A few days ago Andrew Sullivan put on his George Will hat and did a big harrumph about political correctness run mad. Apropos of what? Why, poor browbeaten (or should I say pussywhipped?) Sam Harris. I usually don’t expect to see Sullivan leaping to the defense of vocal atheists.
Writers are not just condemned any more for being wrong or dumb or rigid. They are condemned as sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, blah blah blah – almost as a reflex in trying to discredit their work. That’s particularly true when it comes to fascinating issues like race or gender or sexual orientation, where liberalism today seems to insist that there are absolutely no aggregate differences between genders, races, ethnicities, or sexual orientations, except those created by oppression and discrimination and bigotry. Anyone even daring to bring up these topics is subjected to intense pressure, profound disapproval and ostracism. This illiberal liberalism is not new, of course. But it’s still depressingly common.
Bullshit. There’s a difference between saying there are no aggregate differences at all, and saying it’s both lazy and destructive to point to such differences as the explanation for all forms of inequality. Oh and it’s a third thing, too – self-serving. “It’s just the difference between men and women, I don’t have to do anything, shut up and go away, but first bring me a beer.”
Sam Harris is one of its latest victims. There sure is plenty to disagree with Sam about – and we have had several such arguments and debates. But the idea that he is a sexist – and now forced to defend himself at length from the charge after a book-signing discussion – is really pathetic.
Why? Why is it pathetic? How is it pathetic? Sullivan doesn’t offer one word to substantiate the point; he just announces it.
Then he quotes what Harris said to Boorstein about Y women so dumm why his audiences skew male*.
This is impermissibly sexist because it assumes that there are some essential biological and psychological differences between men and women, and for a certain kind of leftist, this is an intolerable heresy. If that truth cannot be suppressed or rebutted in a free society, its adherents must be stigmatized as bigots. It’s a lazy form of non-argument – and may have been payback from Boorstein after Harris and she differed quite strongly on the power of fundamentalism in American culture.
But Boorstein’s premise – that because many more men than women seem to buy and read his books, there must be some sexism at work – is preposterous.
Cheap, lazy, and mindless. You know what’s much more likely to explain why there are fewer women than men at talks by Sam Harris? The fact that guys like Sam Harris, and Sam Harris himself, talk cheap lazy mindless bullshit like this. Before maundering about women’s womany natures, maybe pause to think about jeers and sneers like these. Ahhhhhhh! The light dawns. Women have better things to do than sit at Harris’s feet listening to him explain about women.
*Hyperbole crossed out in favor of more accurate summary in deference to a reasonable objection by Ron Lindsay.
Well….he’s obviously one of those homosexuals who is so busy with promiscuous sex he didn’t have time to dig into any actual facts or details of the matter because, #differences.
With all the keys mashed in defense of Harris the last few days, there must be at least one person who has attempted to answer these questions, right? I mean, statistically, there has to be someone who’s tried. Right?
(Searching … searching …)
Error 404 Page Not Found.
Two things here.
First, yes the bit about assuming essential gender differences is a problem, because there is quite a lot of actual research on these issues and:
a) We have not much, and quite weak, evidence for those essential gender differences Harris assumes;
b) We have rather a lot, and very strong, evidence for cultural attitudes, beliefs and behaviours being major factors affecting such differential outcomes in society in general.
c) We have (I’ll be charitable) “disputed”, but widespread and well publicised, reports that similar attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours are pervasive in the atheist movement specifically.
Second, the line about “Boorstein’s premise” totally mischaracterises the quote immediately preceding this. She doesn’t say “there must be some sexism at work”. She says the imbalance has prompted some to question if there is sexism at work. Sullivan puts this quote literally inches above his mischaracterisation of it:
Now Boorstein may herself be misleading us as to how she framed the question, but Sullivan gives no suggestion he has reason to believe this is the case.
These “great thinkers” do a lot of projection. It is the ultimate “lazy form of argument” to claim the person disagreeing with you is just being politically correct. And suddenly Sam Harris is a victim when anyone points out that his statements are stupid and sexist.
It should be noted that as editor of the New Republic, Andrew Sullivan helped promote The Bell Curve, known for its promotion of “scientific” racism. So it is completely unsurprising to me that he’d back “scientific” sexism too
[sarc]Oh, come on. Who cares about any of that and why should they, in the face of Common Sense and Instinctual Knowledge? There ARE differences between men and women, they are Obvious, they explain the way society is perfectly reasonably, and are abstract and fluid enough to help rationalize any feature of that society that benefits me(n) at the expense of women. Merely stating There Are Essentialist Aggregate Differences is enough to refute anybody who’s going into the why and the how, and appears to be coming up with conclusions that don’t suit my preconceptions. Because rationalism. Or religion. Or younameit.
[/sarc]
Ugh…I didn’t know about Sullivan and The Bell Curve…that’s awful news.
Ahhh – but you see, Ophelia, Sam Harris loves the gays (and helps protect the gays from the Muslims), so Sullivan loves him on the LGBT* community’s behalf.
*Not actually including women, bisexuals or trans people
This whole discussion started in response to Sam Harris’ awkward answer to a question about why men were more likely to buy his books. He bungled not only the original question but also the follow up response. Yet was he wrong? Feminists have been highly critical of the Socratic method used in most American law schools for reasons that sound a lot like what Harris was saying (men are more comfortable with a confrontational approach to a topic than women). As one female law student at Harvard explained ““Women take longer to process thoughts before they feel comfortable to say them out loud than men do,” she added that “men feel more natural in that kind of classroom atmosphere.” I’m not saying I agree with this woman (or the numerous others who share her views) but is she a sexist for expressing such a viewpoint? http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/5/8/law-school-gender-classroom/?page=1
Hi Ophelia,
I enjoy reading your blog, but your language continues to grow more polarizing and I don’t understand why. I read Sam’s initial comments which provoked the backlash, as well as his response to said backlash, and he conceded almost everything to his critics with regards to his perceived sexism. I don’t know if he’s sexist – I can’t read his mind – but he stated rather clearly he is biased in favor of women rather than against them. He may be ignorant on certain matters of gender and biology, but that’s all it is. There was nothing hateful or mean-spirited about his remarks, a quality I sadly can’t attribute to your recent writings on the subject.
Let’s be very clear on something. There is a huge and important difference between being ignorant about the differences between genders and being a bigot. If someone were to make the claim that people of African descent are in aggregate more athletically gifted than other races, they may be making a claim that is in fact ignorant, but there is nothing hateful about it. All races, genders, and orientations have such positive stereotypes (gays are more creative, asians are good at math etc.) I’m not saying any of these things are true, and likely none of them have any factual basis at all. But this is entirely different from saying something like “women are weak” which is explicitly intended to undermine and degrade, and fully deserving of public evisceration.
As far as I can tell, the essence of Sam’s comment which provoked the backlash was that women don’t like being aggressive jerks. Ignorant? Sure. But you should ask yourself whether or not that warrants the approach you’ve taken.
Finally, as a man who considers himself a feminist, I really don’t appreciate having my own gender the subject of the same mockery you decry. “Bring me a beer” – as if we’re all just a bunch of Homer Simpsons. I personally find that very offensive – and disappointing. You would make a much better case for your arguments if you left out the sexist undertones.
Best,
Nigel
@ Folie Deuce
That’s just an observation of a trend. The sexism in what Harris said was that he claimed that it was intrinsically male which he not only can’t back up but is actually contradicted by tons of data. A quick Google netted me this.
It describes studies wherein the researchers found that boys were 8 times more likely to call out an answer in class than girls and that, when they did this teachers tended to listen. When girls called out answers, they were more likely to be told they needed to raise their hand before speaking.
It also indicated that teachers prompted boys to extend their answers and back up what they’d said and so on, whereas with girls they were more likely to simply accept the response with an “Okay” or “Uhuh” and move on which obviously leaves girls feeling like their contributions are less valued.
So we encourage boys to speak up and to expound upon their answers and give them constructive feedback. But we discourage girls from speaking up and, on the rare occasion that they do, we show very little to no interest in how they arrived at their answer or in giving them any feedback. Then, when they reach adulthood and we find women to be less confrontational than men, we circularly use that as evidence of intrinsic differences.
TL;DR the sexism is not in observing the trend; it’s in attributing the trend to intrinsic differences when we actually know for a fact that people are socialized this way.
I could have phrased my post better. I’m not saying Harris is correct. I’m saying we shouldn’t assume that a bad answer to a question makes him sexist. Moreover, I’m pointing out a different context where feminists make an argument that sounds very similar to what Sam said. They may be mistaken, but I don’t think they are sexist.
I don’t get the rest of your post. The pure Socratic method (which is what feminist critics object to most strongly) involves the professor blindly calling on students at random so participation is not voluntary. In other words, at any time during class you may be asked a question without raising your hand. The critics think this method is unfavorable to women. Whether they are correct or not is irrelevant for present purposes. All I trying to say is that holding such a view does not necessarily constitute sexism.
OK Seven, I re-read your post and now I get it. “The sexism is not in observing the trend; it’s in attributing the trend to intrinsic differences when we actually know for a fact that people are socialized this way.” Is it sexism or is it merely a flawed understanding? Also, are you so sure Harris had in mind purely biological differences and not socialized differences?
Folie Deuce @ 12
You seem to be misunderstanding what we mean when we say something is sexist. We’re not claiming, generally, that anyone is going through a conscious thought process that women are inferior to men. What we’re saying is that they’re making assumptions based on cultural attitudes and unconscious biases which are not based in fact which have the effect of disadvantaging women. When boys receive positive responses for speaking out of turn and girls are told to raise their hand before speaking when they do it, the end result is that we’re not listening to girls. We’re sending girls the message that we don’t care what they have to say. And it doesn’t even matter if there’s also some innate difference going on because girls are still very probably speaking up less than they would without this negative reinforcement.
What exactly do you think “intrinsic” means? I mean he did say “to some extent” which leaves room for some other cause but what difference does it make? The intrinsic part is the part he chose to mention. And then in his explanation, he demonstrated that he doesn’t fully appreciate the impact of culture because he spoke of the sacrifices women make for family and psychology as if they’re completely distinct from sexism and culture.
So, the TL;DR this time is it’s a flawed understanding which has the effect of disadvantaging women; not necessarily a conscious view of women as inferior.
@Nigel Hancock
It’s interesting because I have the opposite perspective to yours. Maybe we can figure out why the other person is confused even if we don’t ultimately agree on things. We may not be able to read his mind, but that is not the point here. The point is what his words say.
I have not seen any concessions. Can you point them out to me? Because the perception seems very clear to me. His original comment,
I added the “*”‘s to mark what I think are critical bits.
*This part states that people don’t like to have their ideas criticized.
**This part says that being critical is intrinsically male. Is there a use of “intrinsic” that I am unaware of that does not speak of the essential nature of something or someone?
***He sets up nurturing and “coherence-building” as an opposite to criticism and judges it as a thing to do with estrogen and says that explains the lack of women.
I read his reply. He says “…made me appear somewhat sexist”, but when one suggests that criticism is an intrinsically male thing and that the opposite is estrogen based nurturing, it becomes hard to see “people” as anything but women. He says that tone should have made his words jokes, but he never explains what the joke was and why anyone should find it funny.
In his #1 he tries to say ” I started by claiming that my readership seems more male than female”. But nowhere above does he make some sort of claim about numbers, perception, and tentativeness that would make “seems” appropriate. He says criticism is intrinsically male, and atheism is not nurturing (which is estrogen-related). His “active atheists” just makes the situation worse from my perspective because now it seems that he thinks that there are no active female atheists.
In his #2 he says he does not really know if there is a gender imbalance or not. This makes things worse for me because that means that as an authority in the atheist community (who is also a neuroscientist) he is willing to casually and carelessly appeal to innate gender differences that are not separate from the effects of culture as a matter of science. Alternatively someone could explain the joke to me because I can’t see how it’s appropriate even if were to be funny to someone.
In his #3 I see the same problem that I see in his #1. He is now speaking in broad patterns that end up in different outcomes for men and women, but his original comments spoke of “intrinsic natures”. He can say that his comments were meant to be taken a particular way all he wants but the actual words he used do not imply anything like a picture that includes nature, nurture, and how both lead to what we have. He said criticism is intrinsically male, and atheism is not nurturing (which is estrogen-related).
His #4 is still sexist. There are angry women atheists who include anger in their words and I happen to like some of them. The four horsemen got respect for their anger. There is nothing wrong with anger when it is justified. There is no reason to think that anger is any less intrinsically male or female.
This makes his #5 pointless because as far as I can see. He does not have to be less angry to satisfy his critics because no one is complaining about his tone. They are complaining about the sexism in his words.
The rest is largely an exercise in changing the subject because the people here know about the sexism in the wider society. Saying that he knows it while being unable to see the sexism in his words seems like a distraction to me.
Maybe you can show me how you come to different conclusions?
About your other points.
This does not actually change anything meaningfully. Just because you only include things that prejudice or stereotype in what some might consider positive directions does not fix anything. Actions based on ignorant or false beliefs are the problem. Also I did not read anything positive into his statements so you will have to point that bit out. Criticism as a skill is considered a a benefit in the atheist/skeptic communities because it’s one tool that we use against religion and other things with bad ideas. I certainly know that many creationists considered me an “aggressive jerk”. Maybe Ms. Benson wants that too?
Since this was not directed at all men. I see nothing in there that implies all men.
Folie Deuce,
He’s not being called sexist for a “bad” answer. He’s being called sexist because he gave a sexist answer and then doubled down by explaining that he meant it and fully believes it. Exactly how clear does he need to be before we can call him sexist?
I want to add that the idea that women are just more suited for nurturing than for “men’s work” has been used to keep women from participating in higher education, government and the work force for centuries. It has been used to mansplain away the wage gap. It has been used as an excuse for promoting men over the women who trained them. It has been used as an excuse to disregard women’s experiences and opinions. Saying that it is not sexist to make that claim completely ignores the history of that claim and how it has been used to oppress women and push them into unpaid domestic servitude to the benefit of men.
It is why baby dolls, play kitchens, fairy and magical unicorns and fashion dolls and make up sets are marketed to girls while toy weapons, construction sets, dinosaurs and robots are marketed to boys. We carefully condition children into their gender roles. It is why the pink ghetto is a thing.
Nigel Hancock @ 10
No, there really isn’t. If you believe incorrect things about the differences in genders (or races or whatever), that is going to inform your behavior toward those people. If you think it doesn’t, I don’t even know what to tell you.
This is so incredibly simplistic. If people believe in a “positive” stereotype about black people being athletically gifted or Asian people being good at math or gay people being creative, then they’re going to have unrealistic expectations about those people. Those people are likely held to a higher standard with regard to those things than other groups to whom the stereotype doesn’t apply.
With regard to stereotypes of Asian people, they tend to be held up as the model minority; the ones who do well in school and business endeavors and many white people will often wonder aloud why other PoC can’t be more like them. It’s used as a bludgeon against non-Asian minorities which is unfair to Asian people as