Male Favouritism

Reading about gender stereotypes and gender bias made me think of my grandparents, in particular my paternal grandmother, aka dad's mom.


I head from my mom that paternal grandmother is gender biased, towards boys. She would favour sons and grandsons.

A couple of things that my mom told me regarding paternal grandmother actually made me quite upset.

I don't have any brothers, only one sister. My mom told me that when me and my sister were born, my paternal grandmother, being the mother-in-law, did not bother to visit at all. Imagine a new mom and the stress she experiences after giving birth, and her MIL not providing any support when her daugher in law is supposed to be part of the family.
My mom said that it's because she doesn't think much of granddaughters. Instead paternal grandmother would be really nice to my male cousins.

Even my mom feels that paternal grandmother is too biased, and so when both me and my sister managed to graduate with degrees, she was quite proud of us. My male cousins, from dad's side of the family, didn't make it to university. This is my mom's way of proving grandmother wrong.

In my dad's family, the sons are the ones who gets higher education, the daughters are asked to help out at home and are not given opportunities for much education.

Even though paternal grandmother doesn't openly express her biasness, her behaviour gives away her implicit attitudes and prejudice towards daughters and granddaughters. Even the way she treats daughters and granddaughters could result in self-fulfilling prophesies.

I think most Chinese parents who came from China, or had parents from China, are gender biased in this way. The reason for such gender biasness? I found this from Wikipedia:


"Chinese tradition says that most parents want their first child to be born a male. Female deselection is also due to deeply rooted Confucian traditions, and Chinese parents desire sons in order to make familial propagation, security for the elderly, labor provision, and performance of ancestral rites.
Parents may wish for a male child because in many cultures only a male will carry on the family name (traditionally when a bride gets married she effectively becomes a member of the groom's family) because they believe that a male is needed for work, or because they wish a male to earn an income needed to support the parents in their old age"

I'm actually quite indignant about this whole issue. Grandmother herself is a woman, so why is she so biased against daughters and granddaughters? If everyone kills female babies like what they did in China, won't the world be full of males and there will be no females left to give birth?

This seems to be the trend of most Chinese families, especially the earlier generation. Even though now these attitudes and prejudices are supposedly phased out, i believe that they still exist, except that these attitudes are more covert than overt.

Collagen

What is collagen?

Collagen is a protein.

"Often, collagen is discussed in relation to the skin. It works with keratin to provide the skin with strength, flexibility, and resilience. As people age, however, collagen degradation occurs, leading to wrinkles. As such, it is an important substance for those looking for ways to fight the visible effects of aging on the skin. Some skincare professionals actually advise people on ways to stimulate the production of collagen in skins cells." (Source: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-collagen.htm)

People who want to look younger, prettier, handsomer, reduce wrinkles, reverse signs of aging, can use this piece of information.

That's why the market for beauty products, including collagen, is booming.

Do you drink Vitagen? There's a new version of Vitagen, which has collagen added to it.(Supposedly). It's more expensive than your normal Vitagen, and a local TV actress is the spokeswoman for it. Here's more info if you are interested.

Two other beauty brands also sell collagen products.

FANCL Tense Up EX, sold by FANCL, is purported to contain collagen.

Imedeen Prime Renewal is being sold by IMEDEEN. Also said to contain collagen.

How come I know so much? Personally I don't take these stuff. But friends of mine have been talking about them, and using them. And yes, these stuff are not cheap.

Of the few friends who are trying these products, two of them are using the Fancl and Imedeen products, a 3rd friend is using the collagen matrix sold in Nature Farm.

My friends swear that this stuff works. Their skin is better, pimples heal faster, their wrinkles are lesser, so on and so forth.

Let's work out some costs here.

Imedeen costs USD260 for 1.5 months supply. So that's about USD3 a day. (From Amazon.com website)

Fancl costs about SGD6-7 for a bottle (if you buy in bulk, otherwise it's about SGD8 a bottle), dosage is one bottle a day.

Expensive! To me at least. I come from a middle income family. My friends are not that well off either, though they hold full time jobs.

I myself don't believe that it works. I think they are behaving just like Dissonance Theory predicts.

What are the dissonant cognitions at work here?

"I'm buying and eating collagen" and "Collagen is expensive"

There's a few ways to resolve the dissonance.

One way is to change one of the cognitions directly. So either they stop taking collagen, or they convince themselves "Collagen is so cheap! Less than 10 bucks a day!".

Another way is to add cognitions that support the behaviour. So they tell themselves that taking collagen DOES make them prettier, and their skin smoother. So theirbehaviour is now justified.

So my friends are choosing the 2nd method to reduce dissonance. They are telling each other that taking collagen DOES make their skin better. And they are trying to convince me to start taking too.

Having taken Psychology, (especially STATS with John!) we know that causality can't be proven so easily.

So many confounding variables could have caused the change, or PERCEIVED improvement in skin condition. Stress, sleep, environment (working in an aircon environment vs non aircon), food intake, exercise, close relationships and many others.

Of course the websites claim that scientific research was done and the results prove that their products REALLY work. But we all know that many many things can go wrong.

ESPECIALLY if the research was funded by the company that made the product!

So I think my friends need to take Psychology. :p

This example also shows how easily people are persuaded to part with their hard-earned money. People who want to look good and young, have a FEAR of aging. So anything that is aimed at reducing this fear ("drive reduction theory") would convince people to act to prevent or slow down this aging.

If a person doesn't care about his or her looks, their susceptilibity to such messages would be lower.

If these people are inoculated against these messages (as suggested in inoculation theory), they will be less susceptible. One good example is moi!. After having gone through 3 gruelling stats modules, I'm now better inoculated against these 'scientific' research and claims!

Black Eye

This happened to a classmate.

A few days ago she went to the 3rd level student services centre, and had approached M to ask her about some issue. This classmate had a ‘black eye’. There was quite a big bruise around her right eye, especially below the eye.

Some background information first. This classmate had been with JCU for a few trimesters already. M, being a staff of JCU, knows her, given the efficiency of processes in JCU. M herself, is quite a nice lady, efficient and helpful. Most of us have to approach her and she does make dealing with the JCU admin issues a little smoother.

So my classmate was approaching M to talk to her. She had barely started before M quickly interrupted.
“It’s ok! You don’t have to tell me what happened! Just fill in this form and do this and that and….”

What’s happening here?
M had obviously seen the ‘black eye’, and her automatic mental process took over and she made a judgment based on her schemas, instead of using any information that she could have obtained just by asking and activating a controlled mental process.
Her schemas had helped her arrive at the conclusion that my classmate was the victim of abuse, had gotten beat up, and thus the ‘black eye’.
She was probably uncomfortable about it and so didn’t want to know anything more.
M’s attitude towards this is quite obvious. She doesn’t want to know or talk about it. This is an example of an implicit attitude, which is also automatic.

Food for thought:
Would you have made the same judgment if you had seen my classmate, since most of us would have the same kind of schemas? Or would you have asked?
On the other hand, given the nature of physical abuse, would you have felt comfortable bringing it up when you suspect that person was a victim of abuse?
What is your own attitude towards victims of family violence? Avoidance? Concern?

So what really happened to my classmate?
She didn’t get beaten up by a husband or a boyfriend. She had fainted and fell on her face, resulting in a huge bump on her forehead, from which the blood had flowed to below her eye, and settled there, forming a bruise. Something like that, and simple as that. :-)

I thought that this story was hilarious, the part about M of course, not about my classmate having a fall. :-p