Evidence basis for feminism

[FloraFox]

When discussing feminist issues on FWR (and elsewhere), we frequently are asked for evidence to support any claim that underpins the issue being discussed. Sometimes this is intentionally derailing but sometimes it comes from a way of thinking that prioritises an attempt to be scientific and objective and to focus on things that can be measured. Buffy and others have made very interesting points in response to particular posts about the difficulty in measuring social issues objectively, scientifically or neutrally. Is there any form of positivism that can be used for feminist analysis?

One example for me is the use of statistics about men who are subject to domestic violence. Regardless of any statistics that might be collected, I cannot see DV against men by women in the same category of DV against women by men. Not just because of the cultural context for DV but even on the numbers. It's not consistent with my life experience that the number of families affected by a violent mother are remotely close to the number of families affected by a violent father. The latter is quite common whereas the former is vanishingly small.

I'm not even sure if these are the same issues TBH but how should feminists approach statistics and evidence about feminist issues?

Thanks for the recommendation. Do I sound as though I don't know what I'm talking about as regards the various ways in which knowledge is constructed then, that you'd recommend wiki to me? blush

Sorry, of course not - I wasn't writing that to you at all, it was intended to be a bit of information for anyone in the thread or lurking who was interested in a relatively obscure area of social science. I can tell from your other posts that you not only know a lot about these areas but also probably work in one of the fields so clearly know a lot more than me with my out-of-date degree.

Obviously I can see that because I'd quoted you first that it might have seemed that I was only speaking to you, so I should have made myself clearer.

Also, I do think it is nonsense to say it's pointless to argue with people on the internet. I am currently too tired to take in much of this brilliant thread, but I can tell it's going to be hugely productive. And there have been previous great threads where we've hammered out points, too. And it's not all argument of the 'polite debate' variety. There are people posting on here (me included) who've radically changed how they think about feminist issues as a result of properly angry, charged arguments.

This is the cartoon I was referring to, obliquely:

imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

I wasn't being entirely serious - I'm not sure how the ironic tone I had in my head could possibly have failed to translate onto the screen.

The slightly serious part of the point about not arguing on the Internet was in response more to the OP who, it seemed to me, was troubled by the debating tactics (to put it politely) of people who argue against feminism. I imagined that she was probably talking less about MN and more about places like Twitter or Facebook or other forums where there is usually a huge collision of agendas, backgrounds and levels of knowledge, not to mention trolls and wind-up merchants. I cannot see that it does anyone any good to engage with those people.

Yes, I caught the reference, thanks.

I dunno ... there's plenty of trolls and wind-up merchants here, but I get a bit fed up with the 'oh, just don't engage' argument. Sometimes it is helpful to step back, sure.

But if you have just engaged, someone who responds like that is basically saying 'ooh you idiot timewaster,' and that's not actually helpful. I can't really blame people for getting sucked in to arguments that turn out to be daft.

Of course, now I re-read FloraFox's post I can see that she was actually talking about MN.

I dunno ... there's plenty of trolls and wind-up merchants here, but I get a bit fed up with the 'oh, just don't engage' argument. Sometimes it is helpful to step back, sure.
But if you have just engaged, someone who responds like that is basically saying 'ooh you idiot timewaster,' and that's not actually helpful. I can't really blame people for getting sucked in to arguments that turn out to be daft.

It's very easy to get sucked in. I admire people who manage to avoid it. I end up getting emotionally involved, drafting 1,000 word replies, deleting them, pressing refresh 15 times, re-writing everything, eventually posting something tangentially relevant and finally being annoyed how long it's taken me.

bobby - yep, me too at times.

But then, some of those times, I realize I have actually clarified my argument for myself.

I thought that was what flora was aiming to do with this thread, and I do think it's a useful project.

Buffy, what do you think about this sort of thing

www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/uk-map-white-male-power-4649671

?

For me this is a very useful bit of "playing the game". What do you think?

That's interesting Eilas. For once, I wish there were comments so we could see how Mirror readers reacted to this. In particular, I'd be interested in responses that:

• use it to point out how much worse things are for minorities than for women
• say that it exaggerates the point because white men were in complete power (almost) until nearly 1900
• point out that they made a value choice in excluding IDS, Seb Coe, BoJo etc.

