Prominent feminist blog #4 to jump on the horrible gun statistics round robin.
Is it possible to consider yourself a feminist, and be at odds with a site that calls itself "Feministe" or "Feministing"? Let's find out.
For all that Feministe, in particular, is fond of labelling me "anti-feminist", I think the feminist movement is doing something important. Society treats men and women differently in ways that it shouldn't. I'm glad that there are people who focus their lives on changing that--even when I disagree with them; even when I think many of the battles they have chosen can't be won.
There are three things I really dislike about the feminist movement, all of them sadly reinforcing stereotypes about women.
1) The way that thinking women should be equal is assumed to be necessarily equated with a left economic agenda, and disagreement is treated as a betrayal.
2) The practice of labelling anyone who doesn't share their agenda as an "anti-feminist". Anyone who has gone to an all girls institution has probably noticed what I did at my girl's camp: every year, every single cabin broke down along the same lines. In the group of five or six, there was one girl who was picked on, one girl who was neutral--and the rest ganged up on the "out" girl. The need to shore up group solidarity by labelling someone as the enemy is probably the least attractive feature of feminine life in America, and it's pretty disappointing to see it so widely reproduced in a movement that's supposed to be liberating us from tired gender roles. I understand wanting to say that people who disagree with you shouldn't use a label you think is important. But I hate the term's implication that anyone who disagrees is an enemy.
3) The practice of handing around bad statistics like Grade Z Oaxaca Ditch Weed on the last night of Senior Week. It's bad enough in itself, but it also hideously supports stereotypes that women can't cope with real math. This is certainly not a practice limited to feminism--any political movement does a lot of it. But many of the worst statistics come out of women's study and feminist advocacy. There are the appallingly shaky statistics on the number of rapes based on badly designed surveys manipulated with statistical methods so crude that Bayes must be spinning in his grave fast enough to power a high-speed monorail between New York and LA. The confident assertions that abortions have not increased significantly since legalization, when the pre-Roe figure is obviously unknowable, and the data we do have--on pregnancies--points firmly in the other direction. The various numbers on domestic violence that are thrown around with abandon even though a moment's thought is enough to dismiss them as ridiculous--the infamous Super Bowl claims being only the worst of the breed. And, of course, the silly assertion that we know how many women are helped with guns vs. hurt by them, when the data needed to decide such a claim are unavailable, and the coding problems enough to make Jesus weep.
Having written a follow-up posts on exactly why you can't infer from flat tabulations of shootings that guns hurt women more than they help, it's pretty discouraging to see four feminist sites link the original with exactly those sorts of ham-fisted statistics.
The practice of handing around bad statistics like Grade Z Oaxaca Ditch Weed on the last night of Senior Week.
No matter how hard I try, I just can't make sense of that analogy.
I have to say again, it may be true that handgun use does not increase crime. But that is a very different thing from the positive claim that is made repeatedly by the NRA and other pro-gun advocates, that increased gun-ownership decreases crime. (An armed society is a polite society.) There's no consistent correlation between states with high gun ownership and low crime rates, and no similar correlation between countries with high gun ownership and low crime rates.
I have to say again, it may be true that handgun use does not increase crime. But that is a very different thing from the positive claim that is made repeatedly by the NRA and other pro-gun advocates, that increased gun-ownership decreases crime. (An armed society is a polite society.) There's no consistent correlation between states with high gun ownership and low crime rates, and no similar correlation between countries with high gun ownership and low crime rates.
God, I committed the cardinal sin on an Atlantic blog, sorry.
I thought it was a metablogular joke: beginning a pair of identical comments with "I have to say again" could be taken as witty rather than inept.
As a feminist, albeit a libertarian one, I find the anti-gun dialog on these feminist blogs to be infuriating. (And I'm a pretty sympathetic regular reader of them.)
At core, a lot of their argument is that women have guns used against them by their husbands or family members. Okay, well that's not an anti-gun argument, it's a reason not to marry a jerk or hang out with a jerky family. This is exactly why middle and upper class women should have guns. The quickest way to change who has guns is for better people to start owning them.
Shouldn't I be trusted to make my own decision about self defense? (Just as I should have the right to reproductive freedom?) Seems pretty basic to me. To argue otherwise (especially from a feminist perspective) is downright patronizing.
I have a husband who isn't going to shoot me. But, I do live in an otherwise safe neighborhood that has a lot of burglaries. I'd sure like to shoot someone who broke into my house... and luckily, since I live in Texas, I can.
beginning a pair of identical comments with "I have to say again" could be taken as witty rather than inept.
