Structural oppression, or the ways in which society’s rules, laws, and practices impact people across the gender spectrum, has been a big focus on the last several issues. Now, we turn the focus more inter and intra-personal to see how patriarchy impacts our relationships with ourselves and with each other.

Much of the research on gender stereotyping involves self-report. This method of measuring discrimination is reliant on a study participant’s awareness and willingness to report stereotyping. In Comparing Implicit Gender Stereotypes Between Women and Men with the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure, Drake evaluates implicit stereotypes, or the process of unconsciously associating certain thoughts, feelings, or expectations with a certain gender.

In Parent–Adolescent Attachment and Interpersonal Relationships in Sports Teams: Exploring the Gender Differences, Diaconu-Gherasim examines parental attachment and collective behavior as exhibited in youth sports teams. Among other things, girls reported higher benefits of having a “best friend” and were more likely to be ranked as socially competent by their team mates and coaches than boys. Perhaps early socialization experiences with parents are later carried into other pseudo-familial relationships?

Ramsey shows the link between access to basic needs and body image. In The Body Image of Women at a Homeless Service Center: An Analysis of an Underrepresented, Diverse Group,” Ramsey finds that both self-esteem and access to hygiene products were significant predictors of higher body image.

Reimann’s Female Doctors in Conflict. How Gendering Processes in German Hospitals Influence Female Physicians’ Careers bridges how hospital policy impacts how colleagues treat each other. Reimann shows how women themselves, organizational peculiarities of hospitals, job and the conditions and behaviours of male staff members may all contribute to maintaining vertical gender inequality in medicine.

As the submissions this quarter show, structural inequality impacts how we see ourselves and how we see others in mutually reciprocal ways. Is it any wonder then, that inequality is so daunting to correct?

Ashley Simons-Rudolph

Joseph Simons-Rudolph

Editors in Chief, Gender Issues