Also, the quiz at the end is interesting.

Does the background of an MP matter?

<span class="italic">Yes - MPs should represent the people - 49%</span>
<span class="italic">No - it's about what they do not who they are - 47%</span>

IMO both of these statements could be agreed on by racists or non-racists and it's hard to draw conclusions about what people thought of the survey.

"Yes" could be that white males are not representative of the people or that as most constituencies are majority white, these numbers are okay.

You could say "No" mainly white constituencies should elect more non-white candidates or that the white men are chosen because of what they do and shouldn't be penalised for being white men.

Maybe I'm just too cynical.

I think I've found the thread you're talking about. Understanding context is key - in fact someone once said to me that eventually psychology will boil down to the study of context. I think they were joking. It would probably help if I could remember who said it and when.

I think that because we're taught to think scientifically right from the start, this feels to many people like the natural and right way to think. It's instinctive.

Yes, absolutely. When I first discovered Woolgar and all those people, it felt like they'd uncovered a huge conspiracy, that science and academia had been engaging in a huge con-trick by using the trappings of knowledge production to persuade people, without ever acknowledging that a journal like Nature or Science was as much of a rhetorical construction as any other argument. And when you consider how much of statistical knowledge is really based on the assumptions made when coding the responses, either by the researcher or the subject, it's easy to say that stats relating to social science don't necessarily have all that much validity.

The problem for the social or human sciences is that it's arguments like these that the 'hard' sciences level at them to undermine their validity. And hard scientists can point to engineering as proof that what they are doing does actually work, whereas changing people is much much more difficult to demonstrate. And from the other side, the humanities and arts people are rather suspicious of anyone who can add up and don't see why these upstarts are trying to prove things that 'everybody knew anyway', or would have known if they had read enough.

So my view is that it's just better to work with what we've got, and stats are part of that. Because ultimately feminism is political, rather than academic, because it's about change. Even a top-notch discourse analysis of interviews with women about their experiences in getting back into paid employment after maternity leave, for example, is less likely to shift attitudes than a quick and dirty survey about the numbers of women involved. Although a combination of the two methods might well be even more effective.

Bobby this isn't specifically about the other thread but that is certainly one of the threads that prompted this. I'm not only talking about FWR although I don't engage in these arguments on twitter, FB or CiF largely because of the amount of shouting down by positivists. I couldn't possibly respond to positivist arguments as Buffy does because I don't have the knowledge base to carry it through. As Jeanne said, I'm trying to clarify my general thoughts around the topic by hammering out some views. I'm hoping I might get to a point where I can respond to the evidence demanders in a way that doesn't simply say "women's lived experience is more important than statistics".

On a forum like FWR, you would rarely if ever change the mind of someone who has come on for a bit of debate with feminists but it changes my way of thinking and gives food for thought to other FWR regulars, both posters and lurkers. In some ways, this touches on various recent discussions about "what is FWR for?". For me, it's consciousness raising, not about winning the debate. I get this through my own posts and reading others' posts.

Thanks Flora - it's a good idea to thrash out ideas in a place like this. I'm glad you can be confident that you'll get a decent reception; perhaps I'm overly cautious about these things.

In terms of responding to evidence demanders, are you also focusing on their rhetorical tricks and assumptions? Because if you're not, that might be an equally good way of reaching a point where you're comfortable in dealing with that sort of 'where's your proof' come back.

Bobby I'm not sure you've got the right end of the stick although I'm sure you didn't intend to come across as patronising. I'm not looking for advice on how to handle an argument or how to get comfortable with dealing with arguments. I argue, persuade, negotiate and cajole for a living, mostly with men. It's not a question of comfort, it's a question of stretching out my thoughts around the structure of knowledge with some very intelligent people whose views I respect without having to deal with derailers or with people who underestimate the level being discussed.

I've had many an argument about evidence and statistics on FWR, especially around prostitution. I'm not uncomfortable with CiF etc. I just CBA. This is a much more intelligent forum.

Can we get back to the topic?

