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At least 919 records · Page 51Linked to original sources

PubMed1998

Tampon use in young women.

OBJECTIVE: To study the prevalence of tampon use among young females, the factors and persons influencing this choice, the role of primary care physicians, and the potential association of tampon use with sexually transmitted diseases and urinary tract infections. METHODS: An anonymous questionnaire regarding the use of feminine hygiene products was completed by 250 female college students between 17 and 21 years of age and 90 primary care physicians. Percentages were calculated for most outcome measurements and Fisher's Probability Exact Test was used to compare groups. RESULTS: Of the participants, 19% use pads, 29% use tampons, and 52% use both, with a total of 81% using tampons alone or in combination. The choice was influenced mostly by the woman herself or her mother. Only 22% reported that their physician discussed tampon usage with them. Incidence of sexually transmitted diseases was not significantly different between those using pads and tampons. In the pad group, 12% reported urinary tract infections versus 32% in the other group (P = 0.007). Among physicians, only 30% said they discussed hygiene products, although 52% of them thought it was medically important. Of the female physicians, 71% use tampons alone or in combination; 29% exclusively use pads, with 92% citing fear of toxic shock syndrome as a reason for their choice. CONCLUSIONS: The majority of young women use tampons based on own decision or maternal influence for comfort, convenience, and appearance. Physician input in this regard is not routinely provided, probably because of lack of agreement about the importance of the subject among physicians. Based on participants' report in this survey, the incidence of urinary tract infections seems to be significantly higher among tampon users than among pad users. Physicians should assume a more active role in explaining the appropriate use, benefits, and potential risks of feminine hygiene products.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

[Sex differences in adolescent care requests].

Care requests and attitude to health are different according to individual's gender. Epidemiological data concerning teenagers show how these differences rapidly occur during puberty and seem to take a part in the global sexualization process, specific of this period of life. Female teenagers express more important expectations and needs than their male fellows. They take more medical advice, have several complaints, take more drugs, although consulting grounds and somatic pathologies are appreciably the same for both sexes. Concerning mental diseases, the situation is even more obvious. Feminine over-representation, appearing in a spectacular manner during adolescence, is rather linked to the kind of disorders than to a purely quantitative discrepancy: depressive tendency, suicide attempts, eating disorders are obviously feminine, whereas boys are mainly found on the side of behaviour disorders, acted violence, accidents, suicide with an important over-mortality. These differences according to the subjects' sex should be known for the clinical presentation and the encountered risks assessment to improve the evaluation, the prevention and the taking charge of teenagers health needs.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1991

The acquisition of gender: what Spanish children tell us.

Data from an experiment on gender acquisition with 160 Spanish children from four to eleven years of age are presented in this paper. In Spanish there are three possible clues (semantic, morphophonological and syntactic), that speakers can use to determine the gender of a noun and the agreement of other variable elements accompanying it. Items where only one of the clues was present, items where there was a combined effect of two of them in agreement (both were feminine or masculine), and items where clues were in conflict (one masculine and the other feminine) were introduced in the experiment. This experimental manipulation made it possible to test the relative strength of the different types of competing clues. In particular, the aim of the present study was to determine the relative importance of intralinguistic and extralinguistic clues, as evidenced by the ability of Spanish children to recognize the gender of a noun upon hearing it in a particular frame, and consequently, to establish the agreement of other variable elements accompanying it. A procedure similar to that used by Karmiloff-Smith (1979) was employed. The results (which are compared with those obtained in other languages) give support to the theoretical view that children pay for more attention to syntactic and morphophonological (intralinguistic) information than to semantic (extralinguistic) information.

Child↗

PubMed2000

Personality characteristics of male clients of female commercial sex workers in Australia.

