I’ve Put The Breakables In Storage
Noah Carl ponders wokeness and women:
So, why would the influx of women into academia have contributed to its leftward shift, and to the rise of woke activism in particular? As the psychologist Cory Clark notes, women are consistently less supportive of free speech than men, and consistently more supportive of censorship. Compared to men, they’re more likely to say: that hate speech is violence; that it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker; that controversial scientific findings should be censored; that people need to be more careful about the language they use; and that it should be illegal to say offensive things about minorities…
Women are disproportionately represented in Grievance Studies (i.e., disciplines like Gender Studies and Critical Race Theory), which are often little more than a vehicle for left-wing activism… Almost 80% of bachelor’s degrees in “Ethnic, Gender, and Cultural Studies” are awarded to women… [Academia’s left-wing skew] appears to be greater among female academics than among male ones. In a 2016 paper, Mitchell Langbert and colleagues analysed voter registration data on approximately 4,000 US academics. As the table below indicates, the ratio of Democrats to Republicans was “only” 9:1 among men, but it was almost 25:1 among women.
Thanks to Mark Horowitz and colleagues, we also have detailed surveys from two of the most left-leaning disciplines: sociology and anthropology. The table below shows the proportion of male versus female sociologists (from a sample of 479) who agreed and disagreed with various items. Compared to men, women were more likely to say that “Sociology should be both a scientific and moral enterprise,” and that “Sociology should analyse and transcend oppression.” They were less likely to say that “More political conservatives would benefit [the] discipline,” and that “Advocacy and research should be separate for objectivity.”
Needless to say, there are links and charts aplenty.
Update, via the comments, which you’re reading of course:
Some ladies of the left aren’t happy about Mr Carl’s article. Apparently, he could only have written it because he’s “intimidated by intelligent women.” At least, according to a woman who seemingly didn’t find it necessary to read the piece that she’s dismissing, or to rebut any of its particulars, even in passing. As intelligent women do, of course. I’ve yet to see a substantive reply. So far, there’s been lots of glib, self-flattering toss about how noticing certain things can only be explained by a fear of women, or a hatred of them, some rather dishonest attempts at reputational sabotage, and rumblings about the alleged “fragility” of the “straight white male.”
There’s something almost funny about woke ladies getting all pissy and indignant about tables of statistics and things that one might reasonably infer from them, not least about woke ladies, and then behaving in precisely the kinds of ways that the article they dislike suggests is quite common among woke ladies.
Update 2:
It is, I think, odd how Ms Woods, our New Statesman and Guardian contributor, a woman who clearly wants us to know how terribly clever she is, doesn’t address anything – anything at all – in the article that so offends her. Instead, she resorts to glib dismissal, as if the evidence presented, all of it, were somehow irrelevant, while assigning cartoonish motives to the man who compiled it. Did anyone here read Mr Carl’s article and think, “Gosh, that sounds very emotional and motivated by a fear or hatred of women”?
Likewise, Ms Parkinson, who declares her pronouns and wishes us to know how terribly clever she is, indulges in the same glib and self-satisfied dismissal while carefully avoiding any attempt to address any of the particulars that she apparently finds objectionable. And so, we get another accusation of emotional motives for which no evidence is presented, as if that were sufficient, a job well done. But which party sounds more irrational and prejudiced, more emotionally agitated by facts and tables of statistics? And more dismissive of the other sex, with its “straight white male fragility”?
Again, lefties project.
This is why I feel we should be campaigning for a repeal of the 1918 Parliament Act.
He found that women were more likely to support dismissal campaigns, more likely to discriminate against conservatives, and more likely to support diversity quotas for reading lists.
This is my shocked face.
Hmm. The Taliban might be onto something.
This is my shocked face.
Well, quite. And yet there’s a definite sense that it’s one of those topics, on a growing list, that mustn’t be spoken of. Of course, as Mr Carl says, these are averages and some men are more in favour of censorship, quotas, and prioritising activism over dispassionate research, etc., than most women. However, the broad patterns are fairly obvious, and consistent, and I doubt that anyone, male or female, could honestly say they were surprised by the findings. Though some may find the data, and the line of enquiry, ideologically uncongenial.
