Hi Dr. Isis,
I'm looking for your thoughts, as a scientist, educator, and mother, on how to address some gender issues that seem to have come up among one of undergrads for whom I TA. I'm teaching a special topics course, which is attached to our Intro Psychology course, and focuses on TV viewing and child development, from infancy through adolescence - focusing in different weeks on aggression, language development, academic achievement, eating behavior, sleeping behavior, and sexual activity.
Part of the idea is to present them with journal articles (likely their first exposure to original research) and I ask them for 1-page reading responses each week. I gave them one of the classic papers on the negative effects of TV viewing, particularly with respect to aggression.
Here are the relevant points from one of my students' responses (which i have summarized to distill the main points):
1. Watching violent television is beneficial for boys.
2. Watching this sort of TV programming allows boys to feel masculine, and can develop a sense of masculinity in them.
3. Without such development of masculinity, many boys will grow up to be too sensitive
4. Men and women were made for different reasons: men for the more "rugged things" in life and women to "help children develop their sensitive side," to care, and to nurture.
5. Without a little bit of violent television, some kids could miss out on learning this.Without getting into the particulars on whether or not there is a relationship between violent TV viewing and aggression in children, and whether or not there are gender differences in that relationship (check out the Albert Bandura Bobo Doll experiment which shows the girls reacting with the same aggression as the boys)...
What is the appropriate way for me - in a position of authority and power as a TA - to address this with this student? Should I address it at all?
Thanks,
[Dude's name redacted a la Isis]
I am going to get to [redacted]'s excellent question in a moment, but first I have to say that I am fascinated by the video that he included in his letter. Utterly, utterly fascinated. In this video there are people going totally Tony Soprano on this bobo doll, and Albert Bandura made a documentary using the footage. Now it's on YouTube. I can't imagine the participants consented to that. I also know there is no way our IRB would let us get away with stuff like that now...
Figure 1: "Alright, kid. I'm gonna to need you to sign here. Then we'll let you take a hammer to that creepy doll for a while. Then we're gonna put the video up on YouTube. It'll come up in searches with that kid who wants us to leave Britney alone and videos of Kim Kardashian eating a popscicle.
But, surely, I digress.
I'm going to start by doing a little bit of editing to this adorable little muffin's letter so that we can begin from a more productive place:
I'm looking for your thoughts, as a scientist [and] educator
and mother, on how to address some gender issues that seem to have come up among one of undergrads for whom I TA.
I'm not sure how my role as a mother qualifies me to address this question, unless you think a couple verses of The Wheels on the Bus, a trip to the zoo, and a Spongebob Squarepants Band-Aid is going to fix this kid's problem. Otherwise, I got nothing for you. If you start wetting the bed, [redacted], you can write to me as a mother. Otherwise, let's move on and address this like the scientists that we all are.
The feminist in me reads what [redacted]'s student wrote and wants to stomp my adorable shoes and say, "No! Boys and girls are just the same!" But, that's not going to do me and my adorable shoes any good, is it? Let me, instead, focus on this....
What would you do, [redacted], if I were in your class and I wrote a paper in which my central thesis was that the moon is made of cheese? I imagine that you would call me on it and either respond with evidence to the contrary, or demand that I provided evidence of such tomfoolery. My thinking is that this is how you handle this situation -- you handle it the same way as any other situation in which a student submitted complete bullshit. Call it. Ignore the fact that it is pure misogynist propaganda and just call it for the scientific nonsense it is. If he wants to press on with it, let him gather his sources and fight back.What is the appropriate way for me - in a position of authority and power as a TA - to address this with this student? Should I address it at all?
If he watched enough violent television as a child, he'll be really good at it.
Education
Life Science
Comments
I love you for pointing out how your being a mother is irrelevant in tackling the issue at hand :)
I tend to take the coward's way out in dealing with such fuckwittage in student writing, personally (and as someone who attempts to teach students how to successfully argue their positions in writing I see a LOT of said fuckwittage...a LOT), if at all possible. Are you arguing in favor of mandatory school uniforms? Okay, then saying "mandatory skirt lengths will prevent female students from providing a distracting spectacle to both male teachers and students alike and we all know that students don't learn as well when they are distracted" is, in itself, an arguable assertion and your thesis statement should ideally be the only arguable assertion you make, therefore you lose points. Also blanket statements such as "we all know" are both arguable and also a good way to alienate readers, so instead of saying "we all know" you should provide data points that support what you are trying to say there and let the reader draw his or her own conclusion. Finally, passive sentence much?
