Cognitive stuff from a cognitive person. If you've got any requests, drop me an email. If it takes me a while to get to it, drop me another one.
OK, so where did this myth that feminists not only believe that there are no differences, across the population, between men and women, but also actively suppress scientific research that inevitably discovers such differences, come from? I mean, has anyone actually seen feminists do this? Apparently one student at Ohio State has, though she doesn't provide any examples. But I certainly haven't. I mean, I know there was an uproar among feminists and pretty much any rational person over the whole Larry Summers thing, but here's some news: Summers isn't a gender differences researcher. He's not really a researcher of any sort. And if you've been paying attention, you might have noticed that research on gender differences in math has exploded in the last three or four years, without any objections (as far as I can tell) from feminists. Hell, I've posted on that research many times, and despite my frequently mentioning that there is unequivocal evidence that, across the population, males on average do better at spatial reasoning tasks (one possible explanation for observed differences in math ability), and females on average do better at several types of verbal tasks, feminists have linked to my posts approvingly, with nary a word about those two points. Apparently their suppression of such claims is being done surreptitiously; if this blog suddenly disappears, replaced by a heap of burning bras, you'll know who did it!
Simone de Beauvoir smiling, presumably because she's just destroyed yet another sex-difference researcher's career.
The most recent claim of the grand anti-scientific feminist conspiracy comes in response to this paper, which is excellently detailed by Mark Liberman over at Language Log. The paper presents an imaging study, so per my last post, I can't read it (OK, I read it, but since Liberman summarized it, I don't need to). Basically, from what I can tell, the papers shows that gender differences happen in the brain, or at least language does. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. Particularly since researchers have been demonstrating gender differences on verbal measures since, well, forever (OK, at least since the 1950s), though there is some evidence that such differences are getting smaller over time(1).
And in case you're wondering, there are real-world consequences to females performing better in most verbal tasks. It doesn't mean that women talk more than men, of course. In fact, in a recent study, males and female participants walked around with recording devices programmed to turn on every twelve and a half minutes and record for thirty seconds. Across several samples, Mehl found that, statistically, women don't really talk more than men(2). Researchers from the same lab, analyzing 14,000 text samples, did however find that men and women talk differently. In their words, "Women used more words related to psychological and social processes. Men referred more to object properties and impersonal topics" (3). That's not surprising, 'cause, you know, we do live in a society that promotes behavioral differences between genders. But girls also acquire language at a faster pace than boys(4), they tend to perform better on the verbal portions of most standardized tests, and perform better on verbal tasks in school (see the above-linked paper for references).
I can already hear the feminists gathering and preparing to tear this post to threads, because as we all know, feminists aren't really concerned with gender equality, or with the treatment of people as individual human beings rather than as products of their gender, but instead are only obsessed with the downfall of all science related to innate, culturally-mediated, or any other sort of gender differences. Thus, if I were to point out that the fact that small differences exist on measures of verbal ability, again across the population, does not mean that we should treat individual boys or girls differently, or believe that because we're talking to a woman, her verbal skills will be better than any particular man's (just as we shouldn't assume that, because men's spatial reasoning abilities tend to be better, across the population, we should only ask men for directions), feminists wouldn't care, because they're only interested in maintaining the illusion of no differences between the gender -- an illusion they've been very successful in maintaining, because it's obvious no one really believes there are differences between men and women!
Seriously though, folks, where do people like the Ohio State journalism student get their info on feminists and their behavior? Do they have imaginary feminists in their heads who do all the things they accuse feminists of, but nothing that actual feminists do? Because honestly, if we're going to attack people for anti-scientific stances, I can think of a lot of people to go after before we get to any feminists.
1Hyde, J.S., & Linn, M.C. (1988). Gender differences in verbal ability: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 104(1), 53-69.
2Mehl, M.R., Vazire, S., Ramirez-Esparza, N., Slatcher, R.B., & Pennebaker, J.W. (2007). Are women really more talkative than men? Science, 316, 82.
3Newman, M.L., Groom, C.J., Handelman, L.D., & Pennebaker, J.W. (In Press). Gender differences in language use: An analysis of 14,000 text samples. Discourse Processes.
4Roulstone, S., Loader, S., & Northstone, K. (2002). Descriptive data from the Avon longitudinal study of parents and children. Early Child Development and Care, 22, 259-268.
Brain & Behavior
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Wow, someone needs to sit her down and a) teach her about statistics and b) make her read all the Language Log posts about Brizendine's book. (In a comment, she recommends it to the other commenters. One of the big pluses is that it's "easy to read".) And c) learn how to make citable claims. And avoid strawmen. And strawwomen.
Posted by: MyaR | March 18, 2008 2:38 PM
It's the Strawfeminist, come to take away everyone's fun and livelihoods while being crazy and irrational (just like every woman) in the name of 'feminism'! Snort.
The Strawfeminist and the Hitler Zombie should clearly get together and have a party.
-Mecha
Posted by: Mecha | March 18, 2008 3:52 PM
I never get tired of Larry-bashing. Not only is he not a gender difference researcher, he displayed ignorance of the research that is being done - the fact that is being done, what the findings have been, and what the scientific discussion has been about. He didn't discuss any theories - he parroted sexist canards that were old when I heard them from my high school guidance counselor in 1969.
Posted by: Rugosa | March 18, 2008 3:57 PM
But still, it's nice to have some research backing up my personal observation that a majority of men think strangely. :-)
Posted by: Karen | March 18, 2008 4:13 PM
Well, I've met feminists who do things like fight against the claim of differences in spatial reasoning. Still, it's nice to hear something pointing out that the vast majority of feminists aren't like that.
Posted by: Ben Wraith | March 18, 2008 6:07 PM
I mean, has anyone actually seen feminists do this?
Absolutely I have. Read any popular feminist blog to see this. And I'm speaking as someone who tries to consider myself a feminist.
The rub of the issue is in the subtly. Historically, biological differences have been drastically overstated, usually to the disadvantage of women, minorities etc. So to meet such claims with skepticism is reasonable. However, in my experience - and I'm generalizing - scientific claims along these lines are not met with skepticism but with outright denial; it's one of the rusty old 2nd-wave ideas that won't die.
Posted by: jeffk | March 18, 2008 7:00 PM
Jeff, can you provide one example, from a feminist blog or elsewhere, of feminist denying that sex differences exist? I don't mean denying that a particular difference exists -- that's reasonable, particularly if you have good arguments against the evidence for that particular difference -- but that all differences exist? I'd like to see a single example, because I can't think of one.
Posted by: Chris | March 18, 2008 7:06 PM
You don't see the same arguments much any more, but below is an old example of a feminist denying sex differences are biologically based. I doubt she tried to actively suppress scientific research into sex differences, however. And unfortunately, she is no longer here to answer that question.
http://www.womenstudies.wisc.edu/WSP/WSP-RuthBleierScholarship.htm
About Ruth Bleier: Scientist, Activist, Feminist
Ruth Bleier once wrote: "So far as I can tell now, I grew up not knowing girls and women were supposed to be inferior."
A good share of Ruth's career at Wisconsin was dedicated professionally and personally to disproving the myth that many gender differences in the areas of math, verbal skills and creativity are biologically based. She argued that those differences are a result of social and political forces-of telling girls, for instance that they are not supposed to be good at math.
Ruth received her M.D. in 1949 from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, then the only remaining women's medical school in the country. She practiced general medicine in the poor, inner city of Baltimore for nearly ten years, and then took a postdoctoral training position in neuroanatomy at the John Hopkins School of Medicine. Ruth joined the Department of Neurophysiology at Wisconsin in 1967.
In the early 1970's, she began to see how sexist and other cultural biases affected the biological sciences, and devoted herself to applying feminist analyses and perspectives to the theories and practices of science. Her book in this area, Science and Gender, A Critique of Biology and Its Theories on Women, and her anthology, Feminist Approaches to Science, are considered classics and are required reading in many women's studies courses.
Posted by: sue ellis | March 18, 2008 8:28 PM
I've run into feminists who argue for no innate biological differences, but they aren't really worth a citation: they're usually web-forum feminists. Usually high-school or early college students, they make impassioned arguments and overstate their claims. Occasionally they insist that you read [insert well-known book] to verify their claims, where they've latched onto one out-of-context quote or misunderstood a more reasoned argument.
One difficulty with the Internet is that not only can you find virtually any point of view, but you can usually find a community in which any given opinion is the dominant one. Not only does it provide a never-ending series of strawmen to draw on, but it means that the person you're arguing with may simply be spending most of their time reading one type of view. The fact that the views are espoused by the inexperienced or ill-informed does nothing to keep them from rabidly supporting it or attacking it.
I wonder what kind of "feminists" hang out on the OSU forums, or whatever she reads?
Posted by: Jimmy | March 19, 2008 12:39 AM
Sue, she seems to be arguing that "many" of the differences aren't innate, and that's a pretty valid argument.
Posted by: Chris | March 19, 2008 10:53 AM
The caption for that photo is just awesome.
Part of the problem here is that 'feminism' isn't a unified block of people, but a large, very diverse family of positions with overlapping goals and interests. A standpoint theorist isn't going to have the same view as a French postmodernist; and they're going to be different again from analytic feminists; and so forth. So even if there were a small group advocating such a view, it wouldn't tell us much of anything.
Feminists texts from across the spectrum are a fairly regular part of my reading, and I can't think of any feminist who denies that any sex differences are biological; conceivably there are a few postmodernists who could be read that way, but even they largely just ignore science rather than actively deal with it in any way at all (and, being postmodernists, they probably could be read a jillion other ways, as well).
Posted by: Brandon | March 19, 2008 11:41 AM
While the hunt for an actual feminist science-denier is interesting, we see the opposite extreme all the time. That's someone taking one of these studies that shows a real and subtle difference and uses it to rationalize a 20-80% gender hiring misbalance in a field (i.e. Larry Summers). If anything, most of the feminists who do argue over these studies are probably doing so knowing that these studies are used to justify real societal imbalances.
Perhaps if that position did exist, quality science of gender studies would be able to happen without being so fraught in politics.
Posted by: bsci | March 19, 2008 1:30 PM
Brandon, yeah, I've read a few feminists who explicitly attack science more generally (Irigaray comes to mind), but that's different.
Posted by: Chris | March 19, 2008 3:58 PM
"...but instead are only obsessed with the downfall of all science related to innate, culturally-mediated, or any other sort of gender differences." I tend to consider myself as a feminist, yet I can't recognize myself in this quote: I doubtlessly deny innate gender differences in behaviour but I cannot imagine denying reality of differences. In fact, proving cultural and educational mediation of these differences (which implies to accept their existence) is the best first step towards their abolition via attention paid to edutational bias at home and at school (don't worry, I know how much I dream here). Such feminists as you described are not feminist according to me: just polemist people not acting for changes...
Posted by: Amelie Gourdon | March 24, 2008 1:22 PM
This blog post (feministing.com) irked me.
She asks whether a particular study on gender differences (eating habits) is "really that useful", and compares it to studying the differences between blonds and brunettes. Anyone here think gender and hair color are about equal as far as research goes?
It's the next line that got me though (and other commenters on the post):
"How much does this research just reinforce our already concrete ideas about gender difference?"
She's essentially questioning the validity of scientific research into gender differences because it hinders the feminist vision of social change.
Jimmy rightly pointed out that it's hard to assign much Feminist® authority to a blog post. However, as far as feminist blogs go, feministing is a pretty big player.
P.S. I have no problem with the rest of the post (that the MEDIA shouldn't be playing it up). I see the media as a perfectly valid place to push social change, in certain contexts. Go ahead and fix the media. Just lay off the scientists.
Great discussion! Thanks.
Posted by: J R | April 10, 2008 1:44 AM
JR,
I'm familiar with the blog. I don't take it as evidence of feminists denying the results of research that doesn't support a feminist vision of social change, but rather feminists who have no inkling of how to critique research, nonetheless attempting to critique research.
Of course the results of such an attempt are hooey*. But that's what you get when *anyone* who doesn't understand science tries to make a point about it. It's not a phenomenon particular to feminists.
*Frex, one blogger derided an eating disorder study for being based on self-reports of behavior. But most psychology research is based on self-reports, so we can throw most of it out the window by that logic.
Posted by: outlier | April 14, 2008 3:13 PM
outlier,
It's a fair point, but her critique cuts both ways. The hair color analogy implies the research is bad, which is a valid scientific concern, though her statement is factually incorrect as you point out.
But the question about reinforcing ideas on gender difference implies that the research shouldn't be done, even if it is correct.
I would like to soften my statement about the importance of that post: it's a single post on a blog for "young feminists" (which I read as "still founding my opinions"; I'm 26, and I sure as hell am). And as I said, there were plenty of negative comments on the "is it relevant" statement, so it's not exactly a strong indication.
Chris, I think the claim that feminists deny gender differences is actually very similar to the claim that feminists are "man haters", or that atheists are immoral, or that libertarians are just conservatives. They are ignorant of the theoretical context. When you first see a claim that requires a vast theoretical context to fully understand, you don't immediately recognize it. You just take the words that you understand and interpret them from your own point of view. Very few people actually dig in and try to understand the theory, and it takes some time even for those that do try.
The solution? Don't write articles pretending you know something you don't. :)
Posted by: J R | April 15, 2008 6:22 PM