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Expert witness credentials and gender have independently been shown to influence jurors' perceptions of expert witness credibility and legal decision-making. This study examined how manipulations of expert witness gender (Male/Female) and profession (Consultant Clinical Psychologist/Consultant Psychiatrist) together affected mock jurors' perceptions of expert witness credibility, judgements, and decision-making. Mock jurors (N = 182; 80.9 % were White) were recruited from England and Wales and were randomly assigned to watch a video-recorded mock expert witness testimony. Participants rated the expert witness using the Witness Credibility Scale and reported the likelihood of assigning the defendant to a guilty verdict. Results showed significant interaction effects of expert witness gender and profession on jurors' perceptions of their likeability, trustworthiness, knowledge, and total credibility. Male psychiatrists, followed by female clinical psychologists, received the highest scores in most credibility variables. Varied main effects of expert witness gender and profession on credibility were also found. Overall, jurors' ratings of expert witness credibility, when controlled by the expert's gender and profession, predicted jurors' determination of guilt. This study provides evidence of a potential interaction effect between profession and gender in expert witness credibility and supports existing research linking credibility with ultimate decision-making. More research is needed to understand jurors' unconscious biases and cognitive processes in making legal decisions., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest None., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Based on a quantitative analysis of a novel dataset comprising 10,093 publicly available judgments of adjudicated child custody disputes from the China Judgments Online website, this article identifies potential gender bias in Chinese family courts under certain conditions. Key findings include: 1. Mothers are generally more proactive in seeking custody and are awarded custody in the majority of cases compared to fathers. 2. Specifically, mothers have a significant advantage in cases involving daughters, while their advantage in cases involving sons is less pronounced. 3. In rural courts, the results are notably different: mothers are disadvantaged overall, fathers are particularly assertive in seeking custody of sons compared to daughters, and mothers are less likely than fathers to be awarded custody of sons. Building on existing literature, this study highlights potential judicial biases rooted in societal gender norms prevalent in rural areas. This raises questions about whether courts have achieved substantive gender equality and whether the legal principle of 'the best interests of the child' is consistently upheld in every court decision. This study enhances the understanding of gender bias within China's family court system by providing valuable insights for those interested in addressing gender inequality. It not only highlights specific challenges women face in custody cases but also calls for broader societal and policy changes to support women and combat gender discrimination in all its forms., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Zhang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

State-level legislation was instrumental in achieving marriage equality and is similarly crucial in establishing protection from discrimination for LGBT employees. States that were early legalizers of same-gender marriage shared geographic, political, and demographic variables. An analysis of the characteristics of states that are early adopters of legislation prohibiting LGBT employment discrimination lacks in the literature. This study analyzed variables significant to the early state adoption of legislation prohibiting discrimination against LGBT employees using multinomial logistic regression. A state's region, the size of its urban population, college graduates, and the percentage of same-gender families were among nine variables significant to state adoption of anti-discrimination statutes protecting LGBT employees. Efforts to secure protection from discrimination for LGBT employees should focus on fair working conditions for all as opposed to specific rights based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Further, different LGBT rights issues may warrant different strategies for public support.

In 2013, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) began allowing anyone who believed that they experienced sexual orientation or gender identity (SOGI) discrimination to file charges of sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Very little is known about the impact of the EEOC's decision and whether it has enhanced protections for LGBT people. In this brief report, we present preliminary findings on trends and patterns in charge filing, paying particular attention to differences that emerge in charges filed in states with and without SOGI employment nondiscrimination laws. Differences in the characteristics of charging parties, allegations, and charge outcomes suggest that legal protections operating at the state level shape the experiences and disputing behaviors of LGBT individuals in pursuing Title VII remedies.

In September 2018, the Federal Court of Australia found that a Victorian woman did not need her estranged husband's consent to undergo in vitro fertilisation treatment (IVF) using donor sperm. The woman, who was 45 years of age, made an urgent application to the Court for permission to undergo IVF using donor sperm. In a single judge ruling, Griffiths J held that the requirement in the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 (Vic) ('ART Act') for a married woman to obtain the consent of her husband discriminated against the woman in question on the basis of her marital status in contravention of the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth) ('SD Act'). His Honour declared the Victorian law in this instance 'invalid and inoperable' by operation of section 109 of the Commonwealth Constitution to the extent it was inconsistent with the Commonwealth law. Although the declarations by the Federal Court were limited in their terms to the circumstances of the case, the judgment raises broader issues about equity of access to assisted reproductive treatment (ART) in Victoria. The issue of partner consent as a barrier to access to ART was specifically raised by an independent review of the ART Act in Victoria. The Victorian Government released an interim report late last year as a first stage of the review, which canvasses some options for reform. This raises a broader question as to whether prescriptive legislation imposing detailed access requirements for ART is necessary or even helpful., (© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press; All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

