The Gender Shift: Disassociating Gendered Behavior from a Predicted Model of Career Disadvantage Among Female Veterinarians

In 2000, Akerlof & Kranton published a social identity theory that aimed to link gender identity with the economic outcome of individuals working in gendered organizations. Their theory predicts that females working in a gender labelled ‘male’ occupation should incur economic penalties for exhibiting behaviors that are typically gender stereotyped as ‘female’, and should therefore feel ambiguity towards work in a ‘male’ occupation if they follow traditional gender stereotypes. Although they acknowledge that movement of women into a previously male-dominated workforce will have an influence on their predictions, Akerlof & Kranton (2000) do not discuss in any detail how they expect their predicted outcomes to change. The United Kingdom veterinary industry is currently experiencing an unprecedented gender shift towards a female-dominated workforce, with women outnumbering their male counterparts since 2011 (RCVS, 2014). Historically a gender labelled ‘male’ occupation, veterinary medicine is now an example of a profession that has an occupational gender label that does not match the dominant gender of the workforce. This study uses Akerlof & Kranton’s (2000) social identity theory as a framework of analysis for understanding how female veterinarians are experiencing and understanding gender as a potential barrier to their career progression, and the impact that the gender shift towards a female-dominated workforce is having on those working within it. The findings of the study suggest that the dominance of females in the veterinary profession has a larger influence on predicted economic outcomes for female veterinarians than the Akerlof & Kranton (2000) theory predicts. The respondents of this study expressed feeling no disadvantage as a result of gendered behaviors, and instead perceived that career disadvantage for female veterinarians stemmed from the gendered features of the organizations in which they worked

Social behaviour and collective motion in plant-animal worms

© 2016 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Social behaviour may enable organisms to occupy ecological niches that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Here, we test this major evolutionary prin- ciple by demonstrating self-organizing social behaviour in the plant-animal, Symsagittifera roscoffensis. These marine aceol flat worms rely for all of their nutrition on the algae within their bodies: hence their common name. We show that individual worms interact with one another to coordinate their movements so that even at low densities they begin to swim in small polarized groups and at increasing densities such flotillas turn into circular mills. We use computer simulations to: (i) determine if real worms interact socially by com- paring them with virtual worms that do not interact and (ii) show that the social phase transitions of the real worms can occur based only on local inter- actions between and among them. We hypothesize that such social behaviour helps the worms to form the dense biofilms or mats observed on certain sun- exposed sandy beaches in the upper intertidal of the East Atlantic and to become in effect a super-organismic seaweed in a habitat where macro-algal seaweeds cannot anchor themselves. Symsagittifera roscoffensis, a model organ- ism in many other areas in biology (including stem cell regeneration), also seems to be an ideal model for understanding how individual behaviours can lead, through collective movement, to social assemblages

The Gender Shift: Disassociating Gendered Behavior from a Predicted Model of Career Disadvantage Among Female Veterinarians

In 2000, Akerlof & Kranton published a social identity theory that aimed to link gender identity with the economic outcome of individuals working in gendered organizations. Their theory predicts that females working in a gender labelled ‘male’ occupation should incur economic penalties for exhibiting behaviors that are typically gender stereotyped as ‘female’, and should therefore feel ambiguity towards work in a ‘male’ occupation if they follow traditional gender stereotypes. Although they acknowledge that movement of women into a previously male-dominated workforce will have an influence on their predictions, Akerlof & Kranton (2000) do not discuss in any detail how they expect their predicted outcomes to change. The United Kingdom veterinary industry is currently experiencing an unprecedented gender shift towards a female-dominated workforce, with women outnumbering their male counterparts since 2011 (RCVS, 2014). Historically a gender labelled ‘male’ occupation, veterinary medicine is now an example of a profession that has an occupational gender label that does not match the dominant gender of the workforce. This study uses Akerlof & Kranton’s (2000) social identity theory as a framework of analysis for understanding how female veterinarians are experiencing and understanding gender as a potential barrier to their career progression, and the impact that the gender shift towards a female-dominated workforce is having on those working within it. The findings of the study suggest that the dominance of females in the veterinary profession has a larger influence on predicted economic outcomes for female veterinarians than the Akerlof & Kranton (2000) theory predicts. The respondents of this study expressed feeling no disadvantage as a result of gendered behaviors, and instead perceived that career disadvantage for female veterinarians stemmed from the gendered features of the organizations in which they worked

Data associated with figures in the paper

Data for figures 1a, 1c, 1d, 1e, 2b and 3c. The columns in each file correspond to the axes and groups in the graph for the respective figure. For more explanation, please consult the figure captions and the Electronic Supplementary Material

Data from: Social behaviour and collective motion in plant-animal worms

Social behaviour may enable organisms to occupy ecological niches that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Here we test this major evolutionary principle by demonstrating self-organizing social behaviour in the plant-animal, Symsagittifera roscoffensis. These marine aceol flat worms rely for all of their nutrition on the algae within their bodies: hence their common name. We show that individual worms interact with one another to co-ordinate their movements so that even at low densities they begin to swim in small polarized groups and at increasing densities such flotillas turn into circular mills. We use computer simulations to: (1) determine if real worms interact socially by comparing them with virtual worms that do not interact and (2) show that the social phase transitions of the real worms can occur based only on local interactions between and among them. We hypothesize that such social behaviour helps the worms to form the dense biofilms or mats observed on certain sun-exposed sandy beaches in the upper intertidal of the East Atlantic and to become in effect a super-organismic seaweed in a habitat where macro-algal seaweeds cannot anchor themselves. S. roscoffensis, a model organism in many other areas in biology (including stem cell regeneration), also seems to be an ideal model for understanding how individual behaviours can lead, through collective movement, to social assemblages