Saturday, December 25, 2021


Do children's books encourage gender stereotypes? Titles with a male protagonist tend to focus on professions and tools, while those led by a female centre on affection and communication, study claims

Sounds like they mirror normal life. But normality must be CHANGED according to the Left. It's highly likely that the male/female differences we see are largely genetically set but tilting at winmills is the Leftist way

More than 240 books written for children five years old and younger were analysed by a team from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

They found that books with a male main character were more often about professions, whereas those with a female protagonist were about affection.

'Some of the stereotypes that have been studied in a social psychology literature are present in these books, like girls being good at reading and boys being good at math,' said Molly Lewis, lead author on the study.

The authors believe that gendered books read to children in early education 'could play an integral role in solidifying gendered perceptions in young children.'

Researchers analysed 3,000 books published in the last 60 years, including the Harry Potter series. Although more books now feature female protagonists than in the 1960s, males remain 'overrepresented'. It's possible publishing houses are more drawn to stories featuring male protagonists, they claim.

The team found that books with a strong male or female protagonist were more likely to have gendered language specifically targeted to their main character.

Female-associated words focused on affection, school-related words and communication verbs, like 'explained' and 'listened.'

Meanwhile, male-associated words focused more on professions, transportation and tools, with less of a focus on emotional needs.

'The audiences of these books [are] different,' said Lewis. 'Girls more often read stereotypically girl books, and boys more often read stereotypically boy books.'

Girls are more likely to have books read to them that include female protagonists than boys. Because of these preferences, children are more likely to learn about the gender biases of their own gender than of other genders.

To come to this conclusion a total of 247 books aimed at under fives from the from the Wisconsin Children's Book Corpus, were studied by the researchers.

Books aimed at girls were more likely to have gendered language, than those aimed at boys, according to the researchers.

This could be down to 'male' being historically seen as the default gender. Female-coded words and phrases are more outside of the norm and more notable.

They then compared their findings to adult fiction, finding that children's books displayed more gender stereotypes than fiction books read by adults.

They focused on how often women were associated with terms like good, family, language and arts, while men were associated with bad, careers and math.

Compared to the adult books, which was fairly gender neutral when it came to associations between gender, language, arts and math, children's books were far more likely to associate women with language and arts and men with maths.

Many families with young children now own a tablet and some use them for bedtime stories or as an educational tool to help youngsters learn.

But a new study suggests that it may be time to ditch the devices for such use, after finding that children actually engage more with stories if they're read from a real book.

Researchers in the US compared the use of tablets with traditional children's books in a study involving 72 parents with young children aged 24 to 36 months.

They found that parents talked more to their children when reading them a real book, while children also responded more to this conversation than if a tablet was used.

'Our data are only part of the story - so to speak,' said Mark Seidenberg, professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and contributing author.

'They are based on the words in children's books and say nothing about other characteristics that matter: the story, the emotions they evoke, the ways the books expand children's knowledge of the world.'

The authors don't want to ruin people's memory of 'Curious George' or 'Amelia Bedelia', or any other popular children's book.

'Knowing that stereotypes do creep into many books and that children develop beliefs about gender at a young age, we probably want to consider books with this in mind,' explained Seidenberg.

They didn't look at how children perceive the messages about gender int he books, or examine how the books influence the way readers perceive gender.

The study also did not evaluate other sources of gender stereotypes to which children are exposed.

'There is often kind of a cycle of learning about gender stereotypes, with children learning stereotypes at a young age then perpetuating them as they get older,' said Lewis.

'These books may be a vehicle for communicating information about gender. We may need to pay some attention to what those messages may be and whether they're messages you want to even bring to children.'

The findings have been published in the journal Psychological Science.

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The left has contempt for evangelical Protestants, traditional Catholics, and Orthodox Jews for good reason: They represent everything the left loathes

Anyone who thinks about the current civil war in America comes to realize that it is, in large measure, a war between the religious and the anti-religious.

The left has contempt for evangelical Protestants, traditional Catholics, and Orthodox Jews for good reason: They represent everything the left loathes; and while there are, of course, secular conservatives who fight the left, the largest and most effective opposition comes from conservative Christians and Jews.

The differences begin in childhood. Most religious kids—especially those who attend traditional Christian and Jewish schools—are raised with different values than most secular kids.