The Sustainable Development Goals offer the global health community a strategic opportunity to promote human rights, advance gender equality, and achieve health for all. The inability of the health sector to accelerate progress on a range of health outcomes brings into sharp focus the substantial impact of gender inequalities and restrictive gender norms on health risks and behaviours. In this paper, the fifth in a Series on gender equality, norms, and health, we draw on evidence to dispel three myths on gender and health and describe persistent barriers to progress. We propose an agenda for action to reduce gender inequality and shift gender norms for improved health outcomes, calling on leaders in national governments, global health institutions, civil society organisations, academic settings, and the corporate sector to focus on health outcomes and engage actors across sectors to achieve them; reform the workplace and workforce to be more gender-equitable; fill gaps in data and eliminate gender bias in research; fund civil-society actors and social movements; and strengthen accountability mechanisms., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Restrictive gender norms and gender inequalities are replicated and reinforced in health systems, contributing to gender inequalities in health. In this Series paper, we explore how to address all three through recognition and then with disruptive solutions. We used intersectional feminist theory to guide our systematic reviews, qualitative case studies based on lived experiences, and quantitative analyses based on cross-sectional and evaluation research. We found that health systems reinforce patients' traditional gender roles and neglect gender inequalities in health, health system models and clinic-based programmes are rarely gender responsive, and women have less authority as health workers than men and are often devalued and abused. With regard to potential for disruption, we found that gender equality policies are associated with greater representation of female physicians, which in turn is associated with better health outcomes, but that gender parity is insufficient to achieve gender equality. We found that institutional support and respect of nurses improves quality of care, and that women's empowerment collectives can increase health-care access and provider responsiveness. We see promise from social movements in supporting women's reproductive rights and policies. Our findings suggest we must view gender as a fundamental factor that predetermines and shapes health systems and outcomes. Without addressing the role of restrictive gender norms and gender inequalities within and outside health systems, we will not reach our collective ambitions of universal health coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals. We propose action to systematically identify and address restrictive gender norms and gender inequalities in health systems., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In Iran, discrimination based on gender in enjoyment of the right to health is prohibited. Making health services physically and financially accessible to the entire population and removing social and cultural barriers of women's access to health services are main considerations of the health laws and policies of Iran. The health of Iranian women has improved considerably in recent years. But there are disparities in health status and access of women to health services around the country. Some groups of women, including the poor, the elderly, the disabled, the illegal immigrant, and those without an appropriate male guardian, and rural women have limited access to health services in Iran. To realize women's right to health, this country should immediately remove the disparities and use all the necessary means including legislative, administrative, budgetary, promotional, and judicial measures. National plans on women's empowerment and support should be interpreted in provincial programs and action plans. Moreover, a monitoring system and certain benchmarks for tracing the progress of the plans should be established. Realizing other economic, social, and cultural rights including the rights to food, shelter, education, work, social security, and participation in society will improve the Iranian women's enjoyment of their right., (© 2019 The Authors The International Journal of Health Planning and Management Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The use of narrative has become increasingly popular in the public health, community development, and education fields. Via emotionally engaging plotlines with authentic, captivating characters, stories provide an opportunity for participants to be carried away imaginatively into the characters' world while connecting the story with their own lived experiences. Stories have been highlighted as valuable tools in transformative learning. However, little published literature exists demonstrating applications of stories in group-based transformative learning curricula. This paper describes the creation of a narrative-based transformative learning tool based on an analysis of Nicaraguan adolescents' meaning-making around intimate partner violence (IPV) in their creative narratives. In collaboration with a Nicaraguan organization, US researchers analyzed a sample of narratives ( n = 55; 16 male-authored, 39 female-authored) on IPV submitted to a 2014 scriptwriting competition by adolescents aged 15-19. The data were particularly timely in that they responded to a new law protecting victims of gender-based violence, Law 779, and contradicted social-conservative claims that the Law 779 destroys family unity. We incorporated results from this analysis into the creation of the transformative learning tool, separated into thematic sections. The tool's sections (which comprise one story and three corresponding activities) aim to facilitate critical reflection, interpersonal dialogue, and self- and collective efficacy for social action around the following themes derived from the analysis: IPV and social support; IPV and romantic love; masculinity; warning signs of IPV; and sexual abuse. As a collaboration between a public health research team based at a US university and a Nicaraguan community-based organization, it demonstrates the potential in the age of increasingly smooth electronic communication for novel community-university partnerships to facilitate the development of narrative-based tools to support transformative learning.

