Det finns onekligen spännande forskning i andra ämnen än nationalekonomi. I ”Gender and Reading”, publicerad i Poetics, undersöks om kvinnor och män tycker bäst om texter där huvudrollsinnehavaren är man eller kvinna (allt annat lika):

Extant analyses of the role of gender in reading suggest that there should be a gender-match effect in which, for example, women prefer stories with female protagonists. To test this prediction, we created different versions of the excerpts in which a male protagonist was changed to a female protagonist and vice versa. Readers rated the texts on four evaluation items spanning both personal and intersubjective reactions to both the discourse and the story world. Two samples of readers were used: one in Canada and one in Germany. The results indicated that both men and women rated texts higher on the story-world items when they had a male protagonist, inconsistent with the gender-match prediction. There was no difference in this pattern between Canadian and German readers, suggesting that it is common across these cultures.

Alla vill ha män! Vad säger detta om sådant som manlig dominans i bolagsstyrelser, undrar jag. (Har kvinnor som föredrar män falskt medvetande, om man nu kan tillämpa denna marxistiska term på genusfrågor?)

Nå, detta kanske inte är så farligt, i alla fall inte om vi talar om animerade serier för barn. Studien ”Equally Super? Gender-Role Stereotyping of Superheroes in Children’s Animated Programs”, publicerad i Mass Communication and Society, indikerar nämligen att superhjältar inte är så tokiga på genusfronten:

This study analyzes portrayals of female and male superheroes in children’s cartoons. Specifically, this study investigated whether or not animated superheroes were portrayed in gender-role stereotypical ways. Coders analyzed 70 characters from 160 hours of recorded programming. Surprisingly, the researchers found few instances of traditional gender-role stereotyping. However, a trend toward defining “superheroics” in strictly traditional masculine terms was noted.

Tänka sig.