Generally I take the position that a student's thesis statement can be an absolute blivet if they don't defend it with fallacious reasoning and provide appropriate research from similarly misguided sources to back it up. But they'd better be one DAMNED fine student writer if they're going to assert a bunch of nonsense (and why yes I HAVE failed a student for writing about why gay marriage should remain illegal and citing God repeatedly, because in the United States we separate church and state so that was a poor source choice, and overreliance on a higher authority is still overreliance on authority and therefore fallacious).
Posted by: MFA Mama | November 15, 2009 10:27 AM
If the assignment was a critical response to the science in the papers, students who turn in their own misogynistic opinions should get dinged. Make sure the instructions for these responses are clear, and it provides a valuable opportunity to help students distinguish empirical psychological science from pop psychology, opinion and pseudoscience. Many beginning psych students struggle with this.
I have to wonder why this particular person is emailing you, Isis. To me, this is an issue that the TA should take up with the faculty member in charge of overseeing the course. It's not clear from the letter whether this kind of support is lacking or there were other reasons for this email, but I would hate to think that any of my TAs would contact a Domestic and Laboratory Goddess, however venerable, for advice, either instead of asking me or to get a second opinion.
Posted by: scatterplot | November 15, 2009 10:51 AM
You know, scatterplot, I have no idea what this particular letter writer's situation is. I would also hope that people feel comfortable coming to me, but who knows what other particulars this person has in their life/career.
It's hard to tell when one reads these letters. Thus, all I can do is answer the letter.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 15, 2009 11:01 AM
Great advice Dr. Isis...
I think the person who wrote to you has a really good opportunity to teach this student to separate his beliefs and feelings from science and scientific evidence. I think she has to make it clear to the student that he is not losing points because his opinions are different than hers, but because he has not supported them with evidence. It might also be fair to pass on a few studies that have proved the opposite as examples of what she is looking for.
In my experience (teaching at an all boys school in Texas), you lose your high ground (and more importantly your chance to educate) quickly as soon as the student thinks you are targeting their beliefs, and they start pushing back. The challenge is to make them critically evaluate their own positions without triggering the macho defenses. I always tried to keep in mind that the student may have been indoctrinated with these beliefs from a very young age and I was asking a lot of him to change them, but that I was ultimately helping him in a huge way if I could make him re-think some of these things.
The final piece of advice I would give (as an educator) to the person who wrote the letter is to try to not take any of it personally. It might feel like the student is attacking you or intentionally pushing you, but try to keep your own defenses down simply because he is less likely to resist what you are trying to teach him if you do.
Posted by: Hielochica | November 15, 2009 11:35 AM
I just realized I totally assumed your letter writer was female, without knowing for sure... my bad!
Posted by: hielochica | November 15, 2009 11:37 AM
GASP! The Goddess has never seen the bobo doll study by one of the most cited psychologists in the world?? I'm truly shocked.
This student needs to learn the skill of critically evaluating psychological science (ie the methods, interpretations of the findings, how it relates to the bigger picture) if they are as advanced in their coursework to take a special topics course. You should focus on that lesson since it seems like this student may be missing the point of the activity and just writing an opinion paper. But it is not clear what the description of the assignment is... If the point is for the students to write their opinion, then you should prompt this student to think more reflectively about the ramifications of their opinion. How does having this opinion inform the way they make decisions and live their life? What about evidence to the contrary? Get him to think big picture...either through comments on his paper (if you think that will sink in) or just write the lovely "See Me" on his paper and hopefully he will man up. I don't think there's any harm in talking to him in person about it, so he can help develop his thinking. But definitely consult with a faculty member before doing so if you are not sure.
Posted by: las | November 15, 2009 11:46 AM
The advice given by the goddess and her minions is, thus far, right on. I will not address what said TA needs to do in this situation.
I am wondering what the student is thinking?
