The American Psychological Association (APA) set up a task force to “examine and summarize the best psychological theory, research, and clinical experience addressing the sexualization of girls via media and other cultural messages”.
The report has now been published.
However, I note that there were no men on the task force, and apparently no men were invited to comment (according to the document). It seems statistically unlikely to me that all the experts in the field of media effects on children are female. If a task force made up entirely of men produced a report on (say) the effect of violent media on teenage boys, and took no comments from women, I suspect that the report’s credibility would be questioned. Will this report get the same reaction?
Tagged: American Psychological Association, girls, media effects, science, sex, violent media
February 28th, 2007 at 12:03 -0700
This is one of those “studies” that began with conclusions and worked backwards to create support for the conclusions. Not that everything in the report is false, but it is really more of a political statement than a scientific one. Furthermore, it is a statement that male psychologists are not allowed to disagree with regardless of its credibility.
March 1st, 2007 at 03:47 -0700
Mathew, I think your third paragraph stinks. Do you have a real concern about the accuracy of the report? Do you think that the authors are pushing a sexist agenda? If so, why not come out and say so, instead of insinuating it by rhetorical question?
March 1st, 2007 at 08:00 -0700
I quite agree with the conclusions of the report. That’s entirely beside the point. The point is what the report is supposed to accomplish, who it is supposed to convince.
This report is like the book on “liberal hypocrisy” I reviewed a year ago. Whether the information in it is accurate or not, anyone reading it with a skeptical eye is immediately going to be struck by the highly selective sourcing.
Hence, this report is vacuous. It will persuade nobody of anything. One group of people will look past the selective sourcing because they already agree with the conclusion; the other group will dismiss the conclusion because of the selective sourcing.
And yes, it does bother me that (a) women get a free pass to exclude men, and (b) they use it.
March 7th, 2007 at 02:36 -0700
Its worth noting that (in this country at least) the vast majority of primary or sole child carers are female as are the vast majority of primary school teachers. The result is that a great deal about gender roles is defined by women. They might be able to throw light on it 8-).
I agree with your last sentiment.
March 8th, 2007 at 03:50 -0700
Here’s a report from a private organization that you do not belong to, a report that you have no substantial criticisms of, you agree with the results, and yet you’re bothered that men didn’t get to contribute to it. This is what feminists rightly call the “male sense of entitlement”.
March 8th, 2007 at 11:54 -0700
It seems to me there are three options here:
1. You think that it’s OK to have a scientific report take evidence only from
people of one gender, and that to do so in no way raises issues of bias. You
would therefore decry the “female sense of entitlement” that causes women to
demand inclusion in organizations such as investigative committees.
2. You think that it’s not OK to discriminate on the basis of gender, and think
it’s wrong for scientific panels to be set up to exclude all people of one
gender. You therefore agree with me, but are arguing about some detail I’m not
grasping.
3. You think it’s OK to discriminate, but only so long as the people discriminating are women, and they’re doing it against men.
Which is it?
April 2nd, 2007 at 13:44 -0600
Obviously, that’s a false trichotomy.
Before I get to my response proper, I’d like to apologise for the “sense of entitlement” jab, which was unfair. Sorry about that.
I agree that selection of co-authors for a paper or report can be a kind of discrimination. However, it is my opinion that it is not the kind of discrimination that it is important or practical to object to. It’s entangled too closely with people’s right of free association. For example, Paul Erdős wrote papers with 511 co-authors; only 9 of them are women. Was Erdős sexist? Probably. Would it be right to criticise him for the way he selected his co-authors? I doubt that would be helpful.
Discrimination needs to be addressed over the whole field, so that women have on average as many opportunities to write papers as men. And if women are to have as many opportunities as men then given the way things are at the moment, there are going to be papers with all-female lists of authors.
And given that sexism is still endemic in science, I think it might be better for men to cut women a little bit of slack.
April 9th, 2007 at 08:04 -0600
OK, I get that. I think the failure to communicate was from my not seeing the writing of papers as an end in itself. I saw the paper as an attempt to persuade, and that attempt as being likely undermined by the selection of contributors. But if you view the publication of papers as an end in itself, then yes, the discrimination isn’t a problem.