Weekly Roundup
Jan 27 - Feb 2, 2025
ARTICLES AND ESSAYS
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 2025
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 2025
Restoring America’s Fighting Force
White House Executive Order, 2025
Protecting Children from Chemical And Surgical Mutilation
White House Executive Order, 2025
Single women own millions more homes than single men in the US — and the gap is only growing
New York Post, 2025
Med schools less likely to hire white male professors, study finds
The College Fix, 2025
Ibram Kendi will shut down functionally inactive ‘antiracist’ center, move to Howard
The College Fix, 2025
New research identifies more than 1,100 DEI-related jobs at University of Michigan
The College Fix, 2025
How the Paternal Brain Is Wired by Pregnancy
JAMA Psychiatry, 2024
Intelligence, 2025
Key points: Bird et al. (2024) argue that “scientific racism” is rampant and needs to be curbed. They draw heavily on a dataset of alleged “racial hereditarian research” papers published since 2012. Only 23% (60) of the publications unambiguously qualify as RHR based on their own definition. 30% of the articles (80) have nothing to do with RHR.
Obesity and Severe Obesity Prevalence in Adults: United States, August 2021-August 2023
NCHS Data Brief, 2024
Abstract: Introduction: This report provides prevalence estimates of adult obesity and severe obesity during August 2021-August 2023 by age and sex, as well as obesity prevalence by education level. Trends in the prevalence of adult obesity and severe obesity over the previous 10 years are also shown. Methods: Data from the August 2021-August 2023 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were used for prevalence estimates, incorporating examination survey sample weights into the analysis and accounting for the survey's complex, multistage probability design. Measured height and weight were used to calculate body mass index (BMI) to define obesity (BMI at or above 30) and severe obesity (BMI at or above 40). Differences between estimates overall, among subgroups, and compared with 2017-March 2020 were evaluated using t tests at the 0.05 level. Data from four NHANES cycles (2013-2014, 2015-2016, 2017-March 2020, and August 2021-August 2023) were used to assess 10-year trends. Polynomial regression was used to test the significance of linear and nonlinear 10-year trends, accounting for the unequal spacing and lengths of survey cycles. Key findings: During August 2021-August 2023, the prevalence of obesity in adults was 40.3%, with no significant differences between men and women. Obesity prevalence was higher in adults ages 40-59 than in ages 20-39 and 60 and older. The prevalence of obesity was lower in adults with a bachelor's degree or more than in adults with less education. The prevalence of severe obesity in adults was 9.4% and was higher in women than men for each age group. From 2013-2014 through August 2021-August 2023, the age-adjusted prevalence of obesity did not change significantly, while severe obesity prevalence increased from 7.7% to 9.7%.
HISTORICAL ARTICLES AND ESSAYS
Pain Perception in Healthy Young Men Is Modified by Time-Of-Day and Is Modality Dependent
Pain Medicine, 2015
Abstract: Objective: Several physiological processes exhibit 24-hour oscillations termed circadian rhythms. Despite numerous investigations on the circadian dynamics of pain perception, findings related to this issue remain inconsistent. This study aimed to assess the effect of time-of-day on multimodal experimental pain perception in healthy males, including "static" and "dynamic" quantitative sensory tests. Design: A random order tests were performed in the morning, afternoon and evening. Subjects: Forty-eight healthy males (25.9 ± 4.7 years old). Methods: Three different pain modalities i) mechanical (pain threshold, tolerance, and intensity), ii) heat (pain threshold and intensity), iii) cold (pain threshold measured in °C and in seconds and cold pain tolerance and intensity) utilizing nine "static" pain parameters, and two "dynamic" pain paradigms i) temporal summation and ii) conditioned pain modulation were assessed in each session. Results: Pain scores varied significantly in six pain parameters during the day. Specifically, lower pain scores were found in the morning for cold pain threshold (in seconds and in °C), cold pain intensity, cold pain tolerance, heat pain threshold and intensity. There were no significant diurnal differences in the mechanical evoked pain parameters or in either of the "dynamic" pain paradigms. Conclusions: Thermal pain scores varies during the day and morning seems to be the time-of-day most insensitive to pain. Also, dynamic tests and the mechanical pain model are not appropriate for detecting diurnal variability in pain. The results of this study may be partially explained by a potential analgesic effect of some hormones known to have diurnal variation (e.g., melatonin and cortisol).
RUBBISH BIN
When Men Seek Support and Comradery: Fathers’ Rights Groups and the Complexities of Manhood
Men and Masculinities, 2024
Abstract: Research suggests that men and masculinity are in “crisis,” because men’s historically unquestioned privilege and patriarchal power are being challenged through advances toward equity for other groups. Through in-depth interviews, this research examines the experiences and beliefs of fourteen (14) men who were part of a Canadian rights-based social movement, also known as the fathers’ rights movement. The resulting analysis highlights the barriers perceived by the participants as hindering men’s fulfillment of ideal manhood and concludes with a consideration of these men’s attempts to garner support for their movement and (re)claim more traditional masculinity and patriarchal social order. In sum, this research demonstrates the existence of a contradiction between situating these groups as a platform for men’s advocacy and support and, in reality, their normalization of, and engagement in, anti-women/feminist rhetoric through participating in and upholding hegemonic masculinity and patriarchy.
(*Nuzzo note: See my brief commentary on this paper here on X).
An omnipresent gaze: men's enactment of coercive control in the private sphere
Journal of Social Thought, 2022
Abstract: Norms and values are the lens through which social performances are evaluated as either an acceptable moral reflection of society or a reprehensible action that must be dissuaded through acts of stigmatization. Within the frontstage, which is a socially perceptible sphere, norms of decorum and social presentation of egalitarianism stigmatize acts of gender-based intimate partner violence (IPV). However, within the backstage, which is a socially imperceptible sphere, acts of domestic abuse can remain unnoticed by the public and are often masked from the stigmatizing gaze of society. While acts of overt violence, such as physical punishment, have become socially denounced within the frontstage, there persists a disciplinary regime embedded within social institutions and legitimized through social normative values and morals; this is also known as patriarchal social order. Women’s entrapment within private and public spheres is perceived as a socially legitimized form of male domination and control that obscures the systems of discipline and punishment inherent within coercive control. Through the application of Foucauldian notions of discipline and punish and integration of Goffman’s presentation of self, this paper illustrates how coercive control, as a form of domestic abuse, is a subversive disciplinary power developed within the patriarchal social structure.
Sociology of Sport Journal, 2025
Abstract: This study uses National Sports and Society Survey (N = 3,993) data to further investigate U.S. public opinions about transgender athletes’ rights, rights for athletes with varied sex characteristics, and sex testing. We focus on the additional implications of wanting to support, promote, and watch female athletes; traditional views of women’s idealized physical appearances; and homophobia for adults’ opinions about these issues. Findings revealed that more strongly believing that female athletes are undeserving, suggesting that women should more fully conform to traditionally idealized physical appearances, and expressing more homophobic views were negatively associated with support for transgender athletes’ rights and rights for athletes with varied sex characteristics—including a restriction of their rights due to sex testing.
(*Nuzzo note: See my brief commentary on this paper here on X).
Teaching for gender justice: free to be me?
The Australian Educational Researcher, 2019
Abstract: In this paper, we present case study data from research that sought to evaluate the implementation and impact of a Respectful Relationships in Education (RRE) program. The program is part of the Victorian state government’s school-based response to ending violence against women and their children. It advocates a liberal feminist aligned ‘gender lens’ (of equitable gender access, representation and participation) within six areas of a whole school approach. The paper illustrates how this lens informed the understandings and practices of educators at one of the primary schools in the research. We explore the deployment of an affirmative and non-affirmative gender politics within the context and goals of the RRE program. Identifying the potential and problematics of this deployment in working to support the goals of gender justice, we offer a theoretical framework—the status model—as a way forward. The status model supports a critical engagement with all relations and knowledges (i.e. within dominant and subordinate cultures) that oppress and marginalise. It thus supports the deployment of a critical affirmative and non-affirmative gender politics that reflects capacity to transform the underlying power relations and structures that generate gender-based violence.
Race and Ethnicity, Gender, and Promotion of Physicians in Academic Medicine
JAMA Network Open, 2024
Key points: Question - What is the association of gender and race and ethnicity with advancement in academic medicine? Findings - In this cohort study of 673 573 physician-graduates from 1979 to 2019, Asian men, Asian women, Black women, and White women were more likely than White men to be appointed to entry-level academic medicine positions. Black women graduating prior to 2000 were 55% less likely to be promoted to associate professor and 41% less likely to be promoted to full professor than White men. Meaning - These findings suggest that compared with White men, women and racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to enter academic medicine but, with few exceptions, are less likely to achieve promotion to upper ranks.
(*Nuzzo note: Keep up the great work, boys! See my brief commentary on this paper on X here.)
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