The fields in which Woke Women predominate are the “Studies” majors rather than the “Science” majors, and I suspect that this is due to a difference in kind between the fields. The sciences are based on experiment and observation, and depend on the scientific method and on challenges to assumptions for analysis and advancement. The others are based on scholarship and citations, and depend on (frequently groundless) assertions by Authorities. For example, we are not allowed to disagree with Peggy McIntosh’s pronouncements on the contents of our “Invisible Knapsack” of racism, sexism, ableism, and privilege because she is a Credentialed Authority and we are mere scum.
That style is suspiciously similar to the way that many women traditionally deal with their social inferiors: “Because I said so, that’s why! Now eat your broccoli!”
For example, we are not allowed to disagree with Peggy McIntosh’s pronouncements…
More than once, I’ve marvelled at how anyone could take Peggy McIntosh seriously, about pretty much anything.
it should be illegal to say offensive things about minorities
Goose, gander, sauce therefore applies. No one should have offensive things said about them…except, maybe, the wokeists
The others are based on scholarship and citations, and depend on (frequently groundless) assertions by Authorities.
In the Middle Ages it was common to base scholarship solely on citation of ancient authorities. Actual, empirical research was unnecessary. The ancient authorities’ word was final and was not to be tested, much less questioned. Can anybody remind me of the term for that? It has completely slipped my mind.
“Because I said so, that’s why! Now eat your broccoli!”
It *is* necessary to be a tyrant of sorts in order to be a mother, so maybe the traits are hidden until political manipulation is introduced.
No shortage of women in those old Red Guard photographs. Modern Woke has quite the pedigree.
So, any popcorn available, or are we limited to bar snacks while watching?
BTW, Orwell agrees…
Italian ‘revenge killer’ hunted down and executed two burglars because they insulted his mother’s honour by leaving a sex toy on his parents’ bed.
Only a vibrator? Theodore Dalrymple has written that it is very common for burglars to, for instance, defecate on rugs or furniture. I haven’t seen any actual statistics, though. Anybody know?
The Taliban might be onto something.
By adhering to a cult where unhappy and unbalanced women are in plentiful supply to act as many of the most vicious or calloused enforcers of correctitude, and graspers at status?
Examines fingernails
The Devil, you say.
Woke posturing is just high school mean girls jockeying for position in the herd, and feminism is Marxism hiding in a massive civilization-wide shit test that men have failed badly.
The only thing the Taliban are onto is the prettiest goat in the neighbourhood. But repealing the 19th would go a long way towards rectifying these problems.
That is a fascinating read, but I confess to being slightly perplexed by this:
Clark argues, convincingly in my view, that this stems from women’s greater aversion to harm and conflict. They interpret various forms of speech as harmful to vulnerable groups …
When contrasted with this:
[Eric] Kaufmann compiled data from several different surveys of graduate students and academics. He found that women were more likely to support dismissal campaigns, more likely to discriminate against conservatives, and more likely to support diversity quotas for reading lists.
While I don’t pretend to know as much as Carl on the subject, there seems to be a serious contradiction between a preference for avoiding “harm and conflict” on the one hand, while having an enthusiasm for destroying the career, reputation, and perhaps personal lives of people who have the temerity to hold different views than your own on the other.
Put another way, this seems to be less about a “greater aversion to harm and conflict” and far more about what in less enlightened eras than our own was understand to be the worst kind of craven bullying – only going on the offensive as part of a mob and when there is felt to be next to no risk of being challenged for doing so.
there seems to be a serious contradiction between a preference for avoiding “harm and conflict” on the one hand, while having an enthusiasm for destroying the career, reputation, and perhaps personal lives of people who have the temerity to hold different views than your own on the other.
Ah, but the “harm and conflict” is generally defined in emotional, Marxoid, group terms and extends only to certain categories of people, as and when convenient – say, when it offers opportunities for reputational sabotage. Which, I think it’s fair to say, women tend to be more skilled at, and more inclined towards, statistically. And given that wokeness is very much about pretending, and using one professed feeling to hide something else entirely, not noticing contradictions is the first lesson, I should think.
