Corporal Punishment

Some studies:

Corporal Punishment of Children in Nine Countries as a Function of Child Gender and Parent Gender - 2010

Background. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a global perspective on corporal punishment by examining differences between mothers' and fathers' use of corporal punishment with daughters and sons in nine countries. Methods. Interviews were conducted with 1398 mothers, 1146 fathers, and 1417 children (age range = 7 to 10 years) in China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States. Results. Across the entire sample, 54% of girls and 58% of boys had experienced mild corporal punishment, and 13% of girls and 14% of boys had experienced severe corporal punishment by their parents or someone in their household in the last month. Seventeen percent of parents believed that the use of corporal punishment was necessary to rear the target child. Overall, boys were more frequently punished corporally than were girls, and mothers used corporal punishment more frequently than did fathers. There were significant differences across countries, with reports of corporal punishment use lowest in Sweden and highest in Kenya. Conclusion. This work establishes that the use of corporal punishment is widespread, and efforts to prevent corporal punishment from escalating into physical abuse should be commensurately widespread.

There was considerable variability in proportions of mothers, fathers, and children in China, Colombia, Italy, Kenya, Jordan, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, and the United States who reported the use of corporal punishment and believed that the use of corporal punishment is necessary to rear the target child. Overall, mothers reportedly used corporal punishment more frequently than fathers, and sons were reportedly more frequently corporally punished than daughters were. International efforts to eliminate child abuse and promote children’s right to protection will be both challenging and important because of the prevalence of corporal punishment.

Corporal Punishment by American Parents: National Data on Prevalence, Chronicity, Severity, and Duration, in Relation to Child and Family Characteristics - Murray A. Straus, and Julie H. Stewart’ - 1999

We present data on corporal punishment (CP) by a nationally representative sample of 991 American parents interviewed in 1995. Sii types of CP were examined: slaps on the hand or leg, spanking on the buttocks, pinching, shaking, hitting on the buttocks with a belt or paddle, and slapping in the face. The overall prevalence rate (the percentage of parents using any of these types of CP during the previous year) was 35% for infants and reached a peak of 94% at ages 3 and 4. Despite rapid decline after age 5, just over half of American parents hit children at age 12, a third at age 14, and 13% at age 17. Analysis of chronicity found that parents who hit teenage children did so an average of about six times during the year. Severity, as measured by hitting the child with a belt or paddle, was greatest for children age 5-12 (28% of such children). CP was more prevalent among African American and low socioeconomic status parents, in the South, for boys, and by mothers. The pervasiveness of CP reported in this art&, and the harmful side effects of CP shown by recent longitudinal research, indicates a need for psychology and sociology textbooks to reverse the current tendency to almost ignore CP and instead treat it as a major aspect of the socialization experience of American children: and for developmental psychologists to be cognizant of the likelihood that parents are using CP far more often than even advocates of CP recommend, and to inform parents about the risks involved.

Previous research indicates that boys experience more CP than girls at all ages (Day et ai., 1998; Giles-Sims ei al., 1995; Graziano & Namaste, 1990; Straw, 1994a). In view of the movement toward treating boys and girls more similarly, prior findings might not apply to this sample. However, row 5 of Table IV shows that the difference in the percentage of boys and girls who experienced CP during the year of this survey was statistically significant. Parents reported using CP with 65% of boys compared to 58% of girls. As for chronicity, Table Vindicates a significant difference. Of the boys who experienced CP, it occurred an average of 14.3 times, compared to an average of 12.9 times for girls. In addition, Table V shows a significant interaction between gender of child and child’s age. The deviation from the overall pattern was for children ages 2 to 4. At that age there was no difference at all in the chronicity of hitting boys and girls. Perhaps this is a ceiling effect because at
that age, the prevalence rate was 94%.

Several resources, cleaning up my "to post" list....

There are several entries that are just entirely to big to comment on, that have to be read as a whole, are good when you need to find something etc. These all do not necessarily need a new post (while some do) and it is mostly just to clear up my cluttered "to write" list (228 more to go....YEAH). Anyhow here it goes:

There are several accounts of male rape victims on reddit, and with several I mean many **Trigger Warning**: IamA Requests (comments), SRS Thread and one who did not want to share in said thread, AskReddit Thread, 2 prison rape IamAs, several IamAs more in the comments.

