Student evaluations completed over a 4-year period at a private liberal arts college were analyzed for the effects of teacher gender, student gender, and divisional affiliation. A significant multivariate interaction between teacher gender and student gender was found for each of the 4 semesters examined. Overall, the ratings of male professors appeared to be unaffected by student gender. In contrast, female professors tended to receive their highest ratings from female students and their lowest ratings from male students. This interaction generally remained when possible confounding factors (such as teacher rank) were partialed out. The mean ratings received by female and male professors also varied as a function of the divisional affiliation of the course. Implications of these findings are discussed.

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A major component of “femininity” in the United States today is a hairless body, a norm that developed in the United States between 1915–1945. Little has been written regarding the development of this norm, and virtually no empirical research has been done to assess how universally ascribed to is this standard or why women actually remove their leg and underarm hair. More than 200 women from two national professional organizations responded to a mailed questionnaire (response rate 56%). The majority (around 80%) remove their leg and/or underarm hair at least occasionally. Two types of reasons for shaving emerged: feminine/attractiveness reasons and social/normative reasons. Most women start shaving for the latter reasons but continue to shave for the former reasons. Certain groups, however, were least likely to remove leg and/or underarm hair: strongly feminist women and self‐identified lesbians. The results of the study are discussed in terms of the function the hairlessness norm may serve in our culture.

Undergraduate students (96 female, 72 male) read 3 scenarios depicting either male or female characters with symptoms of depression, alcohol abuse, and common stress. Participants then completed measures assessing their attitudes about the character in the scenarios, as well as their level of social dominance orientation, empathy, adherence to traditional gender roles, and familiarity with mental illness. As predicted, participants who labeled the target mentally ill were more likely to view the target as dangerous. This, in turn, led to an increased desire for social distance. In contrast, empathy, although associated with increased likelihood of labeling, was associated with decreased desire for social distance. Implications of the results for reducing the social stigma of mental illness are discussed.

College students, evenly divided by sex, rated the degree of influence of six or eight people on choice of a college and a career. Sex-role attitude was also assessed. In the first of two experiments, the sexes showed different patterns of influence as did the sex-role attitude groupings. Experiment 2, using only college seniors and matching the sexes on the attitude scale, again found that females were more influenced by female models in their choice of career than were males. However, no effect of sex-role attitude appeared. In neither experiment was there a main effect of sex on the choices. Results were discussed in terms of the particular importance of female models for female students.During the past two decades there have been increasing attempts by researchers to identify and explore variables associated with career development in women of various ages. Because the behaviors associated with career aspirations, commitment, and achievement have traditionally been sex typed as masculine, much of the literature has focused on the sex-role aspects of these behaviors.One of the variables that has been explored regarding sex-typed behavior in general and vocational behavior in particular i s the -~