Despite recent social movements and increasing public awareness, gender disparities persist. These affect daily forensic and clinical practice by providing unexpected obstacles to women professionals and evaluees who face centuries of established bias. State laws may conflict with professional ethics, women experts may be sidelined in important cases, pregnant substance users are prosecuted aggressively, and fetal personhood laws challenge the autonomy of competent adults. Such inequities call for a review of professional ethics and the common male-centered lens of traditional theory. Feminist thinking has played a key role in highlighting the way traditional views of autonomy and rights undervalue the narratives and perspectives of disadvantaged populations. Applying the cultural formulation, telling the full story, and taking a default position in favor of the vulnerable individual, this article advances intersectionality, positionality (narrative), and credibility for understanding the profession's interaction with women., (© 2018 American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.)

There has been mounting concern over the absence of gender equality in the sciences in recent years. This has been accompanied by a broadening of the perspective, in order to address issues of equality, diversity and inclusion, relating to a wide range of circumstances in which individuals suffer discrimination. While some progress has been made in some countries, nationally or at the level of institutions, much more needs to be done. The chemical sciences can play a leading role in addressing biases, through 1) becoming a model of good systemic practice in policies, processes, and actions; 2) developing practical skills through training in cultural competence; and 3) promoting a stronger evidence base to uncover both the extent of problems and the degree to which approaches to improve equality, diversity, and inclusion are working., (© 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

At the end of 2017, the worldwide spread of the #MeToo symbol clearly showed the extent of sexual harassment in both the public domain and the workplace. In healthcare too, it is known that some doctors have unwanted sexual contact with their patients and with young doctors in training. In the opinion of the authors, measures taken against sexual harassment in healthcare so far do not seem to be very effective. Therefore, we are calling for an intrinsically motivated conscious attitude to recognize the problem as a professional risk and to strive for a professional approach that extends over the entire medical career. The professional associations should take the lead in this.

Two hundred million girls and women in the world are estimated to have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), and another 15 million girls are at risk of experiencing it by 2020 in high prevalence countries (UNICEF, 2016. Female genital mutilation/cutting: a global concern. 2016). Despite decades of concerted efforts to eradicate or abandon the practice, and the increased need for clear guidance on the treatment and care of women who have undergone FGM, present efforts have not yet been able to effectively curb the number of women and girls subjected to this practice (UNICEF. Female genital mutilation/cutting: a statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change. 2013), nor are they sufficient to respond to health needs of millions of women and girls living with FGM. International efforts to address FGM have thus far focused primarily on preventing the practice, with less attention to treating associated health complications, caring for survivors, and engaging health care providers as key stakeholders. Recognizing this imperative, WHO developed guidelines on management of health complications of FGM. In this paper, based on foundational research for the development of WHO's guidelines, we situate the practice of FGM as a rights violation in the context of international and national policy and efforts, and explore the role of health providers in upholding health-related human rights of women at girls who are survivors, or who are at risk. Findings are based on a literature review of relevant international human rights treaties and UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies.

EEOC has Ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation is simply another form of sex discrimination.

Transgender patients are individuals whose gender identity is not related to their biological sex. Assuming a new gender identity that does not conform to societal norms often results in discrimination and barriers to health care. The exact number of transgender patients is unknown; however, these patients are increasingly seen in health care. Transgender individuals may experience provider-generated discrimination in health care facilities, including refusal of service, disrespect, and abuse, which contribute to depression and low self-esteem. Transgender therapies include mental health counseling for depression and low self-esteem, hormone therapy, and sex reassignment surgery. Health care professionals require cultural competence, an understanding of the different forms of patient identification, and adaptive approaches to care for transgender patients. VA (Veterans Affairs) hospitals provide a model for the care for transgender patients and staff., (Copyright © 2016 AORN, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)