Let’s Say Good-Bye To The Straw-Feminist by Cordelia Fine
I would really hope that the reader of this blog post clicks on the link I am providing to this editorial, because the few excerpts I provide don’t do it justice.
(Your primer about me: I’m an ex-Republican who is a moderate conservative who disagrees with feminists on some topics but who agrees with them on others.)
I typically try not to excerpt too much from an author’s page, but sometimes, it’s hard for me to know when and where to stop quoting, if a page or article is so very good. This is one of those times.
Let’s Say Good-Bye To The Straw-Feminist by Cordelia Fine, published in 2011
“This was not a permissible hypothesis”.
That was social psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s recent explanation of the outrage that followed Lawrence Summers’ speech at a conference on the under-representation of women in science and engineering, in which he suggested that women are on average intrinsically less capable of high-level mathematical and scientific thinking.
Haidt’s depiction of the way in which scientific thinking can be distorted by “sacred values”, and his portrayal of Lawrence Summers as the victim of censorious political correctness, evoke two familiar protagonists in the sex differences debate. There’s the hero, who doesn’t let political values get in the way of the search for scientific truth. And then, there’s the villain of the piece.
That bogeywoman – the truth-fearing feminist – haunted me during a photo shoot I endured shortly after my book, Delusions of Gender, was published last year.
…In the interminable sex differences debate it always seems to be those who are critical of scientific claims of essential differences who are accused of allowing political desires to blinker them to the facts of the case.
A century ago a medical professional commented in the New York Times that “the dear women are ‘obsessed’ with their fitness for all things masculine which blinds them to a sane view of their biological limitations.”
Today’s admonishments, sometimes only a little less condescending, suggest a way of thinking about the relationship between politics and science that is inspired by stereotypes: the agenda-driven feminist who requires everyone to ignore what does not fit her ideology; and the detached spokesperson of science.
…A similar theme emerged when The Sexual Paradox author Susan Pinker was asked to comment on my book, which argues that we don’t yet know whether, on average, males and females are born differently predisposed to understanding the world versus understanding people.
Pinker responded that the results of scientific investigations of sex differences “describe what is, not what we might choose if we were designing a perfect world. These are compelling studies that add to our understanding of human development. Why would we ignore them?”
And while a review of my book by The Essential Difference author and Cambridge psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen generously acknowledged its scholarship, the instantly recognizable stereotype was nonetheless lurking in all its unalluring glory: I was “strident”; in pursuit of a “barely veiled agenda”; and guilty of the “mistaken blurring of science with politics.”
Again and again, the target is a familiar one and should be recognized for what it is: a straw-feminist.
…Nor does my book (which has been unappealingly described as “relentlessly methodological” in its “striving for scientific correctness”) “ignore” the supposedly compelling evidence for the neurological and hormonal origins of essential differences in male and female minds.
Rather, again and again I argue that – because of under-acknowledgment of social factors, spurious results, poor methodologies, and untested assumptions – the evidence scientists and commentators provide as support for essentialist claims is simply not as strong as they seem to think.
It’s portraying those who challenge scientific claims about essentially different male and female minds as more interested in politics than science. Let’s say good-bye to that straw-feminist. And, while she’s leaving, let’s also close the door behind her antithesis, the value-free mouthpiece of scientific facts. These characterizations aren’t just inaccurate, they’re also unproductive.
One such approach is offered by philosopher of science Heather Douglas in her challenge of the ideal of value-free science. Douglas is clear that political values should never, ever play a direct role in scientific reasoning.
Obviously, that the results of a particular study support one’s political values should not be taken to increase the evidential support; wishful thinking doesn’t allow us to ignore evidence that goes against our desires.
…The higher the social costs of potential error, the better the standard of evidence we require.
Uncomfortable though this idea may make those involved in this debate, this perspective helps us to see the stereotypes for the illusions they are, and to better understand the true source of a clash. Science does not yield certainty: methodologies, statistical methods, background assumptions, and interpretation all build layer upon layer of potential error into the scientific ‘facts’ that are ultimately produced. This leaves us with scope for two kinds of disagreement, and it’s probably helpful to know which we are dealing with.
…But we can also, according to Douglas, legitimately disagree over whether empirical warrant is sufficient.
As Anne Fausto-Sterling argued in Myths of Gender, “[h]ow much and how strong the proof one demands before accepting a conclusion is a matter of judgment, a judgment that is embedded in the fabric of one’s individual belief system.” Deciding the ‘best’ judgment is not just a scientific issue but also a political one – how do you weigh the social costs of getting it wrong?
Considering a legitimate, indirect role for political values in the debate might help move it along – and encourage those who think they are keeping the science separate from politics to think again.
Do Summers’ defenders find unusually insightful his observation that his twin daughters referred to their toy trucks as Daddy and Baby, and think that it really does tell us “something that [we] probably have to recognize” about women’s intrinsic scientific interests? Or are their political values such that even anecdotes have sufficient warrant in this particular debate?
Read that page in its entirety here
The Anti-Feminism Conservative Bias (written by a Conservative)
You Say You’re Against Victimhood Culture Yet You Depict All Men As Victims
There Is No Biological Difference Between Male and Female Brains
Sheriff’s Deputy Refuses to Work With Women Employees Due to His Belief in the Billy Graham Rule
Jesus’ Vision for Masculinity: The (Actual) Best A Man Can Get by Rob Dixon
On Men Not Believing Women and Being Blind to the Sexism and Harassment Women Often Endure
Are Schools or Pedagogical Systems Designed to Favor Girls Over Boys? No, Not By and Large
Do All Or Most Women Innately Prefer Non-Tech Careers? Re: James Damore Google Memo (part 1)
Miss Daisy Flower 