Is this response composed to piss off the TA or faculty member? Or is this truly a misguided soul who missed the whole point of the paper originally assigned? Is it someone trying to interpret the paper in light of their own personal belief system? It seems like the student's motivation is important here.
I might also point out that we don't know the student's gender. I have seen females who would have turned in answers like this, cause they want their men to be men...
Posted by: Pascale | November 15, 2009 1:20 PM
I gotta tell you, I had one of those Bobo clowns as a kid. They were marketed as punching bag toys... you whacked them and they bounced up again. This was sort of the point of the toy as I remember them. They were also spooky and weird, too. You really wanted to punch it dead, but it wouldn't die...
Posted by: Pascale | November 15, 2009 1:27 PM
[Redacted] said the kid in question was in a class attached to an Intro Psych class - that makes the kid... what? 19 on the outside? (Assuming Dr Isis didn't change that to de-identify [Redacted].)
Maybe he was just writing whatever came to mind immediately without bothering to self-analyse or fact-check, and entirely possibly without reading the articles at hand, and possibly doing so while either high, drunk, or on the bus to class?
Or do I spend too much time with the wrong kind of undergrads?
Posted by: Korny | November 15, 2009 2:06 PM
I killed at least two bobo dolls.
Am I a bad person?
Actually I'm entertained by the notion that being a mom has nothing to do with this. This morning CareBear and I were talking about what things are going to be like for our son, and what we want to teach him. CareBear is under the impression that aggression is an important lesson. Basically, son will disappoint dad if he gets into fights with people bigger than him and gets his butt kicked, and mom will be disappointed if he picks on people littler than him. I think he's stuck with attacking bobo dolls.
Posted by: becca | November 15, 2009 2:14 PM
Or the dog. You'd better watch out.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 15, 2009 2:32 PM
...
Or the dog. You'd better watch out.
Gawd.
What happens when the dog kicks his ass..??
...tom...
' who also remembers hating Bobo (or his sick cousin) . . .dang thing would not die..!! '
Posted by: ...tom... | November 15, 2009 4:43 PM
"What is the appropriate way for me - in a position of authority and power as a TA -..."
Authority and power?
Posted by: David | November 15, 2009 4:55 PM
I sympathize with [redacted] - it's very hard to tell people that they're flat out wrong. I just finished a group project. The night before it was due, one of my group members emailed me her share of the project and asked for comments; I was already concerned because, you know, we hadn't heard anything from said group member until the night before the project was due, but I was horrified when I realized that I was going to have to explain to her that the evidence she'd cited simply did not say what she thought it said.
The Goddess is (as always) right that as long as you focus on where your student failed to provide reliable evidence for his/her case, you're doing what a good teacher does.
Posted by: tariqata | November 15, 2009 5:49 PM
I agree with Pascale @#7.
Is it possible that the student is just giving the opposite of the 'acceptable' position "on purpose"? Maybe to get a fail grade, and then to say 'HA HA I AM DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BECAUSE OF MY OPINIONS' or maybe just to thumb his/her nose at 'the system' or at 'political correctness' (I agree this is an inexpert way to do it, but as mentioned, the student is probably not-yet-twenty.) That is the sort of thing members of my family might do - hopefully not in a University paper, but certainly at family dinner-time conversations.
HOWEVER, I feel that the emotion and the 'opinion' should be down-played as much as possible so that (whatever the student's motive), the heat is taken out of the personal argument he/she presents. That opinion should not be under discussion.
I would think that the TA should NOT try to second-guess the motive of the student, but respond as suggested by many writers above, as objectively as possible within the guidelines of the original assignment only - ie the POINT of the assignment is for the students to learn to back up their argument with data. Presumably in this case, this would only be data presented in the paper that was given to the students in the first place. If this was not done, the assignment does not deserve a passing grade. No arguments; no discussion. BUT the feedback to the student should make it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that the grade is due to the absence of data/lack of follow-through of argument etc AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH PERSONAL OPINIONS. AND, moreover, the feedback (either written or verbal) should give the student a strategy to help him/her move forward and learn these skills of 'effective' argument, AND if possible give him/her an opportunity to re-submit the paper (maybe for just a bare pass grade, not maximum grade). Again, it should be made clear that the re-submitted paper "may" contain the same opinions as the original, AS LONG AS IT IS SUBSTANTIATED BY EVIDENCE.