Here are some examples:

No. 1: Religious upbringing: Fight yourself. Secular upbringing: Fight society.

I studied in yeshiva (Orthodox Jewish school, where half the day I studied Bible and other religious subjects in Hebrew, and half the day I studied secular subjects in English) from kindergarten to 12th grade. I learned early on that the biggest problem in Dennis Prager’s life was Dennis Prager. In nearly all secular schools and in liberal religious schools, kids learn that the biggest problem in their lives is American society—in fact, everything other than themselves.

Which do you think produces a more self-critical, more self-controlled, and overall better human being?

Which do you think produces an angrier and less happy human being?

No. 2: Religious Upbringing: Learn wisdom. Secular Upbringing: No body of wisdom conveyed.

I have no doubt that most kids raised with the Bible and other Jewish or Christian works have more wisdom than almost any secular professor or other secular intellectual. Yes, there are secular individuals who have wisdom (the Judeo-Christian body of wisdom sometimes continues to have influence for a generation or two), but I cannot think of a single secular institution with wisdom.

That is why the institutions with the least wisdom and that believe and teach the most nonsense are universities—they are, after all, the most secular institutions in our society.

No. 3: Religious Upbringing: People are not basically good. Secular Upbringing: People are basically good.

“Wisdom begins,” both Psalms and Proverbs teach, “with fear of God.” In other words, no God, no wisdom. But there is another way of asserting how and where wisdom begins. Wisdom begins with acknowledging how flawed human nature is. Or, to put it as succinctly as possible, you cannot be wise if you think people are basically good. You can be a sweet, kind, and well-intentioned person if you believe people are basically good, but you cannot be wise. Indeed, you are more likely to be a naive fool.

The belief that people are basically good, a belief that neither Judaism nor Christianity has ever held, is a major obstacle to making a good society. For one thing, parents who believe this will not discipline their children as much as they need to. They will assume, as three generations of American parents now have, that all a child needs is love.

And for another, people who believe human nature is good are much less inclined to punish criminals because they will blame murder, theft, rape and other evils on economic circumstances, parents, and society—on anything but the criminal’s failure to control his flawed nature.

No. 4: Religious Upbringing: Holy days. Secular Upbringing: No holy days.

Religious children celebrate holy days—the Sabbath each week and other holy days in their respective religious calendars. Regular times devoted to the Transcendent have a major impact on the development of a child.

The secular child has secular holidays, but they mean little to most American young people. July Fourth is a day off with a barbecue. Meaningless Halloween has come to have more significance than meaningful Christmas. Presidents’ Day means nothing. And Thanksgiving is increasingly declared Indigenous Peoples’ Genocide Day.

No. 5: Religious Upbringing: Friends plus community. Secular Upbringing: Friends, but no community.

Loneliness is a greater pandemic in the modern world than COVID-19, so much so that the U.K. now has a Minister of Loneliness to try to combat the problem.

This is, in large measure, another consequence of secularism. Religious Jewish and Christian (including Mormon) kids grow up with an abundance of friends and a whole religious community thanks to religious school and thanks to their synagogue or church.

What is the communal secular equivalent of the church, synagogue, and religious school? Other than sports (which, in any event, is available to only the handful of young people who play on a team), there isn’t any.

No. 6: Religious Upbringing: The obligation to honor parents. Secular Upbringing: No such obligation.

Religious Jewish and Christian children are taught the Ten Commandments, one of which is “Honor your father and mother.” It goes without saying that many secular children honor their parents, but they do so only if they want to. Religious children are told to honor parents whether they feel like it or not—which is important because very few children always feel like honoring their mother and father.

There is another pandemic in America—that of adult children who have decided never to talk to one or both of their parents. I would wager a serious sum of money that few of those adult children are religious Jews or Christians.

There’s a lot more that distinguishes religious and secular upbringings. But one stands out: Religious kids are generally happier.

Is one upbringing better than the other? You decide.

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Why Would Hispanics Drop the Left?

A recent Wall Street Journal poll reported that if the 2022 midterms were held currently, some 37 percent of Hispanic/Latino voters would likely support the Republican candidate. An equal number polled support for the Democrats.

Perhaps key is the 22 percent who remain “undecided” and thereby illustrate that the traditionally Democratic Hispanic vote is now up for grabs.

