The Petrie multiplier is a thought experiment [1] or mathematical model [2] invented by British computer scientist Karen Petrie, and first described by Ian Gent in 2013. [3] The multiplier "shows that if the percentage of men and women in the room who make questionable remarks to the other sex is equal, then the average number of sexist remarks experienced by members of one party scales by the square of the proportion of one party to the other.
Gent defined the multiplier in the following terms: [3]
With 20% women the gender ratio is 1:4. So there are 4 times as many men to make sexist remarks, so 4 times as many sexist remarks are made to women as to men. But there are 4 times fewer women to receive sexist remarks, so each individual woman is four times as likely to receive a given remark than an individual man is. These effects multiply, so in this example the mean number of sexist remarks per woman is 16 times the number per man. This holds in general, so with a gender ratio of 1:r, women will receive r² times as many sexist remarks as men.
The Petrie multiplier corresponds to Lanchester's square law in battle and predator–prey dynamics.
The model assumes that men and women are equally sexist. Further, each sexist remark made by a man is assumed to randomly target one of the women and vice versa. [4] A more complex analysis published in the Journal of Physics A modeled heterogeneous levels of sexism by assuming each person to make sexist remarks according to an independent Poisson process, maintaining the assumption that each sexist remark is directed to an individual of the opposite sex. Under these conditions the Petrie multiplier takes the form cr1 + ϵ, 0 ≤ ϵ ≤ 1. [4]
The Petrie multiplier has not been the subject of any empirical study. [5] However, one commentator used a Monte Carlo simulation to eliminate the assumption that people have a fixed number of sexist remarks to make, and found that women suffer from overwhelmingly more sexism in an environment where both genders are equally sexist. [6] Another probabilistic analysis found that the multiplier seemed to hold and suggested that the disparity could be even worse than quadratic. [5]
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls. It has been linked to stereotypes and gender roles, and may include the belief that one sex or gender is intrinsically superior to another. Extreme sexism may foster sexual harassment, rape, and other forms of sexual violence. Gender discrimination may encompass sexism. This term is defined as discrimination toward people based on their gender identity or their gender or sex differences. Gender discrimination is especially defined in terms of workplace inequality. It may arise from social or cultural customs and norms.
A statistical model is a mathematical model that embodies a set of statistical assumptions concerning the generation of sample data. A statistical model represents, often in considerably idealized form, the data-generating process.
Gender-neutral language is language that minimizes assumptions about the social gender or biological sex of people referred to in speech or writing. In contrast to most other Indo-European languages, English does not retain grammatical gender and most of its nouns, adjectives and pronouns are therefore not gender-specific. In most other Indo-European languages, nouns are grammatically masculine or grammatically feminine, or sometimes grammatically neuter, regardless of the actual gender of the referent.
Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's perceived political affiliation, sex, gender, beliefs, values, social class, age, disability, religion, sexuality, race, ethnicity, language, nationality, complexion, beauty, height, occupation, wealth, education, criminality, sport-team affiliation, music tastes or other personal characteristics.
Lanchester's laws are mathematical formulae for calculating the relative strengths of military forces. The Lanchester equations are differential equations describing the time dependence of two armies' strengths A and B as a function of time, with the function depending only on A and B.
Pro-feminism refers to support of the cause of feminism without implying that the supporter is a member of the feminist movement. The term is most often used in reference to men who actively support feminism and its efforts to bring about the political, economic, cultural, personal, and social equality of women with men. A number of pro-feminist men are involved in political activism, most often in the areas of gender equality, women's rights, and ending violence against women.
The Boy or Girl paradox surrounds a set of questions in probability theory, which are also known as The Two Child Problem, Mr. Smith's Children and the Mrs. Smith Problem. The initial formulation of the question dates back to at least 1959, when Martin Gardner featured it in his October 1959 "Mathematical Games column" in Scientific American. He titled it The Two Children Problem, and phrased the paradox as follows:
Occupational sexism is discrimination based on a person's sex that occurs in a place of employment.
