Discussion Questions Week 7/26

1.

In the article “Associations between sexual orientation discrimination and substance use disorders: differences by age in US adults” the authors discuss the study they did to see what trends there were between the age of adults with substance use disorders and how much sexual orientation discrimination they experienced. They found that US adults who are a part of sexual minorities are twice as likely to meet the criteria for many of the different substance use disorders (SUD). They saw that there are different factors that contribute to SUDs than just age. One being minority stress because it increases exposure to chronic stressors that are related to SUDs and other negative mental health affects.

This source connects to my other sources because they all focus on the main point of my argument, LGBTQ+ discrimination. What I have made sure to focus on when finding different sources is that they all discuss a different aspect of discrimination. This article focus substance abuse disorders and what, if any, the trend is between the different abuses, sexuality, and age; where the main cause is discrimination. It comes from the perspective of five professors who conducted this study to better understand the different abuse disorders that 20 million US adults have. I plan to use the data and results from this article to further discuss the effects of sexual discrimination on people and for evidence on the idea that it needs to come to an end.

2.

In the response titles “A Lack of Privacy makes Anxiety worse”, Emily emphasizes the effects that working in an open office had on her anxiety. She is agreeing with the original article and is giving an example of what she experienced in an open office and what she would do to accommodate herself and her needs. She also includes how she encouraged the company to change their office set up in her exit interview so that future employees do not experience the same things that she did. I feel that this was a productive way to address the issue that she faced because she not only explained it and explained what she did to help herself, she also told the company how to fix it and noted that she was not the only female in the office who felt like this.

2 thoughts on “Discussion Questions Week 7/26”

  1. Zoe,
    The comments about Emily and working in an open office increasing her anxiety are in line with what I’ve been reading about on line. Women are already evaluated for their appearances much more than men. Couple that with an open-floor office many women feel that scrutiny. Women are very aware of their looks and the open office concept even compels women to change their attire (although I’ve seen no mention that men have the same situation). I assume part of that is due to the fact that “attractive” people earn roughly 20 percent more than “average” people (Wong, et al, 2016). I’m not quite sure what average is but we’ll move on from that evaluation. An open-floor plan that emphasizes women’s appearances can simply increase the unequal forces in a business environment.

    I also wonder as we move into a post-COVID office situation where there are more “mobile” office situations with the rise of remote workers …Will there be more open offices just to be flexible? If so, how will this fact affect workers?

    Reference:
    Jaclyn S. Wong, Andrew M. Penner, Gender and the returns to attractiveness, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Volume 44, 2016, Pages 113-123, ISSN 0276-5624,
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2016.04.002.
    (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562416300518)

  2. Solid work, Zoe, though we could use some more definition of the source in your annotation–make sure you explain what kind of text this is and what the authors’ project is, so that we can best appreciate their findings. Please include the full bibliographic citation, as well.

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