We content analyzed more than 11 years of Sports Illustrated (SI) covers (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011) to assess how often females were portrayed, the sports represented, and the manner of their portrayal. Despite females' increased participation in sport since the enactment of Title IX and calls for greater media coverage of female athletes, women appeared on just 4.9 percent of covers. The percentage of covers did not change significantly over the span and were comparable to levels reported for the 1980s by other researchers. Indeed, women were depicted on a higher percentage of covers from 1954-1965 than from 2000-2011. Beyond the limited number of covers, women's participation in sport was often minimized by sharing covers with male counterparts, featuring anonymous women not related directly to sports participation, sexually objectifying female athletes, and promoting women in more socially acceptable gender-neutral or feminine sports.

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Some nonhuman animal shelters have developed rehoming programs for black cats to remedy what they believe are their higher rates of euthanasia and lower rates of adoption. This study reviews humans’ preferences/aversions to cats of various coat colors and uses contingency tables and multinomial logistic regression to test possible differences in outcomes (euthanasia, adoption, or transfer) for 7983 cats that entered an urban public shelter in Kentucky, USA from 2010 through 2011. While coat color overall was negligibly associated with cat outcomes in a contingency table, the pairwise difference between black and white cats was significant (p < 0.05) and nontrivial in strength. Specifically, black cats experienced the highest euthanasia and lowest adoption rates, while white cats had the lowest euthanasia and highest adoption rates. Brown, gray, and orange cats experienced similar outcomes, but middling between those of black and white cats. These patterns by color remained weak but significant after controlling for breed and stray status in regression analysis, with the exception of orange and white, which did not differ significantly. A subsample of 1219 entirely black cats was analyzed to assess whether they had different outcomes during the run-up to Halloween; their October percentages of adoption and transfer were comparable to or lower than all other months of the calendar year. Thus, this study did not find that outcomes improved for black cats during October. Overall, this study provides weak support for what has been termed “Black Cat Bias” by others, and hints that black cats in public shelters should receive extra consideration for rehoming, particularly if such efforts do not substantially redirect resources from other initiatives.

Kim Bain-Moore galvanized public interest as the first female competitor in the 2009 Bassmaster Classic fishing tournament. To examine the extent to which women were depicted by the fishing media during and after this watershed event, as well as how they were portrayed, we analyzed the content of five for-profit, fishing-related magazines from 2009-2012. Female anglers were numerically underrepresented relative to a national estimate of participation in the USA (27%); they were depicted on just 10% of covers and in 9% and 6% of fishing and 'hero' images, respectively. Women authored only 1% of feature articles and were often sexualized, noted for physical beauty, or portrayed as obstacles to fishing for men. More positive portrayals included women as experts on fishing or ecology, competent anglers, or valued fishing partners to men. However, the last reinforces fishing as a male-centric activity, particularly when there were virtually no instances of women fishing alone or with other women. Further, the emphasis on the performance ethic in these magazines may dissuade women, who tend to be motivated to fish more by social factors than men. These findings contribute to research on how the media influences the socialization of women in predominantly male sports/leisure.