societies where men live, either by choice or circumstance, with few or no women. How do these societies come about? How do they perpetuate themselves without the opposite sex? And what happens to men when the women disappear from their lives? More »
]]> http://io9.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5060135&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Do Women Predict the Future Differently Than Men Do?]]> Men and women have such different perspectives that many pop psychologists say they must think about the future differently too. But if that's what you believe, new evidence from brain scans done on men and women will shake your faith. Last year, Harvard cognitive scientists Donna Addis and Daniel Schacter asked men and women to do a series of mental exercises while in an fMRI brain scanner. First they had to remember a recent event, and then they had to imagine a future event in great detail. The results of these "mental time travel" experiments were surprising. More »
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