Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 16h

Black women entrepreneurs too often must deal with remarks about appearance when pitching ideas. One woman was told she was pretty but should get new headshots. Comments like this say to Black women that they are outsiders & their ideas come behind looks.
gender.stanford.edu/news/black-w...

Black women tech entrepreneurs face myriad barriers to funding access | The Clayman Institute for Gender Research

Black women and men tech entrepreneurs agree: Black women shoulder additional burdens on their path to success. Both genders face difficulties in accessing venture capital funding, including networkin...

gender.stanford.edu

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 20h

As of 2025, 43% of men & 36% of women attend church regularly. Married dads: 62%; Single moms: 39%. One reason: Women are juggling careers, side gigs & unpaid domestic responsibilities—church adds to the already full plate of demands on women’s lives. www.barna.com/trends/churc...

New Research: Men vs Women at Church

New research on church attendance of men vs women—and what this may mean for the future of congregational life.

www.barna.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 22h

We have been told to be "authentic" at work. But your whole self includes undesirable, unprofessional & dark sides of your character. While men may get away w/ being authentic, women are penalized. Instead everyone should bring their "best" selves to work. www.fastcompany.com/91413530/to-...

To create psychological safety, don’t bring your whole self to work

Psychological safety isn't built through unfiltered self-expression.

www.fastcompany.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 1d

US life expectancy: men: 76; women: 81. Men tend to engage in riskier activities: smoking, drinking, drugs. They die at higher rates from melanoma as men's skin differs from women's, but also use less sunscreen. Only 12.3% of men always wear sunscreen.
www.npr.org/2025/10/06/n...

Why do women live longer than men? A study offers clues to close the gap

Women have an evolutionary advantage when it comes to living longer. They outlive men by about five years. This gender gap is true for many mammals, but a new study shows how human males could narrow ...

www.npr.org

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 1d

Poll (N=801) finds most voters support electing more women & say govt gets more done w/ women in office, but 1 in 5 say they or someone they are close to wouldn't elect a woman president. The old boys club & neg media portrayal were deterrents for women running. www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

Americans remain wary of electing a female president, new poll reveals

Four in 10 Americans say they know someone who would not vote for a woman president.

www.politico.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 2d

Gender power relations in prehistory is a matter of debate. If the female consort of a male ruler influenced his entourage through patronage and back channels, and his own policies through counselling, was she any less powerful than him?
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Was prehistory a feminist paradise?

Visions of matriarchal utopia may be wishful thinking, but there’s growing evidence of women wielding power

www.theguardian.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 4d

The child care industry is 100K workers short of where it would be if fed funding continued. That's also driven up costs. When child care is too pricey or unavailable, mothers leave paying jobs to stay home.
www.axios.com/2025/10/02/w...

Why mothers are leaving the workforce

The exodus translates to less income and financial stability for households.

www.axios.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 5d

The fetal health monitor is based on 1960s tech. New tech fails to gain adoption due to low reimbursement for obstetrics (Medicaid pays $1K for 9 months prenatal care, labor & delivery; $1.6K for 1 HR of joint replacement)& regulatory rules favoring status quo. www.statnews.com/2025/10/02/w...

Why promising women's health companies die so often

No matter how innovative, women’s health startups can’t overcome the system.

www.statnews.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 5d

Study of 141 AI companies finds 43% of private firms had all-male boards & women held 15% of board seats. 62% of smaller AI firms ($50M-$100M funding) had all-male boards. Only 3% of public AI companies had all-male boards & women held 29% of board seats.
www.forbes.com/sites/kimels...

Nearly Half Of California’s AI Startups Still Have All-Male Boards

A new study indicates that the power to steer the future of AI still remains predominantly in the hands of men.

www.forbes.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 6d

Federal law already prohibits separate physical standards for men and women in the same military role. "The women who serve — from pilots and logisticians to cyber experts and infantry officers — are the embodiment of this enhanced readiness."
www.axios.com/2025/10/01/h...

Female vets fire back at Hegseth over claims of lowered military standards

Federal law already prohibits gender-based standards for specific roles.

www.axios.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 6d

212,000 women left the work force between Jan and Aug 2025, while 44,000 men entered. The US govt is unconcerned, seeing men's employment as essential, but women’s employment as a nice to have, their job loss not constituting a serious obstacle.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

Opinion | American Women Are Leaving the Work Force. Why?

www.nytimes.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 7d

Disparate impact: A policy can look fair but be discriminatory if it creates barriers for certain groups of people to succeed. Example: Amazon dropped an AI resume-scanning tool bc it favored men for tech roles. EEOC dropping enforcement. Not good.
apnews.com/article/trum...

