Tag Archives: women

Comparing male and female drivers

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A recent study by New York City shed some light on gender differences in driving and traffic behavior:

80 percent of all crashes in a five-year period in which pedestrians were seriously injured or killed involved men who were driving. The imbalance is far too great to be explained away by the predominance of men among bus, livery, taxi and delivery drivers, said Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the city’s Transportation Department…

The males of the species are not only more dangerous as drivers, they are more likely to be hurt while walking, the city’s study found. More men than women were killed or injured as pedestrians in every age group except among those over 64 (perhaps because women live longer and were overrepresented). Boys 5 to 17 years old ranked first in the absolute number of pedestrian deaths and serious injuries, with 785, more than twice the number of girls in that age range, though elderly people were more vulnerable as a share of the population.

The article suggests that boys and girls learn these behaviors at a young age: boys think it is okay to be more aggressive around the street.

So where exactly do boys pick up this information? From their fathers/role models, the media, watching people drive or walk around? This socialization process would an intriguing one to delve into.

The ill effects on men of competing for a spouse

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A study in the August issue of Demography found “guys who lived in areas where there was more competition for women wound up dying younger.” The findings were based on data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (a fantastic data source: “a long-term study of a random sample of 10,317 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957“) and Medicare and Social Security records.

According to the authors, there are multiple reasons why this might occur:

Perhaps the increased competition to find a wife made them feel more stress, which can have negative consequences for long-term health.

The men might have had to wait longer to get married, which could be bad for their health. A number of studies have shown that spouses (especially wives) play a role in contributing to one another’s health and survival.

In places where men outnumbered women, the men (on average) had to settle for what the researchers described as a “lower-quality spouse,” which could translate into less coddling and pampering from the wife and thus worse health.

This study is part of a growing body of research that suggest social factors, like the weight of our friends, have a profound influence on our well-being and lifespan.

Also: will the calculators of RealAge add this to their formula?

Cathy coming to an end

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Cathy, the long-running comic strip, is coming to end in early October, as its creator, Cathy Guisewite wants to spend more time with her family. I’ll admit to often skipping this comic as I read the comic page in the Chicago Tribune – it often seemed too whiny and stereotypically feminine with a lot of talk about food, weight, and swimsuits.

But as I read the story about the close of the comic strip, I was reminded that Cathy is still a relative oddity on the comics page. There are still very few comics about female characters or strips drawn by females. While I would read these two strips, “For Better or For Worse” is retired and “Sally Forth” is not terribly popular (and not carried by the Tribune). Broom-Hilda doesn’t cut it (not really any content here) nor does Brenda Starr (a serialized strip that features an attractive star). ”

Cathy at least has a perspective about women that seems more real:

Critics have called “Cathy” anti-feminist, and while Guisewite didn’t reject that claim, she said certain stereotypes about women are the most fun to write about.

“The subjects like weight and style and look are these microcosms of all the extra expectations that are placed on women,” Guisewite said. “As women have become more powerful and stronger, it has become a lot more complicated for women to feel good about themselves. I like to think that ‘Cathy’ is the voice for women who can’t say, ‘I feel stupid about something silly, but it still really ruined my day.'”

Another commentator added:

Said John Glynn, 42, vice president of rights and acquisitions at Universal Uclick: “Cathy really broke a lot of ground in the ’70s. … She was talking about what a real woman goes through and the real-life concerns of women, and that I think was something very different for the comics section.”

So where are the comic strips by women or about women? A Zits-type strip about a teenage girl would have a lot of material to mine. Another comic strip about an adult woman, married or unmarried, could cover a lot of ground. Or are typical comic readers not interested in female leads?

Modern careers more amenable to women?

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Hanna Rosin writes in the July/August 2010 issue of The Atlantic about the rise of women in many career fields and the consequences for society. Rosin argues that in addition to women holding “a majority of the nation’s jobs,” dominating higher education, and having a majority in 13 of the 15 job categories predicted to grow the most in the next ten years, more and more jobs today seem suited to women and men have not yet adapted:

The postindustrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus—are, at a minimum, not predominantly male. In fact, the opposite may be true.

The list of growing jobs is heavy on nurturing professions, in which women, ironically, seem to benefit from old stereotypes and habits.

Some of this has been more visible lately with the effects of the recent economic trouble, dubbed by some a “man-cession” or “he-pression” due to a disproportionate loss of jobs in male-dominated fields. The loss of manufacturing and manual labor jobs in the last five decades has been severe and men, unlike women, have not yet jumped on the higher education bandwagon.