WMST-L File Collection, an Email forum of women's studies teachers. Pretty interesting read.

"Frauengewalt" (female violence) a German source with many English quotes of DV studies. And a somewhat similar thing.

CURRENT CONTROVERSIES AND PREVALENCE CONCERNING FEMALE OFFENDERS OF INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE - Why the Overwhelming Evidence on Partner Physical Violence Has Not Been
Perceived and Is Often Denied - Straus - 2009. I should probably post about that one in detail. It is the go to source for feminist critique in terms of male victimization of DV. Also, Processes Explaining the Concealment and Distortion
of Evidence on Gender Symmetry in Partner Violence - 2007.

We also have the feminist position by Johnson. And the NOMAS task force link.

This is the page where the CDC has the data on their youth risk studies. I still feature a slightly older version here as the numbers do not differ that much. But for future references, this might be interesting.

Baumeister's "Is there anything good about men?". A classic.

Contemporary perspectives on masculinity. A book I will read when I have time (never).

Mensrightslinks, studies via r/mr.

The science and politics of comparing women and men.

Male Rape and Human Rights - Lara Stemple

Feminist position on privilege, oppression and power.

SRSD on sex positivity.

I collected some links on the history of women and the draft that somewhat left me nowhere.

bell hook's "Feminism is for everybody", one of those books I too want to read sometime.

"15 Intriguing Thoughts About Men, Women and Relationships" by Warren Farrell, Ph.D.

Sexismsbusters is a nice overview for issues men face.

Regender is a site that swaps male and female pronouns so one can have fun to switch those around.

There were 2 experiments where women lived like man, Nora Vincent's "Self-made Man" and "Macho like me". I want to watch / read both....sometimes. Sigh.

Female Offenders lists quite a few studies / resources.

I’m not buying the argument that banning circumcision is a violation of religious freedom, because such freedom must involve being able to choose for themselves.

Title says it all. Apparently Norway is about to ban non-medical circumcision of infant boys. Good for them. Here is the article.

Surprise, it is a wage gap post....

We start with an excellent post via Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
and I suggest you read it all because it is really good. Highlights:

[W]e cannot say women are paid less for doing the same work when men typically work longer, less flexible hours in more dangerous and uncomfortable positions. Warren Farrell’s calculations highlight the difference between the average hours worked, concluding that men who work full time work an average of 44 hours per week, while women who work full time average 41 hours per week. This represents a bigger difference than you’d immediately think, as a person who works 44 hours a week makes approximately 100% more than someone who works 34 hours a week. Warren Farrell concludes that this accounts for 70% of the wage gap in and of itself. [...]

Economist Thomas Sowell elaborates: “Not all domestic responsibilities can be shared equally, such as having babies, which is not an inconsequential thing since the existence of the human race depends on it. What it means is that women make choices that make a lot of sense for them. For example, the choice of occupations… women tend not to go into occupations in which there’s a very high rate of obsolescence. If you’re a computer engineer and you take five years out to have a child and [raise him] until the age you can put him in daycare, well my gosh, the world has changed. You’d have to start way, way back. On the other hand, if you become a librarian, a teacher or other occupations like that, you can take your five years off and then come back pretty much where you left off.”[...]

Denise Venable, of the National Center for Policy Analysis, further proves this point showing that, “in general, married women would prefer part-time work at a rate of 5 to 1 over married men.” Additionally, women over 25 years of age have held their current job for an average of 4.4 years vs. 5 years for men and pay raises come with seniority (Denise Venable, “The Wage Gap Myth,” National Center for Policy Analysis, April 12, 2002, http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba392) [...]