I have to wonder if grievance studies were pushed by the universities as a way to keep the cash cows from flunking out.
I confess to being slightly perplexed by this…
The presence of unbelievers who may dare to speak freely is a threat to their feelings of security.
I confess to being slightly perplexed by this…
Consider that the harm/conflict is, for some women, class or group oriented. The junior/senior mean girls cliques.
This is why, too, in social groups of couples – when a couple divorces the couple is usually *divorced* from the group per the sentiment of the women. The men may be able to have a relationship outside the group with the newly-single man but the woman is pretty much excluded from all former relationships. *She* is considered a threat.
Compared to men, they’re more likely to say: that hate speech is violence; that it’s acceptable to shout down a speaker; that controversial scientific findings should be censored; that people need to be more careful about the language they use; and that it should be illegal to say offensive things about minorities…
Come, gentlemen. Let us relocate to the smoking lounge to partake of cigars and brandy and arm-wrestling. The manly arts. The womenfolk can resume their embroidery in peace.
resume their embroidery
And by “embroidery” you mean…
Ok, who wants some cranberry stuff?
“Because I said so, that’s why! Now eat your broccoli!”
Hayek talked of what he called the “basic order” and “extended order” of interaction. The basic order occurs when everyone knows everyone else: families, tribes, villages. It’s the only order that humans experienced for millions of years, and still the only one known to the animal kingdom.
The extended order is what we know today, in which interaction occurs via intermediaries, at many degrees of separation: the Brazilian bauxite miner has no knowledge of the person who will ultimately use the aluminium made from the ore he mines, or for what it will be used. Nor, for that matter, does the “democratically elected” politician have the faintest idea about the people who must implement and comply with the laws he cheerfully enacts.
The basic error of all forms of collectivism is to attempt to apply rules and methods which work well in the tightly-knit basic order to the extended order, where connections are tenuous and knowledge of the whole is limited. (This forms, of course, part of what he called “the fatal conceit”: the idea that man can shape society to his will.)
It seems reasonable to suppose that, in general – smart, sensible, and level-headed though they may be – women are more susceptible to this error than men.
The womenfolk can resume their embroidery in peace.
I guess what you don’t know won’t hurt you. 😉
I guess what you don’t know won’t hurt you. 😉
[ Hears muffled whumping, loud cackling. Peers through door. ]
I knew it. They’ve hired a stripper again.
Heh.
Via Instapundit.
They’ve hired a stripper again.
Well of course. One can’t paint properly before stripping the previous…
They’ve hired a stripper again.
Farnsworth said if we didn’t, she was going to work one of the Macy’s parade floats this morning. It was my understanding that we were doing it for the children of America. No good deed goes unpunished, I suppose.
They’ve hired a stripper again.
[slips out door]
Excuse me a moment, I must visit an ATM. We’ve run out of dollar bills.
We’ve run out of dollar bills.
I won’t ask how you got that glitter all over your hands.
‘Tis done.
‘Tis done.
Fanfare
In the Middle Ages it was common to base scholarship solely on citation of ancient authorities…
Anybody know the answer? This item of forgotten vocabulary is really bugging me.
(David, do you have any snacks that are good for improving memory?)
Rejoicing.
“Anybody know the answer”
Philology? Or IIRC, there’s a German “alter-history” term…
Women tend to want to be protected: thus the aversion to “harmful” speech. They want to be emotionally protected: thus censorship–don’t even allow that harmful stuff to exist. They want authorities to protect them. In the old days this was the husband but now increasingly it is the gov. The favoring of emotion over reason and control is why women can become completely unhinged and deny it. They will be at the front of the crowd screaming at the cops–of course if they get punched it is shocking.
A study of witch trials in Europe showed that 90% of the victims were women, usually social outcasts and widows. The accusers usually had a grudge or could take the property of the “witch”.
We live in a complex society and economy that took thousands of years to evolve. But dolts who cannot balance their checkbook or change a tire think they can make sweeping changes and it will just work out: close all nuke plants, stop fracking, ban straws, new pronouns, open borders, unlimited money printing, etc. Oh, don’t worry, we have good intentions…
Philology?