The personality characteristics of male clients of female sex workers and their motivations for seeking the services of sex workers were examined. It was hypothesized that clients of sex workers would differ from nonclients in that they would adopt less feminine sex roles, exhibit lower social-sexual effectiveness, and show higher levels of sensation-seeking behavior. Sixty-six clients of sex workers and 60 nonclients volunteered to complete a short questionnaire to assess demographic characteristics, sex role, social-sexual effectiveness, and sensation-seeking behavior. Clients and nonclients did not differ on demographic variables such as age, education, marital status, or occupation. However, clients were significantly less feminine in sex-role orientation, scored lower in social-sexual effectiveness, and scored higher on sensation seeking. Closer analysis of the client group revealed the existence of two distinct subgroups. The first was characterized by low social-sexual effectiveness and appeared motivated to visit sex workers because of an interpersonal need for intimacy. The second was characterized by high sensation seeking and appeared motivated to visit sex workers because of a need for novelty and variety in sexual encounters.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Depersonalization, self-esteem and body image in male-to-female transsexuals compared to male and female controls.

Whether postoperative male-to-female transsexuals differ in regard to measures of self- and body image from a nontranssexual control group was investigated. A group of 30 postoperative male-to-female transsexuals and control groups of 30 males and 30 females completed self-report measures (depersonalization, self-esteem, gender identity traits, body image). Results showed that transsexuals and males scored higher on self-esteem and dynamic body image than the females did. No differences between the groups were found in terms of depersonalization and satisfaction. Transsexuals and females described themselves as more feminine than males. Regarding sex-role orientation, more androgynous subjects were found among transsexuals than in the control groups. General satisfaction is associated with feminine and masculine traits in transsexuals. Results are discussed in context of the function of these personality features for the identity development of male-to-female transsexuals.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

An evolutionary perspective of sex-typed toy preferences: pink, blue, and the brain.

Large sex differences in children's toy preferences are attributed to gender group identification and social learning. The proposal outlined in this paper is that contemporary conceptual categories of "masculine" or "feminine" toys are also influenced by evolved perceptual categories of male-preferred and female-preferred objects. Research on children exposed prenatally to atypical levels of androgens and research on typically developing infants suggest sex-dimorphic preferences exist for object features, such as movement or color/form. The evolution and neurobiology of mammalian visual processing--and recent findings on sex-dimorphic toy preferences in nonhuman primates--suggest further that an innate bias for processing object movement or color/form may contribute to behaviors with differential adaptive significance for males and females. In this way, preferences for objects such as toys may indicate a biological preparedness for a "masculine" or "feminine" gender role-one that develops more fully as early perceptual preferences are coupled with object experiences imposed by contemporary gender socialization.

Brain↗

PubMed1984

Sex role attributes, symptom distress, and defensive style among college men and women.

Eighty-four male and 90 female college students completed the PRF-Andro masculinity and femininity scales, a symptom checklist, and a defense mechanism inventory. Results indicated that interrelations among sex role attributes, defense preferences, and symptom distress differed for men and women. Cross-sex-typed persons mostly accounted for differences in symptom distress within each sex: Masculine women reported relatively low and feminine men reported relatively high degrees of symptom distress. In addition, sex roles interacted with sex in determining defense preferences. We also explored the possibility that defensive styles mediated between sex role attributes and symptom distress. Among women, an association between masculine attributes and a rejection of self-blaming defenses accounted for the negative relation between masculinity and symptom distress. Among men, sex role attributes and defensive styles, for the most part, contributed independently to symptom distress.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1988

Self-focused attention, gender, gender role, and vulnerability to negative affect.

Research has independently shown that both gender and self-focused attention are linked to depression. In this article, we report a series of studies investigating the relation between these variables. Using a standard self-focusing manipulation, Study 1 suggested that women evidence a greater propensity to self-focus than men. We replicated these findings in Study 2. In Study 3, we conducted an experiment to determine if sex role in conjunction with experimentally increased self-focused attention would lead to more emotional distress after a negative event had occurred. Results suggested that feminine individuals who received a self-focusing manipulation responded with greater levels of self-focused attention and negative affect than did any other group. We interpreted findings in terms of a tendency to self-focus that might prime feminine people to experience depression, or alternately, as a lack of self-focusing that may insulate masculine individuals from the experience of depression.

Anxiety↗

PubMed2004

Gender differences: emotional expression and feelings of personal inauthenticity.

