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Sexual harassment of women in medicine has become a subject of national debate after a senior female surgeon stated that if a woman complained of unwanted advances her career would be jeopardised, and subsequent reports suggest that sexual harassment is a serious problem in the medical profession. Sexual harassment of women in the medical profession by their colleagues presents substantial legal, ethical and cultural questions for the profession. Women have enforceable legal rights to gender equality and freedom from sexual harassment in the workplace. Both individual offenders and employers face significant legal consequences for sexual harassment in every Australian state and territory, and individual medical practitioners and employers need to understand their legal and ethical rights and responsibilities in this context. An individual offender may be personally liable for criminal offences, and for breaching anti-discrimination legislation, duties owed in civil law, professional standards and codes of conduct. An employer may be liable for breaching anti-discrimination legislation, workplace safety laws, duties owed in contract law, and a duty of care owed to the employee. Employers, professional colleges and associations, and regulators should use this national debate as an opportunity to improve gender equality and professional culture in medicine; individuals and employers have clear legal and ethical obligations to minimise sexual harassment to the greatest extent possible.

Biographies of scientists occupy a liminal space, highly popular with general readers but questioned in academia. Nonetheless, in recent years, historians of science have not only embraced the genre with more enthusiasm and less guilt, they have also turned to the metabiography in order to renew the study and story of scientists' roles. This essay focuses on Marie Curie, the world's most famous female scientist, in order to unpack some of the theoretical and methodological claims of the science biography, and especially to address the sexing mechanisms at play in the construction of the biographical subject. Pierre Curie (1923), Marie's biography of her husband Pierre, paid tribute to her dead husband and collaborator, but also allowed Curie a legitimate outlet to construct her own persona and legacy. Categories such as personhood, person, and persona are not only central to the biography genre but also are essential to the sense of self and self-fashioning of scientists. Looking at how Marie Curie negotiated these categories in Pierre Curie not only gives new insight into Curie's self-fashioning strategies but may also shed some light on the more general analytical lacunae of the science biography.

A modest body of research has examined judicial decision making in civil protection order (CPO) cases. A major finding of this prior research is that the factors expected to shape judicial responses to CPO requests are often found to be insignificant. Because such decisions are often rendered in an environment of vast judicial discretion and competing allegations, the question of "what matters?" assumes added importance. This study examines permanent/final restraining order (PRO) outcomes for intimate partner violence on a number of variables. Specifically, chi-square analyses were performed examining the associations between granting/denying a PRO and demographic, relationship, hearing, and allegation characteristics associated with the petitioner and respondent. These tests helped to reveal relationships at the bivariate level and aided in further model-building using logistic regression and decision-tree analysis. The findings show that the factors most associated with PRO outcomes, namely, the denial of a PRO, are those reflecting the licit rather than illicit behavior of the respondent., (© The Author(s) 2014.)

Mental health expert witness testimony involves complex tasks, and the capacity to perform under pressure is a fundamental skill of a forensic professional. In this context, it is important to understand the nuances of the provision of expert witness testimony. There have been several efforts to examine gender bias across legal and medical systems. Despite these reviews, little is known about how men and women differ or are similar with regard to performing expert witness functions. The purpose of this pilot study was to examine whether the testimony experiences of psychiatry and psychology experts vary by gender. Differences across certain domains, such as the sense of never experiencing anxiety and the sense of one's impact on case outcome were seen across genders. Few other gender-based differences in the experience of providing expert witness testimony were seen. Although the findings of this study raise further questions, they highlight some of the important subtleties noted in forensic practice and the work of the expert witness. In future studies, researchers should continue to explore these findings on the influence of gender and expand to consider culture and race as additional factors in the experience of expert witness testimony. As forensic professional practice evolves, it is important to understand unique aspects of forensic practice, to improve training of forensic experts, and to assist forensic experts in anticipating what they may experience related to the provision of expert testimony., (© 2015 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.)

The present 2 studies involved undergraduate participants and investigated whether various types of sexism and other correlated predictors, such as political conservatism and scientific discounting, can predict people's evaluations of social science research on sex stereotypes, sexism, and sex discrimination. In Study 1, participants high in hostile sexism, scientific discounting, and/or political conservatism were more critical of scientific studies that provided evidence for sexism than identical studies showing null results. Study 2 showed that participants high in modern sexism, hostile sexism, and political conservatism evaluated social scientific studies more negatively; in addition, assessments of social scientific evidence quality mediated the effect of modern sexism on admissibility ratings (b = -0.15, z = -4.16, p = .00). Overall, these results suggest that sexist beliefs can bias one's judgments of social scientific evidence. Future research should explore whether the same psychological processes operate for judges and jurors as they evaluate the admissibility of evidence and examine ways to attenuate the effect of sexism on evaluations., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.)

