Source of article The Jury Room - Keene Trial Consulting.
Recently, several articles have come out on Millennials and women but neither were enough to fill an entire post—so we’re combining them into a single post so that we do not miss passing on the information.
“Psychologically scarred” Millennials are “killing industries”
This article is almost funny but they are blaming Boomers (the parents of the Millennials) for the “industry-killing” habits of the Millennials. They quote Millennials who say this is “just some more millennial-blaming BS” and apparently, headlines saying Millennials have “killed off” another corporation or even industries are very common.
The buying habits of Millennials are very different from their parents’ habits. They do not, according to this article in the Business Insider, buy napkins, play golf, buy homes or cars, nor do they want to eat at Buffalo Wild Wings or Applebee’s. They have also been accused of damaging industries like retail in general, movies, Home Depot, the love of running, McDonald’s, wine, classiness (this is pretty funny although it is hardly an ‘industry’), the diamond industry, the crowdfunding industry, and the credit industry.
Naysayers say it isn’t the Millennial Generations fault—no, no, no! It is the fault of their Boomer parents who created the environment that has “restricted their income and shaped their financial perspective”. An analyst at Morgan Stanley (whom, we are sure, has no financial interest in this generation at all) says the Millennials have “a very significant psychological scar” from the great recession. They want to avoid risk and they enjoy independent restaurants more than chain restaurants.
“Aspirational banking” and the Millennial
Recently, my 20-something daughter related a story to me about a friend who banked with a well-known bank and was concerned about their ethical failings widely reported in recent times. She told him she had been happy with her (also well-known) bank and he reacted dramatically, “The man who founded that bank had very poor ethics and so I could never bank there”. She thought it was amusing that while her friend’s bank was in current ethical issues — he would dismiss her bank due to the founder (who died in 1913).
Later when I saw this article from JWT Intelligence, I sent it to her. It is likely related to the “industry-killing” habits described earlier in this post but explains in detail how the financial industry is attempting to adapt and survive by appealing to Millennial’s spending practices. The Millennial wish to have their values reflected in the organizations they support appears to be resulting in banks working on online platforms and apps while simultaneously attempting to be transparent and honest.
Every entrepreneur responds to opportunities and this situation is no different. There’s an app for that. The American bank, Aspiration, has launched a new feature on their app to allow customers to see how their spending decisions line up with their personal values. The app is called The Aspiration Impact Measurement (AIM). In response to the belief that Millennials are not just concerned but feel an obligation to the planet, other companies are launching apps to measure the carbon footprint of your purchases as well as sustainable investment options.
Who’s smarter? Men or women? Answers vary across the life cycle
When we are five years old, boys think boys are smarter and girls think girls are smarter. Not long after (about age 6 according to Sociological Images), gender stereotypes kick in and girls agree with boys—boys are smarter (and boys agree). The author (a sociologist) thinks much of this is passed down from parents (who are more likely to ask Google if their son is a genius and more likely to ask Google if their daughter is attractive). Sigh.
Let’s fast forward to college when most of these folks leave home. Again, the trend continues. Males overestimate male achievement in the sciences and underestimate female achievement in the sciences. Need facts? In a 2016 study, male students with a 3.0 GPA were estimated as “equally smart” to female students with a 3.75 GPA. It continues after college when “More so than women, men go into and succeed in fields that are believed to require raw, innate brilliance, while women more so than men go into and succeed in fields that are believed to require only hard work.”
Reading the rest of this post does not get better. There are many studies showing the diminishment of women’s intelligence and mercifully, only a few are documented here. But it is enough to know we still have a long way to go (baby).
The gender gap in criminal offending and heart rate
Recently we published a post on the gender differences in committing homicide and this is a follow-up piece of information that is odd at best. To clarify, this study is not about homicide but about criminal behavior in general. The researchers conclude that the lower resting heart rate of men “partly explains the higher rate of criminal offending”. We encourage you to read the rest of this press release since there is limited gender comparison in the literature on criminal offending.
“Researchers examined data from a longitudinal study that measured the heart rate of participants at age 11 and found that heart rate partly explains gender differences in both violent and nonviolent crime assessed at age 23.”
Is taking maternity leave a bad thing for women?
According to new work with participants from both the US and the UK—women are “damned either way” on maternity leave. The authors summarize these findings as follows:
Women who choose to take maternity leave are seen as less competent at work and less worthy of organizational rewards.
Women who choose not to take maternity leave are seen as worse parents and less desirable partners.
Reading information like this is disheartening. But then, on the other hand, we have programs like the one highlighted in this article on my niece who recently had a baby. There are good things happening. And we have a way to go.
An update on Andrea Yates who drowned her five children to “protect them from Satan”
This book chapter (also available at SSRN) updates us on the original trial facts and the eventual retrial and finding of not guilty by reason of insanity. Despite the fact that this case educated the world on postpartum depression and psychosis, according to the author, no real changes have been made in Texas’ insanity law.
This chapter explains how the states definition of insanity “influenced the first trial and both constrained and confused how the jury could view Yates’ actions”.
Deborah W. Denno. (2017). Andrea Yates: A Continuing Story About Insanity. In The Insanity Defense: Multidisciplinary Views on Its History, Trends, and Controversies, p. 367- 416 (Mark D. White, Ed. 2017) (Cal.: Praeger) Fordham Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2909041. On SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2909041.
Thekla Morgenroth, Madeline E. Heilman. (2017) Should I stay or should I go? Implications of maternity leave choice for perceptions of working mothers. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 72, p 53-56.
