The Black Lives Matter movement mitigates bias against racial minority actors.

Watching movies is among the most popular entertainment and cultural activities. How do viewers react when a movie sequel increases racial minority actors in the main cast ("minority increase")? On the one hand, such sequels may receive better evaluations if viewers appreciate racially inclusive casting for its novel elements (the value-in-diversity perspective) and moral appeal (the fairness perspective on diversity). On the other hand, discrimination research suggests that if viewers harbor biases against racial minorities, sequels with minority increase may receive worse evaluations. To examine these competing possibilities, we analyze a unique panel dataset of movie series released from 1998 to 2021 and conduct text analysis of 312,457 reviews of these movies. Consistent with discrimination research, we find that movies with minority increase receive lower ratings and more toxic reviews. Importantly, these effects weaken after the advent of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, especially when the movement's intensity is high. These results are reliable across various robustness checks (e.g., propensity score matching, random implementation test). We conceptually replicate the bias mitigation effect of BLM in a preregistered experiment: Heightening the salience of BLM increases White individuals' acceptance of racial minority increase in a movie sequel. This research demonstrates the power of social movements in fostering diversity, equality, and inclusion.

Self-esteem trajectories over three decades predict opposition to social equality in midlife.

Although life trajectories are frequently theorized to explain people's attitudes toward different social groups, few studies have been able to directly assess their importance with suitable data. Addressing this gap and focusing on the development of general and domain-specific self-esteem, we report results from a population-based sample of Norwegians (N = 2,215) followed over 28 years and five time points from adolescence to midlife. Growth curve models demonstrated that irrespective of self-esteem domain, low levels of self-esteem in adolescence as well as a depressed self-esteem development over the next three decades were related to more overall opposition to social equality as well as more opposition to gender equality and immigration in midlife. The results held when controlling for participants' baseline political orientations and other key covariates in adolescence. Our findings indicate that low self-esteem and a lack of positive self-esteem development can be detrimental to harmonious intergroup relations in ever-diversifying societies. We discuss how future psychological interventions aimed at enhancing self-esteem may promote support for a more inclusive society.

Norm-violating rhetoric undermines support for participatory inclusiveness and political equality among Trump supporters.

Over the last decade, the United States has seen increasing antidemocratic rhetoric by political leaders. Yet, prior work suggests that such norm-violating rhetoric does not undermine support for democracy as a system of government. We argue that, while that may be true, such rhetoric does vitiate support for specific democratic principles. We test this theory by extending prior work to assess the effects of Trump's norm-violating rhetoric on general support for democracy as well as for the principles of participatory inclusiveness, contestation, the rule of law, and political equality. We find that Trump's rhetoric does not alter attitudes toward democracy as a preferred system but does reduce support for inclusiveness and equality among his supporters. Our findings suggest that elite rhetoric can undermine basic principles of American democracy.

A critical analysis of plant science literature reveals ongoing inequities.

The field of plant science has grown dramatically in the past two decades, but global disparities and systemic inequalities persist. Here, we analyzed ~300,000 papers published over the past two decades to quantify disparities across nations, genders, and taxonomy in the plant science literature. Our analyses reveal striking geographical biases-affluent nations dominate the publishing landscape and vast areas of the globe have virtually no footprint in the literature. Authors in Northern America are cited nearly twice as many times as authors based in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, despite publishing in journals with similar impact factors. Gender imbalances are similarly stark and show remarkably little improvement over time. Some of the most affluent nations have extremely male biased publication records, despite supposed improvements in gender equality. In addition, we find that most studies focus on economically important crop and model species, and a wealth of biodiversity is underrepresented in the literature. Taken together, our analyses reveal a problematic system of publication, with persistent imbalances that poorly capture the global wealth of scientific knowledge and biological diversity. We conclude by highlighting disparities that can be addressed immediately and offer suggestions for long-term solutions to improve equity in the plant sciences.

Persistence of gender biases in Europe.

Prior work suggests that modern gender bias might have historical roots but has not been able to demonstrate long-term persistence of this bias due to a lack of historical data. We follow archaeological research and employ skeletal records of women's and men's health from 139 archaeological sites in Europe dating back, on average, to about 1200 AD to construct a site-level indicator of historical bias in favor of one gender over the other using dental linear enamel hypoplasias. This historical measure of gender bias significantly predicts contemporary gender attitudes, despite the monumental socioeconomic and political changes that have taken place since. We also show that this persistence is most likely due to the intergenerational transmission of gender norms, which can be disrupted by significant population replacement. Our results demonstrate the resilience of gender norms and highlight the importance of cultural legacies in sustaining and perpetuating gender (in)equality today.

Why We Should Stop Trying to Fix Women: How Context Shapes and Constrains Women's Career Trajectories.

In this review we examine two classes of interventions designed to achieve workplace gender equality: (a) those designed to boost motivations and ambition, such as those that aim to attract more women into roles where they are underrepresented; and (b) those that try to provide women with needed abilities to achieve these positions. While such initiatives are generally well meaning, they tend to be based upon (and reinforce) stereotypes of what women lack. Such a deficit model leads to interventions that attempt to "fix" women rather than address the structural factors that are the root of gender inequalities. We provide a critical appraisal of the literature to establish an evidence base for why fixing women is unlikely to be successful. As an alternative, we focus on understanding how organizational context and culture maintain these inequalities by looking at how they shape and constrain (a) women's motivations and ambitions, and (b) the expression and interpretation of their skills and attributes. In doing so, we seek to shift the interventional focus from women themselves to the systems and structures in which they are embedded.

Experimental evidence of physician social preferences.

Physicians' professional ethics require that they put patients' interests ahead of their own and that they should allocate limited medical resources efficiently. Understanding physicians' extent of adherence to these principles requires understanding the social preferences that lie behind them. These social preferences may be divided into two qualitatively different trade-offs: the trade-off between self and other (altruism) and the trade-off between reducing differences in payoffs (equality) and increasing total payoffs (efficiency). We experimentally measure social preferences among a nationwide sample of practicing physicians in the United States. Our design allows us to distinguish empirically between altruism and equality-efficiency orientation and to accurately measure both trade-offs at the level of the individual subject. We further compare the experimentally measured social preferences of physicians with those of a representative sample of Americans, an "elite" subsample of Americans, and a nationwide sample of medical students. We find that physicians' altruism stands out. Although most physicians place a greater weight on self than on other, the share of physicians who place a greater weight on other than on self is twice as large as for all other samples-32% as compared with 15 to 17%. Subjects in the general population are the closest to physicians in terms of altruism. The higher altruism among physicians compared with the other samples cannot be explained by income or age differences. By contrast, physicians' preferences regarding equality-efficiency orientation are not meaningfully different from those of the general sample and elite subsample and are less efficiency oriented than medical students.

Underrepresentation of women in the economics profession more pronounced in the United States compared to heterogeneous Europe.

Based on a dataset that we collected from the top research institutions in economics around the globe (including universities, business schools, and other organizations, such as central banks), we document the underrepresentation of women in economics. For the 238 universities and business schools in the sample, women hold 25% of senior-level positions (full professor or associate professor) and 37% of junior-level positions. In the 82 US universities and business schools, the figures are 20% on the senior level and 32% on the entry level, while in the 122 European institutions, the numbers are 27% and 38%, respectively, with some heterogeneity across countries. The numbers also show that the highest-ranking institutions (in terms of research output) have fewer women in senior positions. Moreover, in the United States, this effect is even present on the junior level. The "leaky pipeline" may hence begin earlier than oftentimes assumed and is even more of an issue in the highly integrated market of the United States. In Europe, an institution ranked 100 places higher has 3 percentage points fewer women in senior positions, but in the United States, it is almost 5 percentage points.

Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy-related cadherin variants affect desmosomal binding kinetics.

Cadherins are calcium dependent adhesion proteins that establish and maintain the intercellular mechanical contact by bridging the gap between adjacent cells. Desmoglein-2 (Dsg2) and desmocollin-2 (Dsc2) are tissue specific cadherin isoforms of the cell-cell contact in cardiac desmosomes. Mutations in the DSG2-gene and in the DSC2-gene are related to arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) a rare but severe heart muscle disease. Here, several possible homophilic and heterophilic binding interactions of wild-type Dsg2, wild-type Dsc2, as well as one Dsg2- and two Dsc2-variants, each associated with ARVC, are investigated. Using single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and applying Jarzynski's equality the kinetics and thermodynamics of Dsg2/Dsc2 interaction can be determined. The free energy landscape of Dsg2/Dsc2 dimerization exposes a high activation energy barrier, which is in line with the proposed strand-swapping binding motif. Although the binding motif is not affected by any of the mutations, the binding kinetics of the interactions differ significantly from the wild-type. While wild-type cadherins exhibit an average complex lifetime of approx. 0.3 s interactions involving a variant consistently show - lifetimes that are substantially larger. The lifetimes of the wild-type interactions give rise to the picture of a dynamic adhesion interface consisting of continuously dissociating and (re)associating molecular bonds, while the delayed binding kinetics of interactions involving an ARVC-associated variant might be part of the pathogenesis. Our data provide a comprehensive and consistent thermodynamic and kinetic description of cardiac cadherin binding, allowing detailed insight into the molecular mechanisms of cell adhesion.

Rate limiting step of the allosteric activation of the bacterial adhesin FimH investigated by molecular dynamics simulations.

The bacterial adhesin FimH is a model for the study of protein allostery because its structure has been resolved in multiple configurations, including the active and the inactive state. FimH consists of a pilin domain (PD) that anchors it to the rest of the fimbria and an allosterically regulated lectin domain (LD) that binds mannose on the surface of infected cells. Under normal conditions, the two domains are docked to each other and LD binds mannose weakly. However, in the presence of tensile force generated by shear the domains separate and conformational changes propagate across LD resulting in a stronger bond to mannose. Recently, the crystallographic structure of a variant of FimH has been resolved, called FimH FocH , where PD contains 10 mutations near the inter-domain interface. Although the X-ray structures of FimH and FimH FocH are almost identical, experimental evidence shows that FimH FocH is activated even in the absence of shear. Here, molecular dynamics simulations combined with the Jarzynski equality were used to investigate the discrepancy between the crystallographic structures and the functional assays. The results indicate that the free energy barrier of the unbinding process between LD and PD is drastically reduced in FimH FocH . Rupture of inter-domain hydrogen bonds involving R166 constitutes a rate limiting step of the domain separation process and occurs more readily in FimH FocH than FimH. In conclusion, the mutations in FimH FocH shift the equilibrium toward an equal occupancy of bound and unbound states for LD and PD by reducing a rate limiting step.

Proximity to cancer rehabilitation and exercise oncology by geography, race, and socioeconomic status.

BACKGROUND: Cancer rehabilitation and exercise oncology (CR/EO) have documented benefits for people living with and beyond cancer. The authors examined proximity to CR/EO programs across the United States with respect to population density, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and cancer incidence and mortality rates. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2022-2023. Online searches were initiated to identify CR/EO programs. Geocoding was used to obtain latitudinal and longitudinal geospatial coordinates. Demographic data were abstracted from the 2020 5-year American Community Survey. Cancer incidence and mortality data were obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. US 2013 Rural-Urban Continuum Code (RUCC) classification was used to define counties as either urban (RUCC 1-3) or rural (RUCC 4-9). Multivariable logistic regression was used to evaluate the association between being far from a program and census-tract level factors. RESULTS: In total, 2133 CR/EO programs were identified nationwide. The distance from a program increased with decreasing population density: rural tracts were 17.68 ± 0.24 miles farther from a program compared with urban tracts (p < .001). Program proximity decreased as the neighborhood deprivation index increased (p < .001). Exercise oncology programs were less common than cancer rehabilitation programs in tracts with a larger proportion of minority residents (p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Prior research has documented that underrepresented populations have worse cancer-related symptoms and higher cancer mortality. Herein, the authors document their findings that these same populations are less likely to have proximity to CR/EO programs, which are associated with improved cancer-related symptoms and cancer mortality outcomes. To realize the positive outcomes from CR/EO programming, efforts must focus on supporting expanded programming and sustainable payment for these services.

Conversations with LGBT+ scientists about visibility, leadership and climbing the career ladder.

February is LGBT+ history month, and to celebrate, Journal of Cell Science Editorial Advisory Board member David Bryant organised a conversation with a selection of scientists to explore their experiences of being LGBT+ in academia.

Gender equality in medical research: A cardiology-informed examination.

Despite a perceived increase in attention to gender differences in medicine, a comprehensive assessment of gender equality research, particularly in cardiology, remains underexplored. This observational retrospective study, focusing on documents related to "Gender Equality" according to the Sustainable Development Goals, reveals cardiology as a significant area for gender equality research, albeit with a decline in publications post-2018. The analysis highlighted a concentrated effort in the United States and a considerable impact gap between gender-focused and general cardiology research. The global academic community must intensify research into gender disparities, which is essential for achieving professional gender equality and addressing the burden of cardiovascular diseases.

The Gender-Equality Paradox in Intraindividual Academic Strengths: A Cross-Temporal Analysis.

Independent of overall achievement, girls' intraindividual academic strength is typically reading, whereas boys' strength is typically mathematics or science. Sex differences in intraindividual strengths are associated with educational and occupational sex disparities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Paradoxically, these sex differences are larger in more gender-equal countries, but the stability of this paradox is debated. We assessed the stability of the gender-equality paradox in intraindividual strengths, and its relation to wealth, by analyzing the academic achievement of nearly 2.5 million adolescents across 85 countries and regions in five waves (from 2006 to 2018) of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Girls' intraindividual strength in reading and boys' strength in mathematics and science were stable across countries and waves. Boys' advantage in science as an intraindividual strength was larger in more gender-equal countries, whereas girls' advantage in reading was larger in wealthier countries. The results have implications for reducing sex disparities in STEM fields.

The prototypical UK blood donor, homophily and blood donation: Blood donors are like you, not me.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Homophily represents the extent to which people feel others are like them and encourages the uptake of activities they feel people like them do. Currently, there are no data on blood donor homophily with respect to (i) people's representation of the average prototypical UK blood donor and (ii) the degree of homophily with this prototype for current donors, non-donors, groups blood services wish to encourage (ethnic minorities), those who are now eligible following policy changes (e.g., men-who-have-sex-with-men: MSM) and recipients. We aim to fill these gaps in knowledge. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We surveyed the UK general population MSM, long-term blood recipients, current donors, non-donors and ethnic minorities (n = 785) to assess perceptions of the prototypical donor in terms of ethnicity, age, gender, social class, educational level and political ideology. Homophily was indexed with respect to age, gender and ethnicity. RESULTS: The prototypical UK blood donor is perceived as White, middle-aged, middle-class, college-level educated and left-wing. Current donors and MSM are more homophilous with this prototype, whereas recipients and ethnic minorities have the lowest homophily. Higher levels of homophily are associated with an increased likelihood of committing to donate. CONCLUSION: The prototype of the UK donor defined this as a White activity. This, in part, may explain why ethnic minorities are less likely to be donors. As well as traditional recruitment strategies, blood services need to consider broader structural changes such as the ethnic diversity of staff and co-designing donor spaces with local communities.

A secondary gendered analysis of interviews with Latina cisgender women indicated for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis.

HIV infections disproportionately impact Latinx populations in the United States, yet oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake is low. This study was a secondary gendered analysis of interviews with Latina cisgender women (n = 20) recruited from an urban safety net hospital inNew York City between August 2019 and October 2022. All women were indicated for PrEP by the provider. In-depth interviews were conducted with participants in English and Spanish and asked about social determinants of health, sexual partnerships and behaviors, and PrEP-specific enablers and barriers. Secondary thematic content analysis was conducted to identify gender-related factors influencing PrEP uptake. The following themes emerged from the data:structural factors (e.g., employment), partner-related factors, low sexual health knowledge, and resilience and empowerment. Partner-related factors were the most salient; partner infidelity served as reasons for initiating PrEP. Despite being constrained by low power in relationships, women made empowered choices to initiate PrEP and protect themselves. Findings indicated that the impact of gender inequity was an important factor in Latina women's PrEP decision making, pointing to a need to address partner-driven HIV risk, imbalance of power in relationships, and gender norms.

Factors influencing the health-related quality of life of older men and women living with HIV in Spain.

The number of older people living with HIV (OPLHIV) is increasing worldwide. However, little is known about the factors that better predict their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). We administered the validated WHOQoL-HIV BREF questionnaire to 247 Spanish OPLHIV (192 men and 55 women). In addition to the six domains of the questionnaire, we constructed a seventh domain as theaverage of punctuations of all domains. Multivariable Poisson regression models with robust estimates by sex were constructed for the seven domains (14 in total). The best-subset selection method together with Mallow's Cp metric was used to select the model factors. The percentage of variability explained by Poisson models ranged from15-38% for men and 29-70% for women. The analysis showed that women were most affected by ageing (four domains), mobility impairments (five domains), and mental disorders (five domains). The factors with the greatest negative influence on men were heterosexuality (six domains), mental disorders (six domains), being single (five domains), and poverty risk (three domains). Physical activity was found to improve HRQoL in both men (six domains) and women (four domains). Future OPLHIV programmes would benefit from considering sex specific HRQoL factors. This could also improve the cost-effectiveness of interventions.

Pathways to transactional sex among peri-urban South African women: the role of relationship control, food insecurity and alcohol misuse.

Transactional sex increases sub-Saharan African women's risk of HIV acquisition. We quantitatively explored the pathways contributing towards women's future engagement in transactional sex with casual partners and khwapheni (secret concurrent sex partners). We conducted secondary data analysis from a cluster randomised controlled trial in urban informal settlements in eThekwini Municipality., South Africa. Data were collected at enrolment (t0) and 24 months' later (t2) using self-completed questionnaires. Structural equation modelling (SEM) assessed pathways leading to transactional sex over two years. 677 women 18-35 years were enrolled and 80.5% (n = 545) were followed up. At t2, 44.6% of respondents reported transactional sex with a casual partner or khwapheni. The SEM demonstrated a small effect (d = 0.23) between transactional sex at t0 and at t2. Controlling for past transactional sex, main partner relationship control had a large effect size on future transactional sex (d = 0.60). Hazardous drinking had a medium effect size (d = 0.45) and food insecurity a small effect (d = 0.24), (RMSEA 0.03, 90%CI 0.02-0.04; CFI 0.97; TLI 0.96). HIV prevention programming should highlight current transactional sex but also address structural issues predicting future transactional sex, including food insecurity and alcohol misuse. Gender transformative interventions to reduce controlling behaviours in main relationships are worth investigating.

COVID-19, pandemic lockdowns and intimate partner violence among HIV-positive women in Ghana.

This study examines the prevalence and risk factors of physical, sexual, psychological, and economic violence during lockdowns associated with COVID-19 among HIV-positive women in Ghana. Data were collected in August 2021 from a cross-section of 538 HIV-positive women aged 18 years and older in the Lower Manya Krobo District in the Eastern region of Ghana. Logit models were used to explore relationships between women's self-reported experiences of physical, sexual, psychological /emotional, and economic violence under lockdown and key socio-economic and demographic characteristics. The findings indicate moderate to high prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) under lockdown in our sample: physical violence (30.1%), sexual violence (28.6%), emotional/psychological violence (53.7%), and economic violence (54.2%). IPV was higher on all four measures for educated women, poorer women, employed women, cohabiting and married women, and HIV seroconcordant couples.

The path towards an HIV-free generation: engaging adolescent boys and young men (ABYM) in sub-Saharan Africa from lessons learned and future directions.

This paper highlights the pressing need to address the HIV epidemic among adolescent boys and young men (ABYM) in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite progress in HIV prevention, ABYM still experience low diagnosis rates, treatment adherence, and linkage to care. The paper emphasizes ABYM's vulnerability due to societal norms, limited healthcare access, and economic pressures. It calls for gender-responsive interventions, including comprehensive sexual education, youth-friendly health services, community engagement, and targeted outreach. Comprehensive sexual education is pivotal in HIV prevention for ABYM, providing them with age-appropriate sexual health knowledge and safer sexual practices to reduce HIV incidence. Harmful masculine norms must be countered to promote respectful relationships, benefiting boys, men, and their partners. Inadequate access to youth-friendly health services hampers HIV prevention. Establishing spaces with confidential, non-judgmental care offering testing, counselling, circumcision, and provision of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is essential, especially considering ABYM's unique clinic experiences. Engaging communities, leaders, educators, and peers combats stigma and discrimination. ABYM's input in intervention design, targeted outreach, and innovative technology enhances effectiveness of HIV prevention programmes. Economic factors should also be addressed. Comprehensive multi-sectoral interventions, including conditional cash transfers, effective for AGYW, could benefit ABYM. Addressing structural factors alongside behaviour change and social support is key.