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Original poster

Does cognitive dissonance perpetuate misogyny, or just reflect it?

216 replies

JeanneDeMontbaston · 26/02/2015 08:45

Hi all.

I am aware the title is feminist jargon. By 'cognitive dissonance', I mean, that state where you subconsciously hold two incompatible views. Eg., you know perfectly well that, statistically, most rapes do not happen in dark alleyways, and yet, you feel more frightened there than with your random male friend.

As I understand it, holding a position of cognitive dissonance is tiring and stressful. I wondered if it actually makes us transfer blame onto women, so that we don't just hold these contradictory positions about gender, we actually absorb the idea they're somehow women's fault?

I am thinking this because I remember going through that stage (which I think a lot of women mention) of feeling, first, angry about feminism and angry that women were 'rocking the boat' by challenging all my dearly-held cognitive dissonances.

Now, it could be that cognitive dissonance is just a reaction to living in a misogynistic society. Or, it could be that there's something in cognitive dissonance itself, that pushes us to shift the blame onto the subject of the dissonance (ie., women/gender roles). What do you think?

NB - as you might tell from my tortured syntax, this is a research question I am working on. Please be gentle!

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Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 21:41

Ooh, that's a fascinating thought what. I could buy that. Because we do, don't we? A sort of 'wake up and make sure you're feeling worried, so you know how to deal with it when you need it' feeling?

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WhatWouldFreddieDo · 27/02/2015 21:39

Our minds are weird things (profound)

It's possible that, having become so used to being in some sort of cognitive discomfort, our minds have evolved to 'need ' that feeling -that it's a safe or useful feeling to have . And so perhaps our popular culture reflects that, reinforces CD ??

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 21:32

Well, to be fair, she did say she picked the definition off wiki, so I wouldn't worry too much.

I have understood it to be to do with discomfort, but I think buffy makes a good point that, actually, cognitive discomfort of some form might perfectly well be quite normal anyway.

I do think there is something extra frustrating about CD, as opposed to other kinds of self-fooling thoughts, which we register even if we don't identify the cause. So many women on here have said that, IME! That they identified CD and suddenly felt lighter. Which indicates quite clearly to me that it was a burden, even if they weren't aware of the exact source of that burden.

Glad you are re-zenned. Smile

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BertieBotts · 27/02/2015 21:25

I've always heard the feminist definition to be the holding of it rather than the discomfort of realising you hold it.

I definitely have it over clothes. It's not that I don't care enough about awful conditions of labourers, because I do - if I think about it or look it up (I don't really need to look it up, even, because we just are aware on some level that it happens) then I feel extremely uncomfortable and guilty. But then I'm in the position when I need some new clothes and I don't have the knowledge to repair mine (and they were probably cheap anyway so they wouldn't be that fixable) or the financial means to justify buying ethically traded clothes, and I have a more immediate "need" to have a socially acceptable, even professional, appearance and to be warm (or cool, whatever season it is) but social convention prevents me from just going out wrapped in a duvet, or naked. I know that my need to "fit in" is not actually greater than somebody's need to be paid a living wage and not have to work themselves to death in an unsafe factory and I know that I am effectively choosing to prioritise other things - probably, if I thought about it enough I could save up over a longer period of time in order to buy fewer clothes but of better quality, for example.

(I'm all zen now. I had to step away from the internet for a bit :) )

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 21:23

Yes, I saw that thread.

I do see there are examples of cognitive dissonance amongst men (there are some upthread). I didn't mean we only talk about women, just that it is interesting that people seem to keep coming back to women, as if CD is primarily a female way of thinking.

I am a bit uncomfortable with that. Though, after what buffy said, I'm thinking maybe I am worrying too much and could just acknowledge that CD is a flawed concept anyway.

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almondcakes · 27/02/2015 21:22

I mean that women objecting inadvertently draws the man's attention to his contradictory beliefs, and that makes the man experience cognitive dissonance.

almondcakes · 27/02/2015 21:19

The other thread about men approaching women to comment on them is an example of cognitive dissonance among men. The discomfort reveals itself when the woman confronts them and they get angry.

The two beliefs that come into conflict are that they in some sense own women/ are in control/ their opinion is valued by women, and that they are a nice person. Both control/importance and being nice are things people want to believe about themselves. They don't want to give either up. That is why they believe both at the same time. Women objecting to men acting as if they own women and women should be pleased to be told cheer up love/hello sexy/you look tired creates cognitive dissonance - they can't be both nice and controlling, and the response is anger.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 21:19

Any time! Smile

I mean, I agree art/culture could just be reflecting the situation in reality. But I have a vested interest in thinking it's actually producing it to some extent. I'm not very sure, though.

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Bellimperia · 27/02/2015 21:16

Ok then I understood it correctly, thanks for clarifying.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 21:09

I think what I'm struggling with is that a lot of people seem (as if your post, talking) to be acting as if only women can experience cognitive dissonance. So we only come to be talking about men after a lot of prompting, and even then, the conversation constantly shifts back to women.

Obviously, this is partly because most of us are women. But I feel as if we don't have a big sense of how this works more generally.

I accept that CD is a term that assumes the 'normal' state of your mind is calm and comfortable and so on, and as buffy says, that's a big assumption. But I do think maintaining CD requires an awful lot more effort than other kinds of uncomfortable thinking. It's not an efficient way to proceed, unless there's some benefit in it.

When we've tried to identify these benefits on the thread, we've not actually identified benefits of cognitive dissonance, but benefits of the things we/society is cognitively dissonant about - eg., gendered violence.

What I want to know is, why is that kind of thinking perpetuated at all?

To bring it down to a really simplistic level, surely, we're not all massive masochists who get off on feeling vaguely disturbed all the time, are we? So why?

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Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 21:03

Thanks for the examples, I am not cultured enough to know Buffy so couldn't quite follow the argument. But when you say that such literature/ art prompts us into these thought patterns couldn't it also be that these works of art reflect the existing thought patterns/ culture rather than promting it?

Yes, that's my question.

buffy - ah, ok, good point and now you've said it I think I agree.

talking, no, I am talking about the discomfort - that's why I wonder if it leads to more misogyny, right? The fact that it is a mental stress.

I think there are two levels, though. There's the stress of thinking in a cognitively dissonant way, which can be registered, but which we don't necessarily recognize in a conscious, considered way. Then, there's the stress of thinking about CD, as we are doing on this thread. Which is slightly different from holding it.

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BuffytheThunderLizard · 27/02/2015 20:48

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almondcakes · 27/02/2015 20:38

Being a man isn't incidental in terms of what I am saying, not because of testosterone, but because men as a class are dependent on other people with wombs and breasts doing reproductive work and then saying the doing of that work will be enforced and policed but will have zero value in economic terms. That ultimately requires violence to enforce, as we see with DV and witholding of money from the partners and so on.

What you mentioned, it can be called a range of things depending on the approach... radical feminism, marxist feminism, sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, human geography.

All combine biological and social elements, but in very different ways.

Bonsoir · 27/02/2015 20:28

talkingofmichaelangelo - I agree about the incorrect definition of "cognitive dissonance" in the OP and, as you can see below, I have also critiqued the OP's understanding of statistics and probability.

BuffytheThunderLizard · 27/02/2015 20:26

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almondcakes · 27/02/2015 20:19

Buffy, no I'm not sure. But I'm also not sure people would usually call Goldthorpe class analysis though, although certainly he's talking about economic or social classes.

Jeanne, I know they're not being serious and I don't mean to single them out, but I think there is a creep (more than a creep really) of people within feminism making out that being a man is just something incidental like preferring apples to oranges or being from Norfolk rather than Suffolk.

I mean there is difference between acknowledging that men are a group that can be classed together and acknowledging that men collectively uphold a class position specifically to disadvantage women within the economic system.

BuffytheThunderLizard · 27/02/2015 20:17

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Bellimperia · 27/02/2015 20:15

that should be 'prompting', sorry

BuffytheThunderLizard · 27/02/2015 20:14

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Bellimperia · 27/02/2015 20:14

Thanks for the examples, I am not cultured enough to know Buffy so couldn't quite follow the argument. But when you say that such literature/ art prompts us into these thought patterns couldn't it also be that these works of art reflect the existing thought patterns/ culture rather than promting it?

talkingofmichaelangelo · 27/02/2015 20:10

Great discussion.

I am probably being an outrageous stodgy pedant but I have just checked the meaning of cognitive dissonance on wikipedia YES I LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED IN MY RIGOROUS REFERENCE MATERIALS and it says

"In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.[1][2]"

I feel a bit uncomfortable reading this thread because that is what I thought it meant; but the thread seems to be treating CD as the holding of incompatible beliefs rather than the discomfort of holding them (and having it exposed)

To me, this matters, partly because there is a hugely simplistic part-answer there then already: talking about the inconsistencies causes the discomfort which wouldn't otherwise exist (holding two beliefs needn't actually hurt at all unless you are cruelly forced to notice it, we all do it all the time to no one's disadvantage, like when we feign confidence about the weather in the interests of staying cheerful, yet pack an umbrella) - and it is likely going to be women who do this, who cause the pain, and are therefore The Problem.

Sorry if all that is blindingly obvious / missing the point.

Or - is that only one definition and the one Jeanne proposes in her OP also a current / legit one? I have often seen "CD" used as she does on MN and it has always slightly bothered me as it doesn't feel quite right.... but is that just another normal accepted way of using it?

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 20:06

Oi! Grin

I italicized it all proper like.

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Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 20:06

Yeah, but almond, there would have to be something pretty specific about Norfolk if all violent men came from there!

I took her to be using Norfolk as an example she knew wasn't likely to be true (excuse me if I'm wrong). So it's not a serious suggestion.

I would honestly be extremely surprised if there were no economic patterning behind which subgroups of people are most violent.

But perhaps I am missing things here.

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BuffytheThunderLizard · 27/02/2015 20:05

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Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/02/2015 20:03

Well, I used Buffy upthread, but if you want more 'cultured' culture examples, I think the classic example would be Richardson's Pamela, which is a first-person narrative by a woman who keeps 'swooning' but is mysteriously able to narrate how she's molested during her fainting spells. Everything explicit in the text tells you she's truthful, and honestly has fainted. But the way the narrative is structured - it's in the first person, so she has to be able to narrate what happens while she's unconscious - makes you doubt her.

Old Master pictures of rapes tend to do it too - Mary Beard was blogging the other week about how images of rape show women who look as if they're deliberately being seductive, so you look at them and second-guess how 'real' the rape is.

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