I wasn't contributing very intelligently but I was finding it very interesting. I wanted to think more about buffy's point upthread:

I see the separation of disciplines as yet another knowledge hierarchy thing: positivist science says categorise things, break them down into variables, do a fair test. But such powerful (in the sense of having transformative potential rather than oppressive) knowledge comes from making connections between people and ideas and events in ways that can only come from collaboration between disciplines and ways of understanding the world.

Are you saying that we see categorizational (there may be a better word? Is this the same as empirical?) modes of understanding as superior to everything else, but we shouldn't?

I am trying to think about this too. It strikes me often the problem is where we draw the limits on what we'll analyze - we're vulnerable to having areas of assumption we don't analyse because we never question them, or we define our terms such that they lie outside every area of analysis.

Since no one has responded yet...

The classical view is that categories exist independently of human beings so that certain things go together in nature - humans recognise these categories and absorb them into the process of thinking. But more recently some people - George Lakoff is one - have questioned that assumption and say that categories are human constructs and that we place things in categories in ways that are determined partly by our culture and other environmental factors.

A well-known example of this is the debate about naming colours. Some languages do not distinguish between colours in the way that modern English does - some have fewer colour words and may even only distinguish between light and dark (if my memory serves). Since it seemed obvious that colours exist independently of human beings, the initial research into this took the view that cultures which did not distinguish between indigo and violet, for example, were more primitive than European ones. Yet there is also research which shows that people who don't have a name for a particular colour find it harder to distinguish between different shades of that colour than those who do. So simply having the label for a particular thing makes us more aware of it and more likely to recognise it as a separate thing. Not having the label makes it easier to ignore.

The etymology of some colour words seems to support this. Red, yellow, blue, green and violet are all Germanic words that were present in Old English. Yet Orange and Indigo arrived much later, in the 16th century, with Orange coming from India or Arabic as a corruption of naranjas as a description of the fruit and Indigo coming from ancient Greek via Portuguese, as a colour that came from India - indigo dye came from plants grown in India and the word comes from the Greek indikos which means Indian. It's possible that until those words arrived in English, people were less attuned to them. This could probably be checked by an analysis of colours used in heraldry or paintings from those eras - it probably has been done but I haven't looked.

This is important for us here and now because if we really do think about the world by using categories, and words form the limits of those categories, then our thoughts will be limited by the words we use. So if our language has been determined more by one gender than the other, then it would be harder for the disenfranchised gender to be able to express concepts in a way that would be easily understood by everyone.

I don't think that really answers your question properly though. What Buffy seemed to be saying in a different context, about cross-disciplinary research, is something that also applies, in my view, which is that words are simply a way of constructing meaning between two people who are communicating with each other, and that meaning is not independent of the relationship between the two people or the context in which they are said - ie words do not have an absolute, immutable meaning that is the same whoever says the word and whatever the context. Words are actually constantly being negotiated between two people - that's what they are for, people communicating with each other, not being defined and subjected to being used according to the rules. Words are not independent entities that exist separately from people, even if they can appear that way, especially when written down (and also think about what life might have been like before dictionaries).

Meaning absolutely has to be negotiated - something which is harder in situations where there are fewer social cues available, like Internet forums. For example, in conversation we hear and mishear what people say all the time, and often ask them to clarify their meaning.

Yet most scientific or academic research usually involves someone trying to tie down a word to meaning something very specific, stripped of any context, and with a universal definition. From that starting point they will go off and attempt to prove whatever it was they were trying to prove.

So when you say It strikes me often the problem is where we draw the limits on what we'll analyze - we're vulnerable to having areas of assumption we don't analyse because we never question them, or we define our terms such that they lie outside every area of analysis. I think that's absolutely right. Perhaps this translates into feminist discourse as a way of bolstering the argument against using words in an apparently objective way as part of a scientific or positivist approach, but instead to consider truth to be something that is arrived at by collaboration of a group of people.

Well, I was thinking more of Linnaeus than Aristotle, but I take your point about colours. It's something we've discussed here before, and I think it is really helpful.

But I didn't quite mean any of that in my post. I wasn't thinking about signifier-signified relationships so much as about political positioning of an argument (which is not really the same thing at all). The precise problem is that often, we imagine we discuss concepts or words 'stripped of context,' but we usually fail to recognize that the process whereby we strip those words of context is in itself an interpretative process, and one we've placed beyond the reach of analysis.

