Race and Gender Representation in Presidential Appointments, SES, and GS Levels, During Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations
Achieving a representative bureaucracy that reflects the attitudes, values, and policy choices of women and racial minorities is imperative, as the gap in the representation of those groups in the federal workforce is growing. We examine to what extent female and minority representation in political appointments, Senior Executive Service (SES), and General Schedule (GS) 1-15 levels reflect presidents’ commitment to diversity. We use data from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to compare the tenures of presidents William J. Clinton (1993 to 2000), George W. Bush (2001-2008), and Barack H. Obama (2009-2013), and examine the employment trends from 1993 to 2013. [1]
How the entire scientific community can confront gender bias in the workplace
Increased gender and racial diversity benefits scientific progress through increased innovation1; however, few would argue we have reached optimal diversity along gender or racial lines. Thus, we should be using data to understand the barriers that have prevented attainment of this goal, as well as the potential solutions. Recently, a Nature feature offered advice from female scientists on how to confront the barriers we face2. Yet the assembled data suggest that it is impossible for the marginalized to solve these problems themselves. Women face biases and barriers at all turns within the scientific community, from publishing, funding and hiring, to promotion to more senior positions. As scientists, we are trained to objectively collect and evaluate the data available and carefully interpret them to reach empirically based conclusions. This same data-driven approach that guides our research should be applied to maximize the innovation and productivity of our scientific and academic community. What data we have are stark (Fig. 1) [2]
Female Voices in the News: Structural Conditions of Gender Representations in Norwegian Newspapers
The article presents a hybrid analysis combining manual content analysis of 9,131 sources in 5,544 news stories across 75 publications, with computational gender recognition producing 551,102 names from 320,228 articles across 125 newspapers. The article investigates the significance of structural features for the presence of women in the news. Results show female sources are only equal to men as ordinary citizens and children, and only in lifestyle content. Among the structural features examined, only local distribution and a circulation less than 5,000 exhibit improvements in female representation. Ownership, distribution frequency, market position, and direct press support had little or no effect. [3]
How face perception unfolds over time
Within a fraction of a second of viewing a face, we have already determined its gender, age and identity. A full understanding of this remarkable feat will require a characterization of the computational steps it entails, along with the representations extracted at each. Here, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure the time course of neural responses to faces, thereby addressing two fundamental questions about how face processing unfolds over time. First, using representational similarity analysis, we found that facial gender and age information emerged before identity information, suggesting a coarse-to-fine processing of face dimensions. Second, identity and gender representations of familiar faces were enhanced very early on, suggesting that the behavioral benefit for familiar faces results from tuning of early feed-forward processing mechanisms. These findings start to reveal the time course of face processing in humans, and provide powerful new constraints on computational theories of face perception. [4]
Community Vulnerability to Disasters in Botswana
Community vulnerability to various hazards and related risks complicates recovery, reconstruction, and adaptation to disaster shocks. Vulnerability results from several factors rooted within the community requiring an accurate analysis of environmental threats. As such, vulnerability and capacity assessments are essential in the analysis and better comprehension of disasters and the related behaviour within the social environment. Hazard and vulnerability assessment diagnose situational crises and the likely effects on people and the environment. A key result from the study on community resilience to disasters in Botswana shows that communities are vulnerable and are constantly under disaster threat. Although there are district disaster management committee, they are only active during emergency response and ignore the pre and post disaster activities. As such, communities, families, and individuals lack fundamental knowledge, skills, and techniques necessary to enhance their resilience to disasters. After reflecting on issues that make individuals / or communities vulnerable, it is crucial that communities develop measures to reduce vulnerabilities across groups in the community. Therefore, this paper seeks to draw the attention of individuals / or communities to disaster related risks and to deliberately prepare for environmental hazards / risks and ensure appropriate mitigation measures.[5]
Reference
[1] Anestaki, A., Sabharwal, M., Connelly, K. and Cayer, N.J., 2019. Race and gender representation in presidential appointments, SES, and GS levels, during Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. Administration & Society, 51(2), pp.197-228. (Web Link)
[2] Grogan, K.E., 2019. How the entire scientific community can confront gender bias in the workplace. Nature ecology & evolution, 3(1), p.3. (Web Link)
[3] Sjøvaag, H. and Pedersen, T.A., 2019. Female voices in the news: Structural conditions of gender representations in Norwegian newspapers. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 96(1), pp.215-238. (Web Link)
[4] How face perception unfolds over time
Katharina Dobs,Leyla Isik,Dimitrios Pantazis &Nancy Kanwisher
Nature Communicationsvolume 10, Article number: 1258 (2019) (Web Link)
[5] Maripe, K. and Setlalentoa, B. M. P. (2017) “Community Vulnerability to Disasters in Botswana”, Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science, 19(4), pp. 1-16. doi: 10.9734/BJESBS/2017/30693. (Web Link)