That way, this rather unsavoury situation can be turned on its head and used as a 'teachable moment', and hopefully the student can learn a useful 'lifelong skill'.
Posted by: d. | November 15, 2009 5:55 PM
Apparently, the feminist in you is equally prone to making assertions without evidence, since you attribute a gender to the student in question (male) while the letter-writer never indicates whether the student is male or female—at least not in the excerpt you provided. Is it not even conceivable to you that a woman might believe the exact same things?
Posted by: Dee | November 15, 2009 9:31 PM
Nope, sorry Dee. You fail. Not the feminist in me. It the "me" that has read a couple of versions of this letter and knows the students gender as a matter of fact.
Um, I mean, this student was female. Totes. Female. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Cute try, though.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 15, 2009 9:43 PM
Sorry, but if what you’re now saying is that the student is female and not male as you implied in your post—your response isn’t very clear so I’m not sure—then evidently it's you who fails.
Posted by: Dee | November 15, 2009 11:32 PM
HA HA HA HA. You are a delightful little troll.
Posted by: Isis the Scientist | November 16, 2009 1:24 AM
This reminds me, for some reason, of an academic friend who once, in a moment of sheer madness, asked his class to write a review of his own book as a paper for credit. One of his students then turned in an essay accusing him, more or less, of writing a dreadful piece of sexist, racist, imperialist drivel. It was also a very badly written, poorly argued essay (imo). So what grade was he supposed to give it?
Posted by: csrster | November 16, 2009 7:11 AM
When I first read the letter, I had a visceral reaction to the student's responses, primarily from my role as a parent. Maybe that's because I am, in fact, more qualified to comment as a parent than as a psychologist (and I assume that's true for you too, Isis). Our culture is so full of gendered dreck, pretty pink princess ponies for girls, and lots of war-related shit for boys. Every parent has to decide where to draw the line (and obviously many see nothing wrong with any of it).
So, if he had used "parent" instead of "mother," I wouldn't have had a problem with it at all. "Mother" implies that fathers wouldn't have so much of an opinion, which I hope we all agree is bullshit.
I am also surprised he emailed you. Anyone who teaches anything remotely controversial needs to develop a strategy for weird student opinion. Where's the prof here?
Posted by: Anonymous | November 16, 2009 8:34 AM
@#10
I gotta tell you, I was always glad that my son was a big physical kid, so I didn't have to worry about anyone beating him up on the playground. Him hitting others? Could be an issue (it never was), but we knew he could defend himself.
Ironically, the one being that got the best of him was Denver, the Wondercat (who recently died). While potty training I would let Tim run around naked from the waist down. One day I heard a blood curdling scream and found a confused cat and Tim gripping his genitalia and saying, "Bad Kitty," over and over and over...
No damage was done, but we have a wear pants rule around the new kitten. Given the way Ozzie (new kitten) chases and bites his own tail, I shudder to think what might happen.
Posted by: Pascale | November 16, 2009 12:29 PM
Hmm... I am not sure about consent, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was consent involved in making the film. I am, however, entirely certain that it would be hard to get such a study past an IRB nowadays. There are a lot of old psych studies that would never make it past an IRB these days. Many are a little less obvious, but some of them just make you sit back wondering what the fuck they were thinking. Think "Would it be possible to induce clausterphobia?" Which apparently should have been ok, because the researcher in question was willing to make their own child one of the participants...
Two things about that film are rather important considerations.
One, it was made for educational purposes - until relatively recently, it would not have been viewed very often, outside the context of psych classes. Two, it is on youtube, because youtube clips are apparently quite easy to embed into power point presentation. There are a lot of psych instructors (I would assume that others do this as well) who post clips onto youtube for that express purpose. There are many other instructors who wisely do a search first, assuming someone else probably has posted a relevant clip already.
As far as the actual question goes, I am really wondering why this is even a question. I am only a lowly undergrad and I know the answer to that...Where's the motherfucking evidence? I would possibly consider talking to the student to the side, but I make it clear that the reason for the horrible grade is that the assertions are absolutely nothing more than wildass guesses and that while there may be mixed evidence as to the notion of media increasing violent impulses (Bandura's aforementioned study does have some glaring flaws), there is no evidence that I am aware of to support that assertion. That if that student expects to get a reasonable grade, they must present references to peer reviewed articles that support their assertions. And said article better have a reasonable foundation.