Uh, let's go with that, then.
"like Grade Z Oaxaca Ditch Weed on the last night of Senior Week"
"Bayes must be spinning in his grave fast enough to power a high-speed monorail between New York and LA."
"enough to make Jesus weep."
Wow, all this in a single paragraph. I don't know whether to congratulate you or weep, but I do know that you're a better writer than that. Seriously, this is The Atlantic.
Google returns exactly one hit for the phrase "Grade Z Oaxaca Ditch Weed", so you have that going for you... :)
I'm guessing that someone who makes that observation wouldn't have been part of the gang; so, which were you, victim or neutral?
It's pretty simple really. The core tenet of left-feminism is that women are victims. This is just a particularized application of the core tenet of leftism that nearly everyone is a victim. A woman with a gun has obviously taken an affirmative step out of putative victimhood. By rejecting honorable victim status such a woman has stepped off the PC reservation. Another core tenet of leftism being that anyone not with us is against us, such a woman is obviously, then, an enemy and, therefore, anti-feminist. QED.
Besides, guns are, you know, icky.
No, Megan, you're not a feminist, any more than you're a liberal. Sure, the words used to mean something else, but they don't mean it anymore. Either modify it with "classical" or use some other term entirely.
Dick,
Victimization and tribalism (i.e. "if you're not with us, you're against us), is a trademark of almost all political movements. Just flip over to Fox News and their "war on Christmas" series every December.
You're not cynical enough. It's not only the left that's deeply screwed up - it's a characteristic of humans in general.
More guns = less crime. Trust me on this one.
More guns = less crime. Trust me on this one.
Well I can't argue with your logic.
Freddie, Mary Rosh is an old sock pupped of John Lott's, so I wouldn't take it seriously.
I really don't think any economist has any basis to criticize anybody else for passing around "bad statistics." If it weren't for bad statistics, there wouldn't be any economists.
Feminism became associated with a leftist agenda in the 70's to fit the ideal life for equality. If you want to make people the same you have to remove the differences through some kind of method. Economically its a high grade socialism that rewards normally disparate incomes more equitably. It shoudn't be so surprising given the origin of the movement is from some very radical people. The reason feminism has lost so much fire is for the very reasons your speaking of. All (if not that 10% of everyone) women agree that they should have the right to embark upon a career. That they should not be trapped economically because of their gender. Socially, demanding that women be treated accordingly. Not arbitrarily barred from clubs (much to the chagrin of men who for some reason don't want women to be in their club), or suffer ass patting in an office. In short to be treated with respect as a colleague, equal, subordinate, or (most problematic even now) the boss.
Those are basics, so all women agree, but feminism in its current form believes gender is culturally created, that all men are in some way oppressive (not that we're also self-interested animals), a serious bend against judeo-christian religion, violence against women is pervasive throughout society, competition has driven women from certain professions, and that ultimately women lose out on everything because men take it from them. I do apologize if its easier for me to pick out the man-hate, I'd prefer to find more arguments that split women, but its so much easier to pick out the stuff that women's studies classes have tried to crush me under.
If feminism were to move beyond its current fringe and back into the mainstream it would have to ask questions like why are so few women in the engineering field? Why are so many CEO's men? Are there inate differences between men and women (admitting they jumped on the wrong bandwagon with that gender identity kick), and lastly where does the individual and his/her abilities come into play across the economic and social spectrum? So on and so forth, with the answers not being oppression, sexism, or other "everyone else is wrong and we're right answers."
Dirt weed on the last day of Senior Week? In what hellish place did you go to school? Also, the reason those feminist sites get the math wrong seems pretty obvious to me.
What really annoys me is when someone writes, as the TAPPED blog does in one of the posts linked to by Feministing, that "correlation does not imply causation. But..." and then goes on to assume it does anyhow. Gah!
People, who know they are right, who believe that God and his angels are on their side and that the Truth has been revealed unto them, will invent stats to buttress their arguments if honest stats are unavailable.
When one is right there is no need to do research to prove it. That is like doing experiments to prove the sun rises in the West. Everybody knows that the sun has always risen in the West and always will. Why do research to prove an eternal truth?
So when a person, clothed in rightness, gets in an argument, then he/she makes up statistics to prove the sun rises in the west because he/she knows that such a fact will be proved if ever the research is done.
Obviously anyone who disagrees with such a fundamental, easily observed fact is the enemy of truth.
