I’m feeling a little too lazy to write a proper blog post tonight, but luckily I went on a little facebook rant that I can elaborate a little on.
But first, some background. Last September, Christina Hoff Sommers wrote an article for Time called “5 Feminist Myths that Will Not Die”. It crossed my Facebook feed this morning and I couldn’t resist posting a few comments.
“Much of what we hear about the plight of American women is false. Some faux facts have been repeated so often they are almost beyond the reach of critical analysis. Though they are baseless, these canards have become the foundation of Congressional debates, the inspiration for new legislation and the focus of college programs. Here are five of the most popular myths that should be rejected by all who are genuinely committed to improving the circumstances of women:”
So right off the bat, we know that this article is all about debunking myths about women… not stereotypes about women, but rather myths put forward by those who claimed to support improving women’s circumstances but aren’t “genuinely committed”.
“MYTH 1: Women are half the world’s population, working two-thirds of the world’s working hours, receiving 10% of the world’s income, owning less than 1% of the world’s property.”
I don’t know how common this is, I’d only ever encountered this in the context of a debunking. In particular, I saw an article last year pointing out that the figures were close enough 50 years ago, but didn’t allow for any progress made in the intervening decades. I recall adding up the wealth owned by all the female Walton heirs… it didn’t equal 1% of the world’s wealth, but it was enough that I am happy dismissing this as a myth. But really, has anyone been using this seriously, or is it just a straw man?
“MYTH 2: Between 100,000 and 300,000 girls are pressed into sexual slavery each year in the United States.”
This is another one that I hadn’t heard of before, though Sommers cites a few celebrities who have mentioned it. She points out that the number is based on a misreading of a study that stated 100,000-300,000 were at risk, not that they were actually being pressed into sexual slavery. Follow-up with the author of that study led to a much lower figure of “a few hundred” who were actually pressed into sexual slavery.
Sommers makes a very good point here… except that the revised figure is grotesquely understating the true number. I suspect the definition is too narrow, and probably only counts children in forced prostitution. If you add forced marriages to the definition… well, there are probably “a few hundred” children pressed into forced marriages in the little town of Creston, British Columbia, population 5000. That’s an extreme example, it would be unreasonable to extrapolate to the national population, but it’s far from the only town like that.
I suppose it’s possible those marriages don’t include sex. I don’t think that’s very likely, though.
“MYTH 3: In the United States, 22%–35% of women who visit hospital emergency rooms do so because of domestic violence.”
OK, I’ll grant that this one might just be complete hogwash. But is this a myth that won’t die, or is it just something that gets passed around as encyclopedia authors plagiarize each other? At least unlike the first myth she doesn’t claim that it’s been used to justify new laws or anything.
This reminds me of the 10% of the brain myth, or the amount of iron in spinach myth… things that started with typos and spread due to lazy fact checking. Except that, well, I’d never heard of it before so I doubt it’s spread all that much.
I guess this qualifies as the Argument from Personal Incredulity. But still, I’m a little incredulous.
“MYTH 4: One in five in college women will be sexually assaulted.”
Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. This is a thing I’ve actually heard of… not only that, but it’s been circulating since Sommers wrote her article, and I’ve seen it pop up just this last week. Actually this is probably why the article is coming up again.
And it turns out that, rather than being a myth that won’t die, it’s actually a perfectly legitimate finding that has been replicated. Just not to Sommers’ satisfaction. The studies apparently suffer from a sampling problem… Sommers claims that women who have been sexually assaulted are more likely to participate in the study than those who have not been. Well, it’s just as easy to make the counter-claim, that women who have been sexually assaulted want to avoid answering questionnaires about the experience. Underreporting of rape is a serious problem as well, after all.
Sommers goes on to claim that the definition of sexual assault is too broad, including unwanted touching, attempted forced kissing, and drugged sex. Well, guess what? Those are all sexual assault. They might not all be rape, though the last clearly is, but they are all sexual assault. That’s why the statistic isn’t given as 20% chance of rape.
I think this little rant is already too long to get into a detailed definition of rape, but can we stop pretending it only means scary black men with guns hiding in the bushes at night? The majority of rape falls into the category of “drugged sex”. Probably the vast majority.
“MYTH 5: Women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns—for doing the same work.”
Oh hey, I heard it’s up to 79% now. Progress! That’s what Sommers is complaining about, right? That the myth hasn’t been updated with the latest census data?
As it turns out, no. This one has been debated to death, but Sommers drags out the usual arguments against it. Women choose lower-paying careers, and women leave work to raise children.
Well, guess what? Those don’t explain the whole pay gap. Women make less than men in the same field, with the same amount of training and experience. The only cure for this has been unions, which reduce the gap to a few percent.
Some of the best-paying careers systematically exclude women, whether those women would like to choose that career or not. Fields that are male-dominated but become female-dominated get devalued as a result, as happened with teaching in the 19th century. Fields that are female-dominated but become male-dominated become better paying as a result, as happened with computer programming in the 1960s and 1970s. Fields that are female dominated in some places and male-dominated in other places, like medicine, are devalued in those places where they are female-dominated.
So, full disclosure, I was biased against this article from the start. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of Christina Hoff Sommers, but I have been warned about her. She’s an ex-academic who left to join a far-right think tank. She’s an outspoken anti-feminist, which I always thought was a little hypocritical coming from a woman. Surely anti-feminists would consider it unseemly for women to be outspoken? She’s also a supporter of the misogynistic harassment campaigns that have been plaguing the internet.
This is actually the first time I’ve read some of her writing directly. But I’m not impressed. She takes one or two questionable facts and attempts to overturn entire fields of study with them. She takes “not proven” verdicts and calls them complete exoneration. She glosses over thousands of rapes and enslavements as if they don’t exist. just because nobody can tell her that “thousands” is “precisely 3,811”. She dismisses drugged rape as if it was just another Tuesday, and groping or forced kissing as if it was expected and deserved on any given subway ride.
Hopefully I never have to read this sort of dreck again.
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Wait, didn't I say I felt too lazy to write a proper blog post? I guess an improper blog post was just what the doctor ordered.
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