Civil rights agency drops a key tool used to investigate workplace discrimination

The U.S. civil rights agency responsible for enforcing worker rights will stop investigating complaints about company policies that don’t explicitly discriminate but may disproportionately harm certai...

apnews.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 8d

Women aren’t just blamed for everything, they’re conditioned to accept it. Poverty, crime (single moms), rape (short skirts, drinking), incels (women not dating unappealing men), divorce (women file the majority of cases) & anything w/ pregnancy & children. www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Targeting Tylenol Is Just Another Excuse to Blame Women for Everything

It's a longstanding tradition to blame all manner of social ills on women, without any basis in fact.

www.thenation.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 8d

Study (N=2,273) finds using senior patent examiners to give extra help & encouragement to female inventors who applied "pro se" (without help of an attorney) increased patent success by 12% and by 17% for first-time applicants.
phys.org/news/2025-09...

Simple intervention significantly improved patent outcomes for women inventors

While innovation is core to American identity, women inventors were named on only 13% of 2019 U.S. patents. In part, that's because women's patents are less likely to make it through the examination p...

phys.org

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 8d

AI has led to threats against public figures at all levels: “deepfake” images, videos, or audio manipulated to imitate a person’s likeness. Women are often targeted. Federal judges have legal & security protections but state judges often do not.
19thnews.org/2025/09/ai-w...

'Not a way to live': AI is fueling violent threats against women judges

Florida judge Jennifer Johnson said that an AI video depicting her death terrified her children and highlighted security gaps for state judges.

19thnews.org

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 8d

Returning to traditional gender roles is mired in potential pitfalls for women, including lack of financial independence and vulnerability to abuse and control.
theconversation.com/from-the-man...

From the manosphere to tradwives - why are young women embracing traditional gender roles?

New analysis of young Australians in 2010 and again in 2024 show women have become more supportive of stereotypical gender roles. Here’s what might be behind it.

theconversation.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 9d

Coffee badging: showing for required attendance but remote working the rest of the day. 58% of hybrid workers (N=2,000) do this; 62% men; 38% women. May benefit women w/ caretaking responsibilities as they can pick up kids at school & then work from home.
www.cnbc.com/2023/10/05/a...

Bosses want people back in the office, but employees are finding a workaround—it's called 'coffee badging'

Workers are showing up to the office when they're required, but that doesn't mean they're sticking around for the whole day.

www.cnbc.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 10d

There is a long history of blaming women who step out of their traditional role for creating many of the social problems of the day such as juvenile delinquency, the decline of the American home, and even child mortality and morbidity. And now autism.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/27/o...

Opinion | How Moms Got Caught in Trump’s Cross Hairs

www.nytimes.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 10d

When women are underfunded, boys & men are hurt
- Boys grow up in trauma w/o DV shelters & mental health svcs
- Men face economic pressure when women lose income, healthcare, credit
- Economies contract when women can't get capital for business
www.alliancemagazine.org/blog/how-und...

How undermining and underfunding women directly affects men and boys - Alliance magazine

A dangerous narrative is spreading across philanthropic and policy circles: that men and boys are being ‘left behind’ as women advance economically and politically. This zero-sum thinking has infected...

www.alliancemagazine.org

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 11d

Study tracking 700K Swedish students through age 30 finds girls who had more female peers in classrooms earned more and were more likely to enter higher-paying careers. Moving from a 45% to a 55% female cohort reduced the gender wage gap by 2.7%. www.durham.ac.uk/business/new...

Girls in female-dominated classrooms see greater career success - Durham University Business School

www.durham.ac.uk

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 11d

In place of freedom, equality, power and choice, the Trump regime offers women flattery and a duplicitously simplistic worldview that denies their agency. Patriarchal politics hurt women, even those who participate.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

From Nazi Germany to Trump’s America: why strongmen rely on women at home

Fascist regimes pushed narratives of domestic bliss, yet relied on women’s unpaid labor. In the US today, ‘womanosphere’ influencers promote the same fantasies

www.theguardian.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 11d

Yes

Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 12d

Absolutely!!!

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 12d

In 2020, there were 7.8M kids in afterschool care & another 25M parents who wanted it. Many of these kids are on their own after school. The school schedule is not built for 2 working parents. Programs should be govt funded as the economy would benefit. time.com/7318911/afte...

The Nightmare of Finding After-School Care in America

‘Am I going to have to quit my job? What am I going to do?’

time.com

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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 12d

Even though 6 in 10 men say they want a return to 'traditional gender roles', 2/3 of families can't afford it, needing two incomes for rent, utilities, food, kids, car, etc. And not to mention, many women enjoy contributing to society via paid employment. 19thnews.org/2025/09/poll...

Most men want a return to traditional gender roles, but women aren’t so sure

A new 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll shows how men and women of every generation, including Gen Z, are divided over questions about who takes on which roles in the family.

19thnews.org

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