In 1982, never-married women earned 91% of what never-married men did. (12) In 1971, never-married-women in their thirties earned slightly more than never-married men (13). Today, among men and women living alone from the age of 21-35, there is no wage gap. (14) Among college-educated men and women between 40 and 64 who have never married, men made an average of $40,000 a year and women made an average of $47,000! (15)

Since 1960, and continuing through today, black women with a college degree earn more than white women with a college degree. In 1970, black women who had graduated college earned 125% of what white women who had graduated college earned. (17)

(12) “Current Population Reports,” Series P-60, No. 132, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1982, pg. 161
(13) “The Economic Role of Women,” The Economic Report of the President, 1973 Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973, pg. 103
(14) Anita U. Hattiangadi and Amy M. Kahn, “Gender Differences in Pay,” Journal of Economic Perspective, pg. 58, Autumn 2000
(15) Warren Farrell, Why Men Earn More, Pg. 16-17, Amacom, Copyright 2005
(17) Richard Freeman, “Decline of Labor Market Discrimination and Economic Analysis,” Table 1, American Economic Review, pg. 281, May 1973

Another good one by Kay Hymowitz:

The Labor Department defines full-time as 35 hours a week or more, and the "or more" is far more likely to refer to male workers than to female ones. According to the department, almost 55% of workers logging more than 35 hours a week are men. In 2007, 25% of men working full-time jobs had workweeks of 41 or more hours, compared with 14% of female full-time workers. In other words, the famous gender-wage gap is to a considerable degree a gender-hours gap.

The main reason that women spend less time at work than men—and that women are unlikely to be the richer sex—is obvious: children. Today, childless 20-something women do earn more than their male peers. But most are likely to cut back their hours after they have kids, giving men the hours, and income, advantage.

One study by the American Association for University Women looked at women who graduated from college in 1992-93 and found that 23% of those who had become mothers were out of the workforce in 2003; another 17% were working part-time. Fewer than 2% of fathers fell into those categories. Another study, of M.B.A. graduates from Chicago's Booth School, discovered that only half of women with children were working full-time 10 years after graduation, compared with 95% of men. [...]

According to the Netherlands Institute for Social Research, in 2008 only 4% of the 70% of Dutch women who worked part-time wished they had a full-time job. A British Household Panel Survey interviewing 3,800 couples discovered that among British women, the happiest were those working part-time.

A 2007 Pew Research survey came up with similar results for American women: Among working mothers with minor children, 60% said they would prefer to work part-time, while only 21% wanted to be in the office full-time (and 19% said they'd like to give up their job altogether). How about working fathers? Only 12% would choose part-time and 70% wanted to be full-time.

An finally one interesting study:

Does Science Promote Women? Evidence from Academia 1973-2001 - Donna K. Ginther, Shulamit Kahn - NBER Working Paper No. 12691 Issued in November 2006

Many studies have shown that women are under-represented in tenured ranks in the sciences. We evaluate whether gender differences in the likelihood of obtaining a tenure track job, promotion to tenure, and promotion to full professor explain these facts using the 1973-2001 Survey of Doctorate Recipients. We find that women are less likely to take tenure track positions in science, but the gender gap is entirely explained by fertility decisions. We find that in science overall, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor after controlling for demographic, family, employer and productivity covariates and that in many cases, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor even without controlling for covariates. However, family characteristics have different impacts on women's and men's promotion probabilities. Single women do better at each stage than single men, although this might be due to selection. Children make it less likely that women in science will advance up the academic job ladder beyond their early post-doctorate years, while both marriage and children increase men's likelihood of advancing.

STEM and role models for girls

Tangential interesting:

The researchers found that feminine STEM role models decreased girls' self-rated math interest, ability and short-term success expectations. They also had a negative impact on girls' future plans to study math among girls who did not identify with STEM [...]

Replicating past research, this work suggests that role models whose success seems unobtainable can make young students feel threatened rather than motivated. But even if they see feminine STEM role models, girls who do not care for math or science might not be motivated to like these fields.

"Rather than opening these girls' minds to new possibilities, the feminine STEM role model seemed to shut them further," said Sekaquaptewa, U-M professor of psychology.

The overall study raises the possibility that role models who counter more than one competing stereotype (women can be good at math or be feminine, but not both) are less effective than role models who just counter one (e.g., a typical woman who excels in STEM). The researchers also say that young girls may see their success as difficult to emulate if they believe that women in STEM are "too good" to be role models.