Remember that just a year ago about 60 percent of Hispanics voted against Donald Trump and Republican candidates in general. And by about the same margin, according to exit polls, they voted not to recall California Governor Gavin Newsom—about the same ratio as the white vote. Still, a 60-40 percent pro-Newsom margin among mostly Democratic Hispanics was striking for its erosion from a once lockstep Democratic constituency.

Most interestingly, Wall Street Journal polls also showed that in a potential (but probably unlikely) 2024 match-up between Biden and Trump, Hispanic voters would split about evenly (44 percent Biden, 43 percent Trump). Are Hispanics then following the trajectory of middle-class whites who have left the Democratic Party in droves and helped redefine the Republican Party as a more populist, working-class movement?

Because new immigration has all but stopped among conservative Cubans, and there are still relatively few numbers of wizened Venezuelan arrivals, these shifts suggest radical changes in second- and third-generation Hispanic voters.

More importantly, should the border ever become de facto closed, as it nearly was by early 2020, the ideological shift rightward would likely accelerate. There would be fewer new arrivals professing fealty to the Democratic Party for ending immigration enforcement while expanding entitlements. We would likely see instead greater assimilation and integration of ascendant and ever more conservative second- and third-generation Hispanics.

Biden Discontent?

So, if the Wall Street Journal polls are somewhat accurate—and other polls have suggested the same trends—what has happened and why now? After all, open-border Republican grandees for a generation have been mistakenly predicting that Hispanics would soon vote conservatively, if only their party would push “comprehensive immigration reform” that many felt to be a euphemism for blanket amnesties and open borders.

Obviously, the last 11 months of Democratic rule have been seen as disastrous by all voters, Hispanics included. None of the Biden initiatives on crime, inflation, energy, the border, foreign policy, or race relations are either working or popular. The public, regardless of race, likely feels that most of these crises are not, as alleged by the Left, attributable to the long-gone Donald Trump or COVID-19, but to Joe Biden and the hard Left who seem to have control over him.

The southern border was once secure. The wall was progressing—until Biden stopped it and allowed a scheduled 2 million to enter in a time of pandemic. He did not require of illegal aliens either viral testing or vaccinations. U.S. soldiers and federal workers, in contrast, are not accorded such exemptions.

Afghanistan was stable in January 2021—until a few months later Biden deliberately pulled out without warning, leaving to the Taliban a $1 billion embassy; a huge, $300 million renovated air base; and over $80 million in advanced weaponry.

Inflation was low—until Biden announced a series of initiatives that, if passed, will likely mean printing $5 trillion in new money at a time of pent-up demand, supply chain interruptions, looming higher taxes and more regulations, and counterproductive subsidies to pay the idle not to reenter the workforce. Voters can sense that the current unbearable rise in prices is neither transitory nor static—but the foretaste of a far worse stagflation to come.

Gas prices were cheap—until Biden warned gas and oil producers that their days were numbered, and their regulatory and tax costs would soar. In less than a year, he canceled new oil leases on federal lands. He shut down pipelines and put the entire ANWAR field off limits—while those around him bragged that gas and oil would be superfluous within a decade.

Worse still, the administration seems unconcerned with the energy price spikes. Indeed, the Left’s green elite like higher prices for fossil fuels, in order to discourage their use among the middle classes. Even so, Biden found a way to humiliate himself by begging autocratic Russians and Saudis to pump more of the fuel his administration seems to hate.

So Hispanic voters, like most of their fellow Americans, are angry as they pay more for the stuff of life—food, cars, housing, and fuel.

As a smug candidate, Joe Biden personalized COVID-19 as the sole responsibility of whoever is the current president in power. It was cheap and easy to do in the last election: the vaccinations were shortly to be released, and already billed as spelling the “end” of the virus. The Delta variant was unknown. Caseloads and deaths were beginning to dip.

Then Biden was hoisted on his own petard, as more now have died on Biden’s watch—despite his inheritance of mass inoculations—than on Trump’s. Biden aides scramble either to blame the long-gone Trump for the 2021 death tolls or to claim a president has little control of an epidemic. His tired mantra of more masks means little. But his trademark lockdowns meant a great deal of pain for those on middle-class budgets, with kids suddenly back at a newly single-income home, in need of parental supervision from 9-5.