Infant abandonment and infanticide are poorly understood in Malaysia. The information available in the public arena comes predominantly from anecdotal sources. The aim of this study was to describe the prevalence and characteristics of infanticide and illegal infant abandonment in Malaysia and to estimate annual rates for the most recent decade. Summaries of data about infanticide and illegal infant abandonment were gathered from police records; the annual number of live births was ascertained from the national registry. The estimated inferred infanticide rates for Malaysia were compared with the infanticide rates among countries of very high, high, medium, and low rankings on the Human Development, Gender Inequality, and Gini indices. From 1999 to 2011, 1,069 cases of illegal infant abandonment were recorded and 1,147 people were arrested as suspected perpetrators. The estimated inferred infanticide rate fluctuated between 4.82 and 9.11 per 100,000 live births, a moderate rate relative to the infanticide rates of other countries. There are substantial missing data, with details undocumented for about 78-87% of cases and suspected perpetrators. Of the documented cases, it appeared that more boys than girls were victims and that suspected perpetrators were predominantly Malays who were women, usually mothers of the victim; the possibility of arrest bias must be acknowledged. Economic and social inequality, particularly gender inequality, might contribute to the phenomena of infanticide and abandonment. Strategies to reduce rates of infanticide and illegal infant abandonment in Malaysia will require strengthening of the surveillance system and attention to the gender-based inequalities that underpin human development., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The struggle to achieve the legalization of same-gender adoption is ongoing. Notably, not until 2011 was adoption by a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender individual legalized in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and adoption by same-gender couples is still illegal in many states. Anti-adoption forces are ever-present: From 2011 to 2013, at least five states passed laws granting faith-based agencies the right to refuse service to same-gender couples or to give preference to heterosexual couples. The aim of this article is, first, to examine the challenges confronting the legalization of same-gender adoption; second, to report the current legal status of same-gender adoption for each state; third, to report on Americans' attitudes toward the legalization of same-gender adoption from 1994 to 2012, drawing from previously published surveys of a cross section of Americans; and, fourth, to explore the implications for social work practice, including social advocacy and social policy implementation.

This investigation of expert witness gender used scenarios addressing threats to the expert, sexuality, parenting by the expert, and lying, and in which intrusive and non-intrusive gender cross-examinations were presented to 352 mock jurors. Male and female experts were matched carefully on attractiveness and other social desirability dimensions. In half of the situations the expert witnesses replied with defensive answers, and in the other half, they replied assertively. The assertive responses were found to be significantly more effective on a number of dependent measures, including perceived credibility. In results consistent with other studies, the male experts were evaluated more positively than the female experts. Sexism and other attitudes of the mock jurors were unrelated to credibility and expert gender. The results are discussed in the context of managing aggressive cross-examinations, role demands for women in the courtroom, and methodological approaches to the study of expert witness gender., (Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Denial to a girl child of her right to live is one of the heinous violations of the right to life committed by the society. Gender bias and deep rooted prejudice and discrimination against girl child and preference of male child have led to large scale female foeticide in the last decade. The declining sex ratio is a major concern for all. The census 2001 data indicates that female ratio is declining at an alarming rate and needs immediate action. In order to check the female foeticide, the Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (regulation and prevention of misuse) Act 1994 was enacted and became operational from January, 1996. This article is an attempt to throw light on the successful implementatuion of PC and PNDT Act in the Gulbarga region and active participation of various organisations and people in proper implementation of the act.

Because transgender people face discrimination on systemic, institutional, and interpersonal levels, the previous literature has supported that many transgender women view the sex work industry as their only viable career option. The current article reviews the literature on discrimination against transgender people, explores how discrimination influences their participation in sex work, and discusses how institutional discrimination against transgender women manifests within the criminal justice system. Furthermore, recommendations are provided for advocating for the rights of transgender people while promoting healthy behaviors and higher quality of life. Throughout the article, quotes from previous qualitative research are used to illustrate the experiences of transgender women through their own voices and perspectives.

It is clear from recent media reporting that serious issues have come to light regarding sexual misbehaviour matters within the Australian Defence Force. Subsequent reviews have indicated that these behaviours appear to have been more widespread than the initial media reports suggested and a number of reviews have been undertaken to better understand the problem and address the concerns of victims, Defence command, government and the community. If these problems are not addressed, there is a risk that recruitment to the Defence Forces may become problematic. The strong command structures within the Defence Forces can both exacerbate these misbehaviours through entrenching secrecy and at the same time have the capacity to provide a powerful leadership message that can change attitudes and reduce such misbehaviours.

Despite the increasing implementation of standardized rape kits across jurisdictions, the medico-legal findings generated by these tools are often not related to positive criminal justice outcomes. Given that there has been no global investigation of the factors that might impede their successful use in cases of sexual assault, we conducted a review of relevant scholarly and "grey" literature from industrialized and less-developed regions. One key theme to emerge from the analysis concerned certain problematic practices and behaviors of professional groups involved in the various stages of the post-sexual assault process. We found that a lack of competence in handling sexual assault cases, contempt for women who have been victimized, and corruption among some forensic examiners, police, scientists, and legal personnel often have shaped the collection, processing, analysis, and use of medico-legal evidence. We discuss recent initiatives and future directions for research that might serve to address these issues.

The study by Neal et al. of mock jurors in the penalty phase of a homicide case led me to observations on gender changes over the past few decades in the professions of law and forensic psychiatry and psychology. From an earlier paucity of women in these professions, today their percentages have greatly increased. Yet, as in this study, there are differences that work to the advantage of men in how the genders are perceived as expert witnesses. Suggestions for addressing gender discrepancy are offered, along with a cautionary note, such as in the area of experts in cases involving abortion.

In this study, we examined how manipulations of likeability and knowledge affected mock jurors' perceptions of female and male expert witness credibility (n = 290). Our findings extend the person-perception literature by demonstrating how warmth and competence overlap with existing conceptions of likeability and knowledge in the psycholegal domain. We found that experts high in likeability, knowledge, or both were perceived equally positively, regardless of gender, in a death penalty sentencing context. Gender differences emerged when the expert was low in likeability or knowledge. In these conditions the male expert was perceived more positively than the comparable female expert. Although intermediate judgments (e.g., perceptions of credibility) were affected by our manipulations, ultimate decisions (e.g., sentencing) were not. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.