Feminism and confirmation bias

[jennyvstheworld]

It is an incontravertible truth that equality of opportunity is still often lacking in the UK and continues to require our attention. It is also true that power in society is achieved by adopting attributes more often found amongst men. Let us say, therefore, that the general tenets of feminism are correct.

Some people, however, seem to believe that because they are feminists (and because there is veracity in the notion of feminism), they themselves are incapable of making either an incorrect or even tenuous statement.

Mass generalisations are habitual, statistics - cherry-picked blindly from research without consideration of context or criteria - are thrown about to support dubious claims and the most minute and inconsequential event can be twisted to demonstrate conspiracy and oppression.

I offer the following as a statement made on this thread that no one saw fit to challenge:

"but where are the "good" male role models going to come from? men show no interest in teaching, little interest in community work, they are en masse opting out."

There are no good male role models? Men show no interest in teaching?? Men are not interested in community work? They are en masse opting out? (opting out of what - society? Community?) All four of these statements are erroneous and offensive and yet not one person - from all those who claim to believe in fairness and an end to the judgement of a person based on their gender - took issue with this.

This is just one of many examples. I have also seen opprobrium levelled at single-mothers and SAHMs. I have seen praise offered to successful women concurrent with condemnation of their male peers despite both forming part of the 'patriarchy'. There have also been a hundred other ill-conceived ideas that are accepted or condoned through silence because they fall under the feminist banner.

So my question is this: we are all guilty of confirmation bias to some extent; how guilty is feminism?

I will be interested to see how many replies demonstrate the hypothesis.

I find it quite amusing how people are rushing to misrepresent my posts as primarily criticising her literacy, and yet are staying curiously silent about someone saying something as ridiculous as 'I don't believe in stastistics'.

what?this is getting stupid now.
i write as i talk mrsreasonable.
i have had hardly any education but with i have learnt off of other peoples posts how to write a bit diffrently.
this is probably why my posts look a bit funny with mixed up words.
ive learnt longer words since ive been here and difrent words.but i still have my own words also.
this is why my posts might look a bit odd.
my posts was a lot worse when i first come here.
i dont know why im explaining this and im not going to defend myself about this any more-if you dont like it-dont read my posts.

OK, sparky, I apologise. I didn't know about your circumstances, apparently other posters do. So, I'm sorry, and I couldn't care less about your spelling.

But that doesn't take away from what was my main point all along: how can you not 'believe' in stastistics?

StayFrosty, that was me paraphrasing her statement 'i myself has mentioned that i dont believe in stastistics ect'

Anyway, as my above post says, I'm really not interested in the spelling/grammar anymore.

Thank you for this kind observations. It does reinforce the opinion I have.

I "haven't been through this a hundred times before", and have noticed in other parts of MN that - even when topics are done over and over, it's with good humour and helpfulness. Here you are just told to go away.

I tried to join in a "false accusations of rape" thread, but knowing I didn't know much about it asked a simple factual question "what is the prevalence?" - a basic question elsewhere is usually answered or helpful link given. Here I was told "there's a thing called google. Why should we do your research for you?". Now - does that welcome a newbie?

I don't think my posting style us particularly different between boards - but only here is it met with downright nastiness. Not reportable nastiness, but the drip feed of what I'd characterise as cattiness.

I have been on other threads too - even earlier today. It's an interesting sidelight on confirmation bias those are ignored and I'm now accused of always making the same boring point.

Please do think about it.

mrsreasonable
i dont believe in stastistics ect because
well-all this stuff has been used against me-eg
sparky has this/this/this condition but does well but proffessionals sit there in meetings and basiccally look at bits of information/leaflets/stastistics ect
and apply it to me-they dont see the person[me]and they dont hear the person[me]-its all a bit like"heres youre pet rabbit and heres how to treat it"
then someone else comes along with more stastistics/leaflets/info-and its diffrent-so it all starts up again.
i hate it.all this forgets theres real people and we not just diffrent pieces of paper/info/stastistics.
im nothing like what they read.....but everyone else must be right...cos it says so.

and this goes for the rest of society aswell.

right-im going to bed now-to those that have said kind words-thankyou.
sleep well.

yep-i also agree with Lenin.
i also agree with Stayfrosty.
im actually getting fed up now-it seems like for weeks now we have had to keep continuisly explaining/standing up for ourselves in this section and elsewhere.
i actually dont want to fight with anyone-i do enough of it in rl.
i feel like im continuisly being careful to not accidently start any aggro-im not frightened of a fight-i just dont want it.
fuckin hell-it shouldnt be like this should it.
you dont pop in to youre nearest[what ever]group and sit there and wait for it to kick off do you-why should we have to here.
thankyou to all the women on here who just want to talk/discuss/debate/give a oppinion ect without all this crap-theres too many to mention.you make it worthwhile.
and good morning to the lurkers-join in.

Meditrana, the reason why this section may seem hostile is because we are always wary of trolls / devil's advocates who may not be genuine or are just saying things to wind us up.

Take the OP to this thread - the spirit of the post isn't anything other than hostile.

Besides which Feminism is an emotive topic. It is part of the social sciences: politics, economics, sociology are emotive because they are about how we view people, their actions and how those people should live their lives. That's emotive.

Also feminists in general feel under attack, because whilst we've made such strides wrt women's freedom and rights, we feel those rights to be constantly under attack and scrutiny by the media and the public at large. Take for example the "catfight" debacle last year on The Apprentice. Large sections of the media and public took an unsightly disagreement amongst a group of women and extrapolated it to "that's why there are so few women CEOs". A little while later when the Venezuelan parliament descended into actual physical violence no-one put forward the argument that men shouldn't be politicians. Our rights as women are constantly under scrutiny and requiring justification that we deserve them.

As a feminist all you have to do is take a look around the world to feel a defensive shudder of unease: from countries where women's lack of rights or access to education is justified by a religion (often considered an untouchable in terms of criticism) to killings such as the one in Oslo where part of the killer's motive was to fight back against feminism or in Canada where a man walked into a university, killed the female engineering students and left a chilling message to feminism. That message is all around us and it makes us a little jumpy.

So, when you find a haven like the Mumsnet feminist section, one of the few places where you can safely express your views and hope that they will not find derision it is particularly galling/irritating/depressing to find that even here we are required to defend, justify and explain our beliefs to a minority of posters who often appear to have an anti-feminist agenda. If we incorrectly identify people as trolls or winder-uppers or take offence when we shouldn't then it is unfortunate but sometimes understandable in view of the above.

Absolutely excellent post joaninha.

you know what-bollox-bollox to all this[this is not to the genuine and good posters on here]
ive had enough-im off-be lucky everyone x

Sparky, I hope you mean just the thread and not the board. I don't want to tell you to 'rise above personal attacks' yet again, because people shouldn't bloody well be making them so instead: please don't leave the board because we'd be poorer for your absence x

What VG said...

Hi Jenny, youve done it again with 'how guility is feminism' is this all feminists?

The difficulty with any statistics is that it doesnt give the precise circumstances or details, there have been perfect examples of confirmation bias on the rest of MN, for example "its only a pair of looted shorts", some people take what they read on face value. Not done intentionally, just based on what they have read so far. Does everybody do this, its true until you read otherwise or are given information or a reasonable argument that would suggest otherwise?