Ambivalent sexism is a theoretical framework which posits that sexism has two sub-components: "hostile sexism" (HS) and "benevolent sexism" (BS). Hostile sexism reflects overtly negative evaluations and stereotypes about a gender. Benevolent sexism represents evaluations of gender that may appear subjectively positive, but are actually damaging to people and gender equality more broadly. For the most part, psychologists have studied hostile forms of sexism. However, theorists using the theoretical framework of ambivalent sexism have found extensive empirical evidence for both varieties. The theory has largely been developed by social psychologists Peter Glick and Susan Fiske.
Women's parking spaces are specially designated and identified parking spaces in parking garages and parking lots to be used by women. They are usually near exits to increase the safety of women, to facilitate parking, or to facilitate walking to shopping or employment destinations.
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity is a 2007 book by the gender theorist, biologist, and writer Julia Serano. The book is a transfeminist manifesto that makes the case that transphobia is rooted in sexism and that transgender activism is a feminist movement. The second edition of the book was published in March 2016.
Internalized sexism takes the form of sexist behaviors and attitudes enacted by women toward themselves or other women and girls. On a larger scale, internalized sexism falls under the broad topic of internalized oppression, which "consists of oppressive practices that continue to make the rounds even when members of the oppressor group are not present."
Karen Petrie is a British computer scientist specialising in the area of constraints programming. She was named young IT practitioner of the year by the British Computer Society (BCS) in 2004, for work she carried out whilst on placement at NASA. She is currently a professor in the School of Science and Engineering at the University of Dundee.
Sexism in video gaming is prejudiced behavior or discrimination based on sex or gender as experienced by people who play and create video games, primarily women. This may manifest as sexual harassment or in the way genders are represented in games, such as when characters are presented according to gender-related tropes and stereotypes.
Gender bias on Wikipedia, also known as the Wikipedia gender gap, refers to the fact that Wikipedia contributors are mostly male, that relatively few biographies on Wikipedia are about women, and that topics of interest to women are less well-covered.
Sexism in the technology industry is occupational sexism in the technology industry. It has been variously argued in the media that a high ratio of men to women, graduation rates for engineering degrees, and the culture of the industry itself cause sexism in the technology industry.
Misogyny in sports refers to different discourses, actions, and ideologies present in various sporting environments that add, reinforce, or normalize the objectification, degrading, shaming, or absence of women in athletics.
Multiple jeopardy is the theory that the various factors of one's identity that lead to discrimination or oppression, such as gender, class, or race, have a multiplicative effect on the discrimination that person experiences. The term was coined by scholar Deborah K. King in 1988 to account for the limitations of the double or triple jeopardy models of discrimination, which assert that every unique prejudice has an individual effect on one's status, and that the discrimination one experiences is the additive result of all of these prejudices. Under the model of multiple jeopardy, it is instead believed that these prejudices are interdependent and have a multiplicative relationship; for this reason, the "multiple" in its name refers not only to the various forms of prejudices that factor into one's discrimination but also to the relationship between these prejudices. King used the term in relation to multiple consciousness, or the ability of a victim of multiple forms of discrimination to perceive how those forms work together, to support the validity of the black feminist and other intersectional causes.
Gender disparity in computing has become a global concern due to the emergence of the Information Age. However, many problems have occurred due to the growing gender disparity in the computing field. This field has increasingly developed a gender gap, making it more male dominant. In response to a decline in women pursuing education within this field, a lack of diversity has emerged. The need for more diversity and an equal gender gap led to public policy debates regarding gender equality. This occurred due to the growing importance of computing and technology in the world today. This dialogue helped to expand information technology innovations and to reduce the consequences of sexism. It also allowed organizations to create their own initiatives and bring women into the computer science field.
Gender discrimination in health professions refers to the entire culture of bias against female clinicians, expressed verbally through derogatory and aggressive comments, lower pay and other forms of discriminatory actions from predominantly male peers. These women face difficulties in their work environment as a result of a largely male dominated positions of power within the medical field as well as initial biases presented in the hiring process, but not limited to promotions.