Taking a look at this sentence again: "But even if they see feminine STEM role models, girls who do not care for math or science might not be motivated to like these fields.". Next logical step, force them into STEM at gunpoint.

Intimate Homicides

Some interesting findings on murder via a divorce law study:

Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law: Divorce Laws and Family Distress - Betsey Stevenson, Justin Wolfers - 2003

Our data on homicide come from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). The UCR data are derived using a voluntary police agency-based reporting system. The Supplementary Homicide Reports of the UCR provide incident-level information on criminal homicides,
including data describing the date and location of the incident, as well as a range of information on both the offender and the victim. The particular richness of this data is that it codes the relationship of the victim to the murderer, where known.

In this section we will examine three successively broader definitions of intimate homicide. The narrowest only includes spousal homicide, the next group includes homicides committed by any family member or romantic interest, and finally we expand our treatment group to our broadest categorization, which includes all homicides committed by non-strangers.

Homicide Rates: FBI Count (1968-94) / killed per million in the state each year
             Women Mean  Men Mean  Women/Men
by Spouses          7.3       5.5       1.33
by intimates       14.7      18.4       0.80
by Non-Strangers   21.2      56.9       0.37
All Murders        32.8      92.6       0.35

Maternal Gatekeeping: Countless Studies Edition

Recently on F&F:

[T]he main people who “regard women as the default parent” are women themselves. Is she really unaware of the studies on maternal gatekeeping that examine the tendency of mothers to sideline fathers in childcare? Has she not seen the countless articles by women bemoaning their lack of children or wallowing in guilt for working too much and being apart from their kids or worst of all actually losing custody to the child’s father? It’s true that fathers tend to fall into line behind the Moms and play second fiddle in childcare. But it’s also true that they’re following the mothers’ lead. The decision-maker about who does what regarding the kids is usually Mom. And finally, it’s true that fathers are far more involved in childcare than they used to be, again as much social science shows.

So being me I wanted to look what studies did take a look at maternal gatekeeping:

Maternal Gatekeeping: Mothers' Belief and Behaviors That Inhibit Greater Father Involvement in Family Work - Sarah M. Allen & Allan J. Hawkins - Journal of Marriage and the Family 1999

Abstract: Maternal gatekeeping is conceptualized within the framework of the social construction of gender and is defined as having three dimensions: mothers' reluctance to relinquish responsibility over family matters by setting rigid standards, external validation of a mothering identity, and differentiated conceptions of family roles. These three conceptual dimensions of gatekeeping are operationalized with modest reliability and tested with a confirmatory factor analysis on a sample of 622 dual-earner mothers. With cluster analyses, 21% of the mothers were classified as gatekeepers. Gatekeepers did 5 more hours of family work per week and had less equal divisions of labor than women classified as collaborators.

Although scholars have documented that many fathers want to increase the amount of time spent caring for their home and children (Daly, 1993; Lamb, 1997; Pleck, 1997), there are many structural, cultural, familial, and personal barriers to increased father involvement in family work. Daily child care and household tasks can provide an opportunity for both husbands and wives to be connected and committed to protecting, promoting, and nurturing the growth of their children (Hawkins, Chństiansen, Sargent, Hill, 1993). However, more needs to be known about the specific contextual factors that may mediate or regulate men’s involvement in family work. Specifically, how Women’s beliefs and behaviors toward men’s involvement affect actual levels of involvement needs more attention (De Luccie, 1995). Scholars have noted that Wives as well as husbands resist more collaborative arrangements of family Work (Coltrane, 1996; Dienhart & Daly, 1997; Thompson & Walker, 1989). One way women resist increased men’s involvement in family Work is by “gatekeeping” the domain of home and family.

