I thought the Symposium was very interesting because I saw that the methods we talk about in class are the methods used by the students I talked to. I felt lucky to be able to talk to two students who had Dr. Hoyt as research advisors, which I thought was good because I was able to hear about how she does research with students and what their overall impressions were (which were through the roof). The student I talked to that I got the most out of was Brent DeShields’ because he gave me insight into more than just his research. He looked at how people who are lower class tend to be rated higher than those of middle or high class in leadership positions. He found, through Mechanical Turk, that reading about someone from modest backgrounds tended to skew readers towards a more legitimate administration. He also found that they tended to be rated higher for conscientiousness. When I asked him what the hardest part about the research was, he said analyzing the data. That made me equally excited and nervous because I like analyzing data so I know that that won’t be too difficult, but nervous because I know that I’ll have different challenges. I was happy to hear that getting his responses (I think there were 320, I can’t remember exactly but it was in the 300 range) only took a day and a half. That made me happy because I may end up using Mechanical Turk. He also said it was relatively cheap because he paid each participant $0.50. Another student I spoke with expressed her frustration over the fact that her data ended up not being significant. I thought about how frustrated that would make me, but then realized that I have to know that might be the case going in. Overall, I’m very glad I got to see different students’ research and have the chance to talk and ask them questions!

I. Introduction

II. Background Information

• Statistics about women in sports
  • Number of teams at different levels/percentage of the population at each age and gender that participates in each sport (+analysis)
    • professional
    • college
    • high school
    • club
    • recreational
    • age groups
  • Rate of pay
  • Social advantages
• When and where Title IX-like policies were implemented
• Look at possible other factors that contribute to the discrepancy between men and women in sports

III. Five most important research questions:

• Why do women have so few opportunities in sports compared to men?
• Does cultural influence play a significant role in determining the opportunities available for women in a country?
• What about our rhetoric contributes to the way we treat men vs. women?
• “Men’s games are faster, more physical, etc” – but women often have more skill — why do people like watching men more than women? What leads to this? Is it that they’re more exposed to men’s sports, get used to that, and then decide they like that style of play better?
• How do implicit biases contribute to the way people think about and treat professional athletes? (including how they’re paid)

IV. Hypothesis

• Women have fewer opportunities in sports which deters them from pursuing higher levels of their sport and produces fewer female adult athletes in every sport. This leads to a smaller fan base, which then leads to less support and funding, and continues the trend of minimal opportunities
• People tend to have biases about women in sports, not because of an innate nature, but because we’ve socialized this idea around the world

V. Methodology

• In order to test this theory, I will conduct surveys and possibly an experiment
  • Survey
    • Ask about their preference for watching sports, playing sports, what they wanted to be when they were little, the types of opportunities that were available to them, how they were encouraged to participate or not
  • Experiment
    • Have subjects watch a video (of different genders playing sports?) and respond to questions afterwards about perception
    • Other ideas?

VI. Importance to Leadership Studies

• Understanding why half the population lacks access to certain opportunities could lead us toward a place of equality (talk about ethical reasons for wanting equality) insofar as people have the option of doing what they want (even if this leads to unequal numbers participating, since I don’t know if the desire to play certain sports will be the same across genders or not).
• Look at what types of actions could help make a positive change – policy? education?

VII. Annotated bibliography

Further Research:

• Read more about the preferences of men and women in sports
• Become more aware of theories about where gendered preferences come from
• Talk to Dr. von Rueden about cultural influence
• Research more about creating a survey/experiment and making sure it’s testing what I want it to be testing

1. Mondello, M. J., & Pedersen, P. M. (2003). A content analysis of the Journal of Sports Economics. Journal of Sports Economics, 4(1), 64-73.
2. Cunningham, G. B., & Sagas, M. (2008). Gender and sex diversity in sport organizations: Introduction to a special issue.
3. Van Sterkenburg, J., Knoppers, A., & De Leeuw, S. (2010). Race, ethnicity, and content analysis of the sports media: A critical reflection. Media, Culture & Society, 32(5), 819-839.
4. Chrisler, J. C., & McCreary, D. R. (2010). Handbook of gender research in psychology (Vol. 1). New York NY: Springer.
5. Schuiteman, J., & Knoppers, A. (1987). An examination of gender differences in scholarly productivity among physical educators. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 58(3), 265-272.

Starting out, I thought my research would be purely in the social science realm. Although I still foresee it being majorly social science based, I have become very interested in the history of opportunities for women and I’d like to incorporate that as a component in my research as well. I think I’ll spend a portion of my paper examining the effects of potential historical influencers on different places in the world.

Specifically, because of my summer experience, I’m thinking I may want to look at the native cultures around the world that had more equitable cultures before other influences such as colonization and globalization impacted them. I think using a map to show the countries that had more matriarchal hunter-gatherer societies compared to those that are currently leading the world in women’s rights and well-being would be very interesting. I also think creating a timeline of influence could be insightful, too.

As far as the bulk of my research, my plan right now is to conduct a survey that asks girls (all around the world?) what kinds of opportunities they’ve been given, if they think they could be successful in sports or academically, etc. My goal is to see if there is a pattern of deterrence because of a lack of opportunity, which is what I’m predicting. I’m planning to use a combination of qualitative and quantitative research.

I think I’ll need access to information about genders in many different cultures, which I imagine will be easier to access in the location that those people lived (i.e. Maori in New Zealand). I will definitely need feminist theories as well as anti-feminist theories to refute. I envision also making a statement that is more broad, about minority or vulnerable groups, whether that be because of culture or policies enacted within a society, and using women as the case study.

If I’m able to get ahead enough on my research and set a plan, I’d like to conduct a few interviews while I’m abroad in New Zealand – both with Maori people and possibly experts that can tell me more about the culture and the relationship between men and women. I’d also like to interview women in leadership positions both in New Zealand and here in the United States (and possibly other places) so that I can try to understand the perceptions of women rising in to leadership positions in different cultures (difficulty in relation to men, perceived opportunities available, challenges of being a woman in a leadership position, etc).

I spoke with Dr. Hoyt and one thing she advised me to do first is familiarize myself with what has been done already. She sent me four articles to read about the gender biases in academic settings and one particularly interesting one that she is working on that incorporated growth mindset. It looked at the effects of it on women and men in computer science. She suggested that we go broader before narrowing down, which is exactly what we’ve been doing! I continue to be intrigued while reading articles about this as well as speaking with different people, including Dr. Hoyt, about it. I look forward to learning more and figuring out what a good thesis topic is!

This source was an article that was written before the 2016 election which gave it an interesting perspective about the possible outcome of the election. It made me want to read a post-election article to read about quantified changes that have happened, though I’ve also seen small things in everyday life on my own. It talks about the implications for women if Hillary would’ve won or lost, and how one of the arguments is that her winning would create a backlash and lead to an increase in misogyny and sexism. This article made me think about possible implications of actions that I wouldn’t have thought about and how changing behaviors to impact women’s rights might take longer than I thought (not that I thought it would be quick in any way, but it might take many attempts of large-scale changes before there is a lasting positive effect).

My notes differed as I was taking them this time from how they normally are because I found myself questioning everything I read. I was constantly wondering and making side notes for other things to look up during the reading. This ranged from how credible was the source, to whether or not I personally bought the argument of the author that was trying to convince me. I was careful to include page numbers and track the source where I got it, as well as note where I am in the research process so that later on, when I come back to these notes, I will see that I have hardly done any research so far (and if there is conflicting data later on, this definitely deserves a second look). However, my notes were similar in that I like taking most of my notes by had, especially when reading about things that I’m not completely familiar with.

I chose to read this article because it is a broader picture of my overall topic which I think is good to read at this point. I am trying to widen my scope before narrowing in. This article helped me gain a bit more perspective and brought up a few topics (gender and leadership in the U.S., attitudes and actions of women and the responses to these actions, etc) which reaffirmed the major questions I have right now about the world.

Topics/questions to research:

• The history of women’s rights in different countries – where have they varied and why?
• What kinds of struggles do women face world-wide?
• Theories about biological/other reasons women haven’t had rights and when they have, why have they still struggled to have an equal voice?
• Why do men receive more support in athletics than women do? – “they’re more entertaining to watch” – but why did more people watch the women’s world cup than the men’s — the women win a lot more and have a bigger fan base yet only make a fraction of the amount the men do – amount paid seems to be worldwide in sports
• It’s rare to see a woman coaching a men’s team but common for men to coach women’s teams — why?
• New Zealand –> first country to give women suffrage, have more women graduating with STEM degrees than men (how many other countries are like this?) – coincidence? They don’t have equality in sports though – no Title IX –> what does this say about following up with legislation?

Keywords:

• Women vs. Men in leadership positions
• Historical leaders and gender
• Gender in STEM fields
• History of women’s rights
• Women’s rights today
• Women in sports

Possible research places:

• UR Library Database
• Very Short Introduction
• CQ Researcher
• Books for historical data on women in leadership positions
• Articles from Theories and Models about gender