This survey study examined the emotional expression content of human resources jobs and how the content varies by gender. On the basis of findings, it appeared that women more often conform to feminine display rules, which require the suppression of negative emotions and the simulation of positive emotions. In contrast, men more often adopted masculine display rules, which require the suppression of positive emotions and the simulation of negative ones. For both men and women, emotional dissonance generated by a feminine display-rule pattern was positively correlated with feelings of personal inauthenticity at work. Gender modified the relationship between emotional dissonance and gender only in that women who adopted the masculine display-rule pattern reported feeling the least personally inauthentic of all.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Gender differences in early risk factors for adolescent depression among low-income urban children.

One component of a model by Nolen-Hoeksema and Girgus, who propose that risk factors for adolescent depression are more common in girls than in boys during childhood, was tested with 85 low-income, urban, African American and Latino kindergarten through fourth grade children who completed inventories of depression, stress, attributional style, gender role, and body image. Endorsing two of three predicted risk factors, girls reported slightly poorer body image and identified more strongly with a feminine gender role. Boys, however, reported a more negative attributional style. Feminine gender role was not associated with body image or negative attributional style. The applicability of the proposed model to a low-income, ethnic minority, urban population is discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Preferences, quantities and concerns: socio-cultural perspectives on the gendered consumption of foods.

A review of the sociological research regarding the gendered features of food consumption is presented. The focus is upon differences between women and men in regard to their preferences for particular foods and types of meals, seen in relation to the cultural function of foods as symbolic markers of femininity or masculinity, assessments of the quantities of food consumed by women and men respectively, and differences between women and men in regard to concerns with food safety, health, weight reduction and fitness. Some methodological limitations of this research are discussed with particular reference to the need for interdisciplinary cooperation between sociologists and nutritionists in the design and analysis of dietary surveys. Suggestions are made in regard to future directions for sociological research in this field, with particular reference to the issue that dietary recommendations appear to focus upon increasing the consumption of foods that are markers of femininity and decreasing the consumption of foods that are markers of masculinity in Western food culture.

Culture↗

PubMed1990

Intonation and fundamental frequency in male-to-female transsexuals.

Twenty speakers, diagnosed as male-to-female transsexuals, produced conversational recordings of speech and voice. The samples were submitted to perceptual evaluations and to acoustic analysis by means of a Visi-Pitch, Apple IIe microcomputer system. Transsexuals categorized as having female voices had higher fundamental frequencies (fo), less extensive downward intonations, a higher percentage of upward intonations and downward shifts, and a smaller percentage of level intonations and level shifts than transsexuals categorized as having male voices. The lowest average fo identified as belonging to a female speaker was 155 Hz. Higher (more feminine) ratings on the masculinity-femininity dimension correlated with fo (r = .89), percentage of level shifts (r = -.67), percentage of downward shifts (r = .50), percentage of level intonations (r = -.43), and percentage of upward intonations (r = .40). Findings are discussed in terms of the relative perceptual salience of average fundamental frequency and patterns of intonation for female voice quality.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Re-framing the representation of women in advertisements for hormone replacement therapy.

This article examines and presents examples of contemporary advertising within the medical and health professions that continue the process and organisation of knowledge about women and their reproductive bodies. It draws on feminist and poststructural perspectives to inform a critical evaluation of the visual representations of menopausal women and hormone replacement therapy. These representations work to construct certain definitions of the feminine that sustain and support existing contradictory cultural meanings and values about menopause. I argue that the images continue to misrepresent and define what forms of femininity and sexual gender are desirable and acceptable for menopausal women. The article addresses the problems of gender discrimination and bias within the advertising industry, and illustrates the ways in which readers of visual texts may be influenced by stereotypic assumptions concerning a woman's lived experience of menopause. It illustrates how specific symbolic images directed towards men and women for hormone replacement therapy, testosterone deficiency and sexual dysfunction influence the viewer's decision making and action responses.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Hume's influence on John Gregory and the history of medical ethics.