No, it’s something else. I thought maybe scholasticism, but dunno. I guess this is what happens when you don’t think about something for decades.
Somewhat related: Several times in the Aubrey-Maturin novels, physician Stephen Maturin refers scornfully to “mere empiricism”, which sounds very strange to a modern ear.
(David, do you have any snacks that are good for improving memory?)
Brains. Want braains.
[ lurches out the door ]
“Brains. Want braains.”
Ab’s over there…
They want authorities to protect them
This is the root of your cognitive dissonance, Nikw211. That “greater aversion to harm and conflict” refers to physical harm and conflict. Remember, all the whispering campaigns and social cutting can’t actually affect someone materially until someone with temporal authority – virtually always a man – directly harms the women’s target on their behalf.
Women don’t fight. They goad men into fighting for them.
They’ve hired a stripper again.
That’s what happens when you let them have their own money.
I won’t bring up the mitochondrial DNA studies.
Women don’t fight…
Instead they engage in the destruction of reputations. Whispering campaigns, subversion of enemies’ friendships and networks, stealth sabotage of careers, etc.
…They goad men into fighting for them.
The cause of many bar fights that would never otherwise have happened.
[ lurches back in the door ]
Whiskey. Want whiskey.
Women don’t fight.
But when they do, have ambulances on standby. Catfight is an understatement.
Catfight is an understatement.
Meh. They’ve always left me disappointed. A lot of screeching and hair pulling and open hand slapping with maybe a punch or two with all the impact of wet dishrag. Best you can hope for is the post-fight humiliation. Best one I recall, the loser’s panties were spinning around on the ceiling fan of the bar. How they got up there I have no idea. I do miss those days, however.
It’s beyond the scope of what Noah Carl is talking about perhaps, and he *does* have a series of qualifications that hint at what I’m about to suggest… the real cause here of cultural change surely doesn’t lie in the feminisation of the academies. Twenty years ago people were *still* talking about the leftwards bias in the academies. Thirty years ago I bet they were as well. You’ve got to go back to the ’80s, the era of Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK, both extremely popular leaders at the time who have been hated (by the left) ever since. The shift then, from big government to small government, was accompanied by a shift in culture and academic culture in particular, largely in opposition to the privatising agenda of these governments. I don’t think *they* caused the change, either – they were just smart enough to respond to cultural change and make political and economic changes at exactly the right time to benefit their nations.
Forty years ago they didn’t talk about it. Forty years ago they pretended it wasn’t there. It was rather simple, if you didn’t buy into leftism, if you voted for Ronald Reagan say, you certainly didn’t let people know. Of course, of course, of course you wouldn’t be discriminated against and of course, of course, of course your differing perspective, coming from the right was treated with just as much respect as those coming from the left. Of course, of course, of course far leftist ideas were challenged in their absurdities. Of course that pretense of tolerance and respect for the right was all lip service BS.
They interpret various forms of speech as harmful to vulnerable groups
I was reminded of an exchange with an editor a decade or so ago. I’d written a piece on some unflattering phenomenon and three of the four quoted examples featured women. This prompted a somewhat nervous enquiry about whether I could “balance” the number of men and women quoted in the piece, thereby avoiding the possibility of any… unacceptable construals. I pointed out that the quotes were chosen for relevance and vividness and that they happened to come largely from women. I also pointed out that women did seem to outnumber men, quite dramatically, in this particular niche. I also pointed out that the person I’d quoted who was challenging this phenomenon also happened to be female. I suggested that this counted as “balance,” if such was necessary.
But the twitchiness about these things, as if one must always discourage any possible construal that might not flatter women, who are apparently assumed to be a “vulnerable group,” even when a majority in a given environment, was hard to miss. I don’t recall any such concern regarding the sensitivies, or imagined sensitivities, of men.
I don’t recall any such concern regarding the sensitivies, or imagined sensitivities, of men.
Feminists are notable for this, in spite of their endless claims that feminism is for everyone.
Warren Farrell wrote about that several decades ago, I think.