My concern with feminism is the power dynamic in play here. Who gets to define terms? And how do we get to interrogate those definitions - and not just by arguing about what words mean, but also by arguing about how and why certain people get to tell us what words mean?

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote the following;

"They all pose as though their real opinions had been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferent dialectic, whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally their heart's desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub "truths,"—and VERY far from having the conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule."

It is a disposition of all people to read, hear and see only what they want to. In the aforementioned example about a hypothetical study on the incidence of rape (and in the real life study of the same, mentioned later)... the questions asked and the way in which the answers are interpreted cannot be separated from the prejudice of the person doing so.

The problem occurs when people talk about the results in an objective way. For example, if you ask men a question like "Have you ever had sex with your wife when you strongly suspected she was only doing so to please you?" and half of them say "Yes"... if you think that a woman having sex out of duty is rape, then you will interpret this result as meaning "Half of all men surveyed have raped their wives" but of course, some people may not consider this to be rape at all. So if you go onto a public forum, and in accordance with the study you have performed you declare "Half of all men are rapists"... it is an error to consider this a 'fact' or objective truth. It's important to remember that it's truth only has value to those who share your perspective about what rape is and is not.

This relates to the quotation of statistics for a few reasons. First, people quote statistics that confirm their perspective (confirmation bias)... and this can happen even with peer reviewed studies, because there is the community perspective of academic fields and also cultural/historical perspectives that influence the way people think about absolutely anything and drive them to consider 'truth' that which supports their world view. Secondly, the problem of the meanings of words, and how this affects logical inference. And thirdly, the problem of the perspective of the people polled in quoted studies.

I tend to think of absolutes, objectivity and 'truth' as things that have no place in debates.

When people quote a statistic to prove their point, you can pretty much be sure that the people doing the quoting hasn't actually read the study... but only a reporting of the study or abstract. You can only be sure it'll contain some crazy numbers that should raise eyebrows but don't, because of confirmation bias. And you can be sure that any contrary evidence, or theoretical criticism of the research design will not be accepted by the OP. You can never take statistics seriously, especially not online.

Jeanne I've been thinking about your comment, the reference to Linnaeus was very helpful. A short answer to the question of who defines terms is: old white men, mainly dead ones. Not deep, I know.

I think the point about collaboration between disciplines is an interesting one because I think part of the problem for social sciences is the Enlightenment influence (the dead white men) of desiring to apply fairly new scientific thought to the "science of man" (hah!). There are times when feminists are interrogating words like "rape" to understand it from a woman's perspective as part of her experience rather than entirely from a man's perspective. That makes sense to me. But there are also things like attempting to reclaim "slut" where some feminists say "I can use it in these contexts, with these factors in mind" which I find less useful. There does seem to be an increase in language development as more voices are heard through social media. I wonder if the dominance of small numbers of people telling us what words mean will change.

I don't know about not deep. It's certainly true! I do think it is a really huge problem we have. I'd like to think language could change in the way you describe, but I'm unsure it will.

I have a problem with logic, inasmuch as logic proves nothing. It's merely a way of formalising thought and ideas, which then we're all supposed to learn to present ideas in a valid logical manner.

However the best thing we can hope for when using logic is to phrase and order an idea in such a way that it cannot be torn apart for any invalid logic used.

We are not machines so we use invalid logic all over the place in everyday expression, which is then where I see logic (outside of academic circles at least), misused the most which is where people use a rudimentary understanding of logic to tear strips out of other people's ideas.

That in and of itself I would not hate so much, but often people don't actually contribute any original thought to a discussion, merely creating the illusion of intellect by telling everyone else how they are wrong.

I'll take a person using their brains to generate ideas even if expression is beautifully messy and human, over a coldly expressed rebuttal of everything, but contributing nothing of note or interest.

Otherwise you get people frightened to express at all, which is the real tragedy. Buffy I think has the right of it, as I know she has more knowledge about all this than I do, and I suspect may just be flat out more intelligent than I am, but I note her discourse shows a preference for collaboration over competition.

The devil has enough advocates, and there are better ways to exchange ideas than the adversarial. I often wonder what the social landscape would be if politics and law was collaborative.