The concept of medicine as a profession in the English-language literature of medical ethics is of recent vintage, invented by the Scottish physician and medical ethicist, John Gregory (1724-1773). Gregory wrote the first secular, philosophical, clinical, and feminine medical ethics and bioethics in the English language and did so on the basis of Hume's principle of sympathy. This paper provides a brief account of Gregory's invention and the role that Humean sympathy plays in that invention, with reference to key texts in Gregory's work. The paper also considers two interesting and perhaps provocative ways in which Hume can be read through Gregory: first, sympathy as a principle of scientific discovery in Hume's science of man and moral physiology; and sympathy as gendered feminine in Hume's moral philosophy. Hume's principle of sympathy is at the core of Gregory's medical ethics and the histories of Western medical ethics and bioethics pivot on Gregory--and, therefore, on Hume--as it does on few other figures.

Bioethics↗

PubMed1995

Sissiness, tomboyism, sex-role, sex identity and orientation.

Masculinity and femininity have been studied by self-ratings in independent areas of research: one investigating personality traits considered masculine (M) or feminine (F); the other, behaviours statistically more common in one than in the other sex (sex-linked behaviours). The two approaches were compared for the first time in the present study of 66 male and 51 female medical students. Consistent with previous findings using the second approach, male but not female subjects' opposite sex-linked "sissy" and "tomboyish" behaviours correlated significantly with their reported ratio of homosexual to heterosexual feelings (Ho/Het). Ho/Het did not correlate with either sex's M and F scores, but high M scores in women correlated strongly with several "tomboyish" behaviours. As "tomboyish" behaviours are shown more strongly by women exposed prenatally to increased levels of opposite sex hormones compared to controls, the findings have implications for the biological theory attributing Ho/Het to such prenatal hormonal exposure.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1998

Effects of gender constancy and figure's height and sex on young children's gender-typed attributions.

Young children's attributions of gender-typed activities to figures/models differing in height and/or sex were examined over three experiments. The influence of gender constancy understanding on children's gender-typed attributions was also examined. In Experiment 1, young children attributed significantly more masculine activities to male than female figures and significantly more feminine activities to female than male figures. Experiment 2 confirmed the results demonstrated in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, additional line-drawn stimuli and figure comparisons were incorporated; participants attributed significantly more masculine activities to taller than shorter male figures and taller than shorter female figures. In addition, children attributed significantly more feminine activities to taller than shorter female figures. In Experiment 3, participants viewed pictures of taller and shorter male and female models. Results confirmed those of Experiment 1, as well as most of those of Experiment 2. No consistent patterns of children's gender-typed attributions as a function of gender constancy understanding emerged in the three experiments. Results are discussed as they apply to unexplored tenets from Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental model, as well as those of gender schema models, of early gender role development.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed1989

Differentiation of adolescent activity participation.

The sex typing or lack of it among 133 adolescent activities was investigated. Twenty-seven percent (32) of the activities on an Adolescent Activity Questionnaire showed very clear participation differences for male and female adolescents (11 to 18 years old). The initial two factors extracted in a principal components factor analysis were easily interpreted as feminine and masculine activities. Discriminant function analysis of 15 items from the first three factors yielded an 8-item function on the basis of which every sample member was correctly classified as male or female. Masculine activities included more sports-related activities and activities dealing with mechanics and building, whereas feminine activities were domestic in nature and included more sedentary activities (e.g., reading, writing in diaries).

Adolescent↗

PubMed1991

Sex differences, social desirability, masculinity, and the tendency to worry.

Relationships between worry and sex differences, social desirability, masculinity, and femininity were explored in this study. Data were obtained from 141 undergraduates who answered a questionnaire containing a worry scale, the Crowne-Marlowe (1964) Social Desirability Scale, the Bem (1974) Sex Role Inventory, the Trait Anxiety scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, & Lushene, 1970), and several demographic items. Women reported significantly higher levels of worry than men did, and worry was significantly correlated with lower social desirability and with lower masculinity but not with femininity. However, multiple regression strategies revealed that sex differences in reported worry cannot be accounted for solely by variations in social desirability and masculinity. Also, sex differences in the tendency to worry were not eliminated by statistically controlling for trait anxiety, social desirability, and masculinity simultaneously.

Adult↗