Prevalence, associated factors, and antibiotic susceptibility of bacterial isolates in suspected ear infections at University of Gondar Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: A cross-sectional study.

Gender inequities pervade aspects of daily life despite longstanding awareness of the costs of gender stereotyping. From circumscribed educational and sporting ambitions to unfair practices and outcomes in the workplace, stereotyped beliefs about the sexes continue to impede gender equality. Indeed, the World Economic Forum reports a global gender gap in income parity of 32.5%, with this disparity reducing at the rate of only 0.1% per year. The underrepresentation of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields and professions evidences this gender imparity in operation. Women comprise only 21% of the students studying engineering, technology, and computing disciplines in universities. The problem therefore could not be more obvious. Gender-typed beliefs perpetuate a societal landscape that diminishes opportunity while simultaneously fostering discrimination, intolerance, and inequality. Efforts addressing the damages of the gender gap center on developing and implementing interventions with the promise of eliminating or reducing this disparity. Attempts to overcome gender stereotypes typically intervene in the direct experiences and media portrayals through which people acquire these beliefs. Operationally, these interventions have adopted a common approach. Researchers expose participants to counterstereotypes (i.e., role models; ambitious women, nurturing men) utilizing cartoons, job advertisements, and infomercials in the hope that their gender-typed beliefs will be undermined via relearning. The efficacy of these interventions has been mixed at best. Although some evidence suggests that counterstereotypes can weaken gender-related attitudes, these effects tend to be short-lived, with role-aspirants failing to internalize the desirable characteristics of the role models. The assumption that people are receptive to the acquisition (i.e., learning) of counterstereotypic knowledge drives attempts to mitigate stereotyping. Whether this is the case, however, remains uncertain because this issue has attracted only limited empirical attention. The few studies that have been undertaken affirm the impact of stereotype-incongruency (vs. stereotype-congruency). For example, person-related knowledge is acquired more readily when it violates rather than confirms established gender-typed beliefs in the context of associative learning, a finding that fits with predictive accounts of social cognition. When sensory experiences and prior expectations (i.e., predictions) mismatch, extant stereotype-related beliefs potentially require updating, an activity that is supported by the enhanced processing of expectancy-discrepant material.