Finally, no one likes rescheduling an entire shopping and driving lifestyle to accommodate criminals who loot, carjack, steal, and assault in the major cities and suburbs with seeming impunity, driven by leftwing ideology.

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Spain will ban smoking on ALL beaches and fine anyone caught lighting up £1,700

About time. There should be no liberty for addicts to pollute other peoples' enjoyment of nature

Spain is set to ban smoking on all of its beaches, allowing councils to fine offenders up to 2,000 euros (£1,700).

The national law aims to combat pollution caused by cigarette butts which are a major environmental issue on the country's 3,000 miles of coastline.

Cigarette butts are one of most harmful pollutants, containing a non-biodegradable plastic polymer that releases toxic compounds.

Several Spanish regions, including Barcelona and the Canary islands, have already introduced similar smoking bans on beaches.

The measure comes months after a petition was signed by more than 283,000 people and delivered to the government requesting a change to the law.

The new law was introduced by a green party as an amendment to a less drastic government initiative to recommend coastal area promote smoking-free beaches.

Some beaches introduced smoking bans last summer in a bit to limit the spread of the coronavirus, to promote health and cut pollution.

Other regions in Europe have also moved to ban smoking on beaches, including some areas of southern France and Sardinia.

However, Spain's nationwide ban is the first of its kind in Europe.

The law was passed months after a petition with more 283,000 signatures was delivered to the government calling for action against beach pollution.

Fernandez Megina, a member of the No Fumadores (No Smoking) campaign group, said the petition showed the government could not wait to act any longer.

The law received 182 votes in parliament, with 70 voting against it and 88 abstaining.

It was backed by The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, the left wing party Podemos and the centrist Citizens party. The ultra-nationalist party Vox voted against it, while the conservative People's Party abstained.

Analysis done by the European Environment Agency in 2018 found cigarette butts and the filters inside them to be among the most commonly found items on Europe's beaches.

The harm done by cigarette butts has been widely reported, with scientists warning that nicotine, metals and benzene contained within them may seep out.

This can contaminate soil and aquatic habitats, with filters also being a serious risk to marine life, as they can be swallowed by animals.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has made environment issues central to his government's policy, and has set a target for Spain to be carbon neutral by 2050.

News of the law came as the Omicron variant look set to further dent Spain's tourism industry, which has already been hit hard by the global pandemic.

The number of nights booked by tourists in Spanish hotels surged five-fold in November from the same month a year earlier, but was still 20 percent lower than in November 2019, data released on Thursday showed.

The number of nights booked rose to 14.8 million in November, up from 2.8 million in the same month in 2020, the National Statistics Department said on Thursday.

About 40 percent of the hotel rooms were booked by Spanish residents, and most of the foreigners went to the Canary Islands. The winter is a strong season for the Canaries, where Northern European like to travel to enjoy the warm weather.

The data is encouraging for the tourism-dependent Spanish economy, which has seen a strong recovery of the industry in the past months, although the Omicron variant may have a negative impact.

The government expects the number of foreign tourists coming to the country in the fourth quarter would reach two-thirds of its 2019 level, before the pandemic struck.

Currently, only tourists who are fully vaccinated can enter Spain from the UK. Those who are not vaccinated and travelling for tourism purposes may not enter Spain, and only those who are unvaccinated and travelling for 'essential' purposes may enter.

Spain is also set to make it compulsory to wear a face mask outdoors again as part of a package aimed at containing the fast spreading Omicron coronavirus variant, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told reporters on Wednesday.

With nearly 80 percent of its population vaccinated and a booster programme gathering pace, Spain was largely spared the rampant wave of infections that led several northern European countries to toughen restrictions in the autumn.

But the recent arrival of Omicron has sent numbers rocketing, with a record of around 60,000 new infections on Wednesday, though hospital admissions and intensive-care cases remain fairly low compared to previous COVID-19 waves.

Some experts and opposition parties have criticised Sanchez for not reimposing restrictions on movement to due the spread of Omicron, as other European countries such as Portugal or the Netherlands have done, but he rejected this.

'This is not March 2020 or Christmas 2020,' said Sanchez, citing the high vaccination rate of the Spanish population in contrast with those earlier stages of the pandemic when vaccines were not available.

Indoor mask-wearing was already mandatory in Spain and many Spaniards choose to cover their faces outdoors too, although the legal obligation to do so was dropped in June.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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