Disobeying Gender Conformity

Surprisingly, in London, some corporate offices still require an outdated, sexist dress code for women. These restrictions may include, dresses and skirts only, heels at least two inches high, along with other stereotypical female clothing fashions. A women receptionist, Nicola Thorp, from the financial district of London was called out for not wearing the proper footwear to work by her company as reported by The New York Times (Bilefsky 2017). Miss Thorp was certainly going against conformity in the article she was featured in, British Woman’s Revolt Against High Heels Becomes a Cause in Parliament.

Throp was changing her beliefs or behavior to ago against others, not in line with them. In other words, she was deciding not to conform in this case to the company dress code. She also went against obedience too. Her company actually sent her home for not adhering to their dress policy for women. Throp was certainly equipped to deal with her consequences for her actions because she actually initiated a petition containing over 150,000 signatures to make Parliament aware of this corporate issue. This incident happened roughly two years ago and now Parliament has referenced Britain’s 2010 Equality Act, and has labeled that particular company’s policy as sexual discrimination in the workplace.

Once Thorp disobeyed her company’s rules and caused an uproar, other women spoke up as well detailing the unrealistic demands they faced concerning the dress code enacted by their workplaces. Thorp, a women’s advocate, is fighting for equality in the corporate world. She showed women that conformity and obedience wasn’t always the right thing to do. When one feels her rights or gender are being discriminated against, don’t just go ahead and conform, speak out!

In 2015, a psychological study was performed by Wendelien Vantieghem and Mieke Van Houtte, examining whether girls are more pressured to conform to their gender norms than boys. This article, Are Girls more Resilient to Gender-Conformity Pressure? The Association Between Gender-Conformity Pressure and Academic, compares the Belgian culture and how girls usually outperform the boys on educational tests. Seventh grade boys and girls were chosen for this study and the results showed that boys’ academic confidence fell when they were put under more than normal conformity pressure. The term self-efficacy is also used to measure and refer to confidence. There was no change for the girls’ confidence when put under the same amount of pressure since they are used to it.

Vantieghem and Houtte’s article brings up the question if gender conformity pressure is indirectly altering girls’ behaviors overtime. At an early age, certain gender norms are expected for girls. We can even see them outside an academic environment and carried out to adulthood; as in the case of the British company expecting females to wear high heels to work. Some women would go along with this rule but however, others (like Miss Thorp) may decide to bypass the gender pressures. The major ongoing debate topics are; when is it too degrading to abide by such norms, and if women are expected to conform more than men? The study shows that even when girls were put under more than normal conformity pressures, their academic self-efficacy was still higher than boys in this case. It can be said that girls are very used to these kinds of pressures and know how to handle them without letting affect their confidence.

Nicola Thorp is a prime example of when conformity or obedience isn’t always best. Although in some cases it’s accepted, for others, conformity and obedience can actually have a negative impact rather than a positive one, especially when discrimination comes into question. However, some people (women in particular) are actually more impelled to speak up or not be influenced by the gender conformity pressures that are brought up in everyday life.

 

 

References

Bilefsky, D. (2017, March 06). British Woman’s Revolt Against High Heels Becomes a Cause in Parliament. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/world/europe/uk-parliament-nicola-thorp-heels.html?ref=business

Vantieghem, W., & Houtte, M. V. (2015). Are Girls more Resilient to Gender-Conformity Pressure? The Association Between Gender-Conformity Pressure and Academic Self-Efficacy. Sex Roles, 73(1-2), 1-15. doi:10.1007/s11199-015-0509-6

Don’t dump because of Trump

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By: Andrew Lacativa

Due to the recent presidential election results, many people have struggled to decide whether or not they should take their investments out of the stock market or keep them in. Before the decision is made to remove your funds from the stock market, you should be aware of a possible flaw in your decision-making. According to New York Times journalist, Neil Irwin, the president has a minimal affect on most of the stock market’s flow (Irwin, 2017). These recent heuristics of American citizens demonstrate the illusory correlation. People often perceive the existence of a relationship between two things as stronger than they really are; sometimes they really have no relationship which is a correlation error (Myers, 2015).

Today, mass numbers of people find hundreds of ways to blame Trump for certain situations because of his current image in our government. A prime example is the Liberals who are consulting with stock market specialists about cashing out or not (Irwin, 2017). People automatically think that every move our president makes will somehow make or break our economy and affect themselves directly. The simple truth is that there isn’t solid evidence that our president has a heavy influence on the stock market. The state of stock prices can either fall or rise, no matter who is in office. Economists can also agree that the president does not have an affect on how fast the stock markets grows as well. To continue, the stock market is constantly breaking down as the years continue, due to many demanding fixes. It does not matter whether our president will be able to handle the economy, because people will continue to invest in big companies which will ultimately affect the stock market regardless. A psychological study performed in 2014 involving political ideologies and the illusory correlation enhances the existing debate whether people actually are influenced more by politics more than we think (Carraro, 2014). The results of the study seem to indicate that an implicit and explicit illusory correlation bias emerged both in the case of liberals and in the case of conservatives, although remarkably stronger in the explicit illusory correlation bias (Carraro, 2014)

 

References

Carraro, L., Negri, P., Castelli, L., & Pastore, M., Pastore. (2014). Implicit and explicit illusory

correlation as a function of political ideology. Plos One, 9(5), e96312. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096312  

 

Irwin, N. (2017, February 13). It’s Probably a Bad Idea to Sell Stocks Because You Fear Trump.

Retrieved February 10, 2017, from

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/upshot/its-probably-a-bad-idea-to-sell-stocks-because-you-fear-trump.html https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj_8rzY-5rSAhXM6yYKHQ6iCVIQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aol.com%2F2014%2F03%2F05%2Frepublican-democrat-presidents-better-stock-market-performance%2F&bvm=bv.147448319,d.amc&psig=AFQjCNHfwMZcopBMyzempFjIpufpUExxkA&ust=1487552630521758

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