I am ashamed to admit that I played all three roles. Mostly neutral. The sort of sickly fascinating thing was that it changed every year, so that the girl who was lead bully the year before might end up as the victim without warning. ( I was never *lead* bully).
"Oaxaca Ditch Weed" - P.J. O'Rourke reference?
Feminists? Who listens to them anymore?
I thought they lost what little cred they had when they gave Bill Clinton a free pass for molesting public employees.
Why do the feminist site use bad statistics to bolster the languishing objectives they cling to?
I'd put it down to basic organizational mission creep. They're trapped in the mindset of their own glory years, as are many activist movements. In the early days, they have to struggle for attention by dramatizing the points they're trying to make. And they face stiff resistance grounded in societal inertia.
But then they start getting recognition and their attainable goals are crossed off the to-do list one by one. At this midlife point they still have the same habits of thought telling them they're facing the entrenched opposition of societal inertia, even as society is clearly moving in their direction.
The remaining fringe items on their agenda are left on the to-do list as a result. And they have to pursue these items with the same vehemence and vigor they used to attain the others. Any suggestion that their remaining goals are unrealistic or even contradictory they meet with the same mindset, the conviction that society simply wants to quash their remaining causes.
Their real purpose at this point, having outlived their usefulness, is to raise funds and make sure the staff is paid. The staff is paid to raise funds and make noise about oppression to do so. And so on and so forth, everlasting amen.
"Anyone who has gone to an all girls institution has probably noticed what I did at my girl's camp: every year, every single cabin broke down along the same lines. In the group of five or six, there was one girl who was picked on, one girl who was neutral--and the rest ganged up on the "out" girl."
Follow up question: is this behavior nature or nurture?
No. Janegalt.net reference, 2002:
http://www.janegalt.net/archives/000615.php
Great post. Note that pioneering female mathemtician Emmy Noether is not a feminist icon, although I was glad to see that some women's group in the UC Berkeley Math Department has named themselves Noetherian Ring.
Megan,
I was surprised at a few overwrought expressions too but this is still an excellent post.
Freddie,
Regarding crime rates and gun ownership: I'd encourage you (or anyone who is interested) to take a look at the Amicus brief filed by the International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association (ILEETA), et al for the Heller case. I've never seen a better, more concise presentation of the statistics around crime and firearms use. (http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/07-290bsacreprintintllawenforcementeducatorstrainers.pdf)
Just a few points: gun ownership has a much higher correlation with reductions in home invasion than any other class of crime, it has little effect on the murder rate in most jurisdictions and, of course, there are cultural effects that make it hard to compare one state or nation with another.
Most revealing to me: suicide is the primary contributor to the observation that "you are more likely to have your gun used against you than to use it in self-defense." Technically, the statement is true. However, it is also horribly misleading.
That is, as long as you don't kill *yourself*, firearms and training in how to use them are an effective means to reduce your overall risk of victimization. This seems rather obvious to most people but, by crafting a clever but bogus statistical argument, the anti-gun forces have rather effectively sold a line of thinking that can be summarized as: "you're still a victim and you'll just make it easier for someone to kill you if you have a gun." The trouble is, it is just not true when stated in these terms.
Note that pioneering female mathemtician Emmy Noether is not a feminist icon, although I was glad to see that some women's group in the UC Berkeley Math Department has named themselves Noetherian Ring.
Well, she is within the Math/CS world. No one else knows who the hell she is, or why what she did was important.
People, who know they are right, who believe that God and his angels are on their side and that the Truth has been revealed unto them, will invent stats to buttress their arguments if honest stats are unavailable.
Yeah. I've even got a book at home, written in the 70s that advocated making statistics up and citing bogus journal articles to support your positions. What is interesting is that one of the authors was an NYU professor and the book was on reform of the educational establishment.
Megan, you've got the kernel of a really important article in this post, but I also think the Metaphoric Flights were of a "21st Century Domestic Airline" quality.
I specificially argue with your Spinning Bayes analysis. If bad statistical analysis could apply torque to Thomas Bayes, his corpse would be capable of powering Aldebaran.
"Note that pioneering female mathemtician Emmy Noether is not a feminist icon,....."
Seems to be a pattern. Mary Haas doesn't seem to get much adulation either, although she is every bit the pioneer in he field and easily as influential.
Well, she is within the Math/CS world.
Really? How does she fit in CS? Noether's a goddess to physicists, and I guess mathematicians of some varieties. I'm not expressing shock that she did something important to computer science (because she was a genius and then some), but ignorance.
You're not cynical enough. It's not only the left that's deeply screwed up - it's a characteristic of humans in general.
Yes. The difference between left and right, statist and libertarian, etc., boils down to weighting coefficients in our utility functions. All of which are mostly made up, or clung to for dumb reasons.
The feminist movement took a hard left at the last stop. When you choose to take that path you lose all creds in my book. They aligned themselves with leftist philosophies and seem to be able to find fault with anything American. They disagree with the premise that this is a good country, chock full of good people who do the right thing when given a chance. As for guns, I heartily recommend them for home defense, but you shouldn't own one if you're not comfortable with the idea. It's that simple, this isn't Chechnya nobody's going to make you carry an assault weapon around, get over it. Think for yourself, allow others to do the same.
"I am ashamed to admit that I played all three roles. Mostly neutral. The sort of sickly fascinating thing was that it changed every year, so that the girl who was lead bully the year before might end up as the victim without warning. ( I was never *lead* bully)."
Don't feel bad. I think nearly all honest women would admit they played all three roles at some time or another as girls. I think a few honest women can say they were never neutral. (The personality of the "lead bully" would not lend itself to neutrality.)
The good news is that most of us grow out of that group dynamic, or at least learn to apply it in a more civilized manner. So, maybe we can think of our turns as bullies as contributing to eventual maturity of everyone in the group.
As for freddiemac's question, like most things, there are probably nature and nurture elements. I think this impulse to pick an out-girl comes from the same issue that causes (some) women to confuse competition and opposition with enmity (back to Megan's point 2).
In the size hierarchy effect a population of animals will single out the smallest and weakest for abuse. This occurs in fish, birds and mammals. Why not girls and boys?
Probably then greatest female aviator who ever lived and one of the greatest ever was Hanna Reitsch. The feminist ignore her. She wsa a German pilot in WWII and a Nazi.
Megan, this is very unspecific; there have been thousands of studies of rape prevalence over the decades, and inevitably some of them fit this description. It's also inevitably the case that even well-conducted research from 20 years ago has since been improved on in some ways.
However, the most prominent studies of rape prevalence, while not at all perfect, were conducted using survey instruments reflecting best practices. Although among anti-feminists it's unquestioned truth that rape prevalence studies (particularly those by Mary Koss) are horribly corrupt and badly made, that's not what most people within the peer-reviewed research community think. For example, Koss' research is commonly cited (in a respectful manner) in current peer-reviewed research.
I'm glad you consider yourself a feminist, Megan. But as a feminist, shouldn't you hesitate to blithely repeat anti-feminists cliches which unfairly and untruthfully attack feminists?
I don't see how the second and third points have anything to do with feminism in particular, and the first, while more specific, would seem to fall under the second. Especially when you have a term so nebulous as "feminist", people are going to seek to claim it for themselves and exclude those who oppose them. And everyone passes around silly statistics.
Barry, you're welcome to use the phrase "anti-feminist" on your own blog, but on my blog, I'd appreciate if you didn't use that particular epithet.
I've read, I think, all the major rape studies and they're suspect for the same reason that data on defensive gun usage are suspect. The coding problems are monstrous, surveys are inherently unreliable, and there's fairly sizeable selection bias in the samples. The very best you could say is that it is intellectually indefensible to stand by those surveys, and also to dismiss defensive gun usage when discussing gun studies.
Megan, I don't consider The Forbidden Term an epithet, but I of course will obey your preferences here on your blog.
Your position on rape prevalence studies is, now that you've described it, a little different from the usual arguments. That said, I'm not sure your analogy to Defensive Gun Use surveys holds water.
IIRC, Kleck found that something like 1.3% of Americans have defended themselves from a crime with a gun. This means that if only .5% of survey-takers lie and create false positives (because of social desirability, or confusion, or just for fun), false positives will catastrophically swamp Kleck's results. (This was the primary criticism of Kleck's results in Hemenway's Journal of Criminal Law article.)
In contrast, most of the large rape prevalence surveys find that somewhere between 10% and 15% of women surveyed have experienced a completed rape in their lifetime. Even if we suppose that as many as 2% of people surveyed responded with false positives, that still doesn't alter the important finding of the surveys (that rape happens much more frequently than one would suppose from police reports). So one main critique of DGU surveys simply doesn't apply to rape prevalence surveys.
Koss also did significant consistency and validity testing of her survey instrument (using both re-tests two weeks later and follow-up face to face interviews). As far as I know, no DGU survey instrument has been through similar testing.