McBride , B. A., Brown , G. L., Bost , K. K., Shin , N., Vaughn , B. and Korth, B. (2005), Paternal Identity, Maternal Gatekeeping, and Father Involvement. Family Relations, 54: 360–372. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-3729.2005.00323.x

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine whether mothers’ beliefs about the role of the father may contribute to mothers influencing the quantity of father involvement in their children's lives. Participants were 30 two-parent families with children between the ages of 2 and 3 years. A combination of self-report and interview data were collected from both mothers and fathers. Results from multiple regression analyses indicated that fathers’ perceived investments in their parental roles and actual levels of paternal involvement are moderated by mothers’ beliefs about the role of the father. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for future research on parenting identity and maternal gatekeeping as well as the development of parenting programs for fathers.

Maternal gatekeeping, coparenting quality, and fathering behavior in families with infants. - Schoppe-Sullivan, Sarah J.; Brown, Geoffrey L.; Cannon, Elizabeth A.; Mangelsdorf, Sarah C.; Sokolowski, Margaret Szewczyk Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 22(3), Jun 2008, 389-398. doi: 10.1037/0893-3200.22.3.389

The present study examined the role of maternal gatekeeping behavior in relation to fathers' relative involvement and competence in child care in 97 families with infant children. Parents' beliefs about fathers' roles were assessed prior to their infant's birth. Parents' perceptions of maternal gatekeeping behavior (encouragement and criticism) and coparenting relationship quality were assessed at 3.5 months postpartum. The authors assessed fathers' relative involvement and competence in child care using a combination of parent report and observational measures. Results suggest that even after accounting for parents' beliefs about the paternal role and the overall quality of the coparenting relationship, greater maternal encouragement was associated with higher parent-reported relative father involvement. Moreover, maternal encouragement mediated the association between coparenting quality and reported relative father involvement. With respect to fathers' observed behavior, fathers' beliefs and parents' perceptions of coparenting relationship quality were relevant only when mothers engaged in low levels of criticism and high levels of encouragement, respectively. These findings are consistent with the notion that mothers may shape father involvement through their roles as "gatekeepers."

Two news sources reported about a study that also seems to be interesting:

Kenney presented research she co-wrote at a meeting of the Population Association of America over the weekend. The study of 1,023 couples from 20 large cities in the USA found mothers were protective of their caregiving and educational engagement with the child but were less so for playtime activities that "were not considered threats to the mother's caregiving identity," the paper says. [...] Other gatekeeping research co-written by Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, an assistant professor of child development at Ohio State University in Columbus, is significant because it studied actual behaviors rather than just beliefs, and of the 97 couples participating, fathers were more involved in daily care of infants when they received active encouragement from the wife or partner. "This study provides perhaps the best evidence to date that the phenomenon of maternal gatekeeping exists and that, under some conditions, it may have the potential to affect fathering behavior," says the study, published last year in the Journal of Family Psychology.

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[F]athers' beliefs about how involved they should be in child care did not matter when mothers were highly critical of fathers' parenting. In other words, fathers didn't put their beliefs into practice when faced with a particularly judgmental mother.

"Mothers are in the driver's seat," said Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, co-author of the study and assistant professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University.[...]

"Mothers can be very encouraging to fathers, and open the gate to their involvement in child care, or be very critical, and close the gate.

"This is the first real evidence that mothers, through their behavior, act as gatekeepers by either fostering or curtailing how much fathers take part in caring for their baby."

Schoppe-Sullivan conducted the study with Elizabeth Cannon, a graduate student at Ohio State, along with Geoffrey Brown and Sarah Mangelsdorf of the University of Illinois, and Margaret Szewczyk Sokolowski. Their results appear in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of Family Psychology.

And on with more studies:

Maternal Gatekeeping: Do They See It The Way We Do? - Lauren E. Altenburger - 2012

Research on the importance of father-child relationships has increased because prior research has indicated that father engagement has a positive influence on the child’s social, behavioral, and psychological outcomes from infancy to adolescence (Pruett, Pruett, & Wong, 2009; Sarkadi, Kristiansson, Oberklaid, & Bremberg, 2007). Higher levels of father engagement in child care have also produced positive effects on self-esteem in children and on the quality of the marital relationship (Pruett et al., 2009; Sarkadi et al., 2007). These discoveries have drawn attention to the external factors that encourage or discourage the father’s level of involvement in childrearing. Fathers are more likely to be positively engaged with their children when they have few symptoms of poor mental health, are securely attached to their own parents, communicate effectively with the child’s mother, and have more social support (Pruett et al., 2009). Research shows that one of the most significant influences on paternal quantity and quality of involvement in childrearing is the mother’s beliefs and behavior toward the father (Allen & Hawkins, 1999). The mother often acts as a ‘gatekeeper’ by controlling the father’s interaction with the child. Mothers may resist increased father involvement by attempting to exclude the father from child care, or support increased father involvement by encouraging fathers to become engaged in child care (Fagan & Barnett, 2003; Puhlman & Pasley, 2010). Specifically, maternal gatekeeping behavior is a set of conscious or unconscious behaviors the mother engages in that either support or discourage the father’s relationship with the child. [...]

In a study exploring predictors of father involvement during the first year of parenthood, researchers found that a variety of factors influence father involvement in dual-earner, working-class families. Mothers’ work hours and shift time were two characteristics that were central predictors of father involvement. Researchers found that parents who work opposite shifts are better able to share childcare responsibilities (Meteyer & Perry-Jenkins, 2010). Findings also indicated that the more hours mothers worked, the more highly involved fathers were in childcare, suggesting that when mothers work more hours they are more willing to accept the father’s help. Maternal gatekeeping was a significant predictor of father involvement at one year postpartum. The negative control gatekeepers engage in allows mothers to maintain a sense of “primacy” as mothers (Meteyer & Perry-Jenkins, 2010). [...]

Mothers high on gatekeeping were characterized by low self-esteem, a strong feminine gender orientation, and a prominent maternal identity. Gaunt also found that the stronger the mother’s religiosity, the fewer her work hours, the less importance she attached to her work, and the lower her income and education level, the more she tended to resist father’s participation in family work (2008).

The Hand That Rocks the Cradle: Maternal Gatekeeping after Divorce - Marsha Kline Pruett, Lauren A. Arthur, Rachel Ebling - 2007

[T]he power of maternal gatekeeping within the family lies in large part in the consistently demonstrated dynamic that fathers' participation in their children's life is heavily impacted by maternal influences.18 Said another way, the father-child relationship is more highly connected to the quality of the co-parental relationship than is the mother-child relationship, which is more independent of the couple. 19 One suggested rationale for this triadic aspect of fathering includes the greater clarity of mothers' family responsibilities as compared to fathers', since fathers have a less clear "job description" in relation to parenting and family work 20 thus requiring negotiations about a fathers' role between partners. 21

There is much evidence that mothers actively facilitate and promote the father-child relationship. 22 In their exploration of the role of maternal attitudes on paternal involvement, Beitel and Parke23 found that when mothers perceived their partners as motivated to engage in child care responsibilities and, to a lesser extent, as competent to do so, fathers were more involved in childcare. Mothers may passively hinder father-child relationships by behaving in ways that impact how fathers feel about their paternal role. [...]

The importance of mothers' attitudes in gatekeeping is further evident from research showing that sixty to eighty percent of mothers do not want their husbands more involved in childrearing, as such involvement would change the balance of power in the marriage and the important role mothers ascribe to themselves. 25 It is important to note that these studies were conducted over a decade ago; women's and men's roles in family-related work are converging 26 as women's extensive involvement in the workforce requires a re-equilibration of family roles with men contributing more at home. [...]

Divorce can provide myriad opportunities for maternal gatekeeping, and the anger and conflict that often characterize the divorcing period often produces more restrictive gatekeeping. 33 More restrictive gatekeeping occurs in about one-quarter of the married couples that have been studied,34 and it occurs more often in divorced contexts even if the nonresidential fathers are as involved as those living with their children are. 5 It may occur even more often among non-married, separating couples, as these fathers report more obstacles to access posed by their ex-partners than do their married-but-divorcing counterparts. 36 [...]

Results from the few studies of gatekeeping with divorced populations converge on findings that mothers' support is key to father involvement after divorce, 39 and that his non-residential status along with her perceptions of his competence lead to more restrictive maternal gatekeeping. 40