But who knows? Maybe I am just a very big blue meanie and semi-hypocrite (I rather like it when instructors give me good grades, even when I fuck up something). Though I suspect that there are places to give a little slack and might attempt to remember being an undergrad and *really* loving on those instructors who weren't *too* brutally harsh.
Maybe...
Posted by: DuWayne | November 16, 2009 4:38 PM
A couple of points:
1. A lot of comments as well as Dr Isis herself, have suggested marking down this student based on lack of appropriate evidence. The big problem with this is that there actually IS a lot of evidence (lots of published papers, books, theories, etc) which is very sexist and would support the very points that the student is making (just look at anything written from an Evolutionary Psychology perspective...). Of course, there is a lot of evidence that goes the opposite way, and the way the student should approach this response task is to look at different viewpoints and present his own opinion informed by these different (even opposite) studies/papers/etc.
The gist of this is that, unfortunately, there would be a way for the student to back up his sexist claims with "scientific evidence", sadly (where "scientific evidence" means peer-reviewed published articles).
2. I wonder if the student responses are discussed in class, because if so, class is going to become quite an uncomfortable environment - for female students in this class who have to listen to sexist crap outside as well as inside the classroom, and possibly even for the student in question, when (hopefully) everyone else has a negative reaction to his argument, and certainly for the TA who will have to mediate this discussion/argument.
Posted by: QoS | November 16, 2009 6:32 PM
QoS -
just look at anything written from an Evolutionary Psychology perspective...
The problem here, is not that everything evo-psych is misogynistic bullshit. It really isn't and neither is all the writing coming out of it. The problem is that the only ones who are acting as though their commentary is based on anything more than wild ass guesswork are the assholes who have given evo-psych a very bad name.
While I intend to focus my grad work on a particular notion about addiction treatment, I am hoping to delve into evolutionary psychopathology after. While I figure on exploring general evo-psychopathology so I can teach it, I am hoping to do actual research into the evolution of addiction. There is nothing bullshit about that, or even about the exploration of other aspects of evo-psych (see for example, Terrance Deacon's The Symbolic Species, about the neuro-evolution and language).
Sorry for the OT rant, but that is a huge pet peeve of mine - not people who have bad things to say about evo-psych, rather about the fucking assholes who have done a lot to turn it into a four letter word.
As for the evidence they might bring out in response, peer reviewed does not = quality source. You can still find articles printed in "peer reviewed" journals that claim homosexuality is curable and is a mental illness more or less. However my seven year old could probably manage to shred every study cited in those articles. While the arguments put forth in the types of papers you are considering here are a little more "sciency" sounding, they are still rather easily debunked.
Besides which, the assertions made in that paper are not supported by any evidence that I have seen. The evo-psych crowd that you are talking about would assert that boys don't need to see it to be it. They would claim that in general, boys are naturally inclined to violence while women are not - no need to "teach" them to be that way. So there still isn't likely much in the way of peer reviewed articles for that one...
Posted by: DuWayne | November 16, 2009 7:44 PM
I do not like to disagree with The Goddess, but after reading varying interpretations of the problem here (some of which I think are irrelevant to the problem, but that is my unsubstantiated opinion so I won't mention it), I re-read the original to refresh my memory of what the problem is.
IT IS NOT (repeat NOT, NOT, NOT) misogyny.
There is nothing here about hatred of women or girls. Nothing at all. (At least not in Dr Isis' summary).
So the question may be relevant - ie there may be a case for discussing how to handle misogyny if it occurs in the classroom, BUT THIS IS not (REPEAT, not, not) an example of it.
It is not even 'in the classroom'. It is a privately-submitted assignment.
So it is neither misogyny, nor is it happening in the classroom, in this instance.
(Despite this, I *think* many of the answers actually address what I *perceive* as the problem, so it is a useful discussion - it is just labelled inappropriately (in my unsubstantiated opinion).
d.
Posted by: d. | November 19, 2009 5:48 PM