Pronouns and Triviality

women like a man who's a cunning linguist

Indeed. And that's my point. You can use "he," because it's neutral, but you can't "she," because it implies that the person is a woman. If "he" and "she" were both standard, then there would be no reason to say either one was sexist. Because only one is acceptable, however, that in itself is proof that the use of "he" is sexist.


See above.

i find she to be much more sexiest than he

example



versus

@ Thomas

So that's what linguistic dominance means.

I'm sure you would remain confident of that, because that is what you want the studies to find. Interview studies are notoriously unreliable because an interviewer can "telegraph" expected responses. The completion of questionnaires can be a loaded proposition, too. In one university department in which i once worked, we (the staff) were asked to complete surveys of attitudes towards women, and another of attitudes towards men. The surveys were provided by the women's studies department, who solicited our comments. The attitudes towards men survey had five possible responses: Strongly agree, agree, no opinion, disagree, strongly disagree. The attitudes towards women survey had four possible responses: Strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree. I hope you don't need the inherent bias explained to you. (The questionnaires in those two cases were prepared by different individuals.)

The questionnaires were also full of loaded questions. One i recall after nearly 30 years. "Do you think modern girls should be as free from restraint in their behavior as modern boys?" That's a "have you stopped beating your wife" question. It's a loaded question--no matter how you respond, you will have accepted the premise that modern boys are free from retraint in their behavior. There were several others, too. Having completed the surveys, we sent them back, with our criticisms. We didn't hear anything from the women's studies department, so we sent them a memo to ask them for a response. They sent back a memo to say that they were under some time constraints, and would get back to us. We never heard from them. I suspect they regretted handing their questionnaires out to adult, well-educated people, and regretted even more soliciting our comments.

Additionally, what were the controls? Was there a group of people who went through exactly the same interview process, but with the "offending" language removed? What metrics were applied to determine the nature of the reactions of those interviewed? The question of methodology is extremely important.



This is absolutely not true of the so-called hard sciences. You have data, and you phenomena, and you have the metrics to assess them. The results must be replicable, and the entire hypothesis is subject to falsification. This is simply not the case with studies of psychological (but non-pathological) and sociological claims.

Thanks. I did overlook that.

It's an interpretation, not a proof. Indeed it's not even evidence. You choose to parse the usage in a way that seems to cast a sexist light on its authors. Then you blame the authors of the usage for writing in a sexist way. Setanta is right about begging the question.

Still reading that one. In principle, the authors are investigating a type of evidence that could persuade me to change my mind. In practice, the study relies on statistics that seem to have several systematical problems. I need to take some time to consider if they're show-stoppers or not.

Just yesterday you said you're struggling to see the relevance of science at all. Today it's "methodological concerns are important but". What changed your mind? What made you believe today that methodological concerns are important?

It's interesting, because we really are dealing with differences of interpretation here. I actually don't think that it is necessarily a loaded question. Perhaps the context it was originally presented in (and which you obviously could not reasonably convey all these years later) helped to make it a loaded question, but on the specific wording above it just seems to be a statement interrogating a person's view as to whether men and women should be equal.

Methodology in social sciences is a deeply vexed thing, since the data we're dealing with is just human testimony, and we don't yet know how to apply maths to the mind (and we may never know). This is part of why I worry when people demand evidence in this discussion -I really don't think we in this forum are capable of satisfying that demand.



I think it's less true in the hard sciences, certainly, but I think all sciences proceed by argument informed by evidence, not evidence alone. Data interpretation is not unique to social sciences: I recall hearing physicists use the term -specifically Brian Cox. Also I've heard Richard Dawkins talk about the way in which theories are amassed on two sides of a debate, and evidence is accumulated for both until one becomes more accepted than the other due to overwhelming evidence. But even then its position is not safe. All theories are at risk of being overturned by new evidence, indeed physics is said to be going through a revolution of new discoveries at the moment, in areas which were previously thought to be well understood.

Psychology, which was my subject at university, actually strives to imitate the hard sciences. It can't, clearly, but it does demand rigors like replicability of methods from its experimenters, as well as a host of other checks and balances.

I don't happen to think you need science to see that using "he" in a universal way is a sexist practice, however I wouldn't like to ignore studies which impinge on this question, especially when they help my cause.

Well, that about sums it up.

I think "impinge" is a sexist verb (at least how you are using it).

More misplaced irony I suppose...

I don't blame anyone for anything. I'm just making an observation. If the impersonal "she" were just as acceptable as the impersonal "he," then we could say that using one or the other wasn't sexist. But since only one is acceptable, I'm not sure how you can reach any other conclusion than that the use of one to the exclusion of the other is sexist.


I very much doubt that.

It's a loaded question whether or not you think it is. It's a loaded question regardless of the context. The question was its entire context. When the only answers are yes or no, you perforce must accept the premises--that's what makes it a loaded question. If you can't understand that, your rhetorical skills are seriously deficient.

You really don't understand the scientific method, either. In what are called the hard sciences, one does not construct an hypothesis and then go looking for evidence (which is about how most psychological and sociological researchers do proceed). You look at the evidence, and then form an hypothesis. If you can't understand that, your scientific skills are seriously deficient.

I'm not clear on what the relevance of it being a loaded question was now, in any case it doesn't seem worth quibbling over further. I'll assume you're right about that.

I make no grand rhetorical claims for myself.

The order in which the hypothesis is arrived at is not all there is to a scientific method. Data is still interpreted -by humans, not machines- in order to construct the hypothesis. I repeat that (it seems to me that) science is advanced by argument informed by evidence, not evidence alone.

I make no grand claims for my scientific skills, either.

Poor rhetorical skills, little understanding of logic and logical fallacies, a poor understanding of the scientific method--you must have concentrated in philosophy at university.

The relevance of that, and several other loaded questions is that it poisons the validity of the survey as a measure of attitudes towards women.

Logic 101: Loaded questions, "Have you stopped beating your wife?"

Science 101: The scientific method.

Note that forming an hypothesis is the second step, after accumulating data or recording phenomena. Pay special attention to section III--one must not mistake one's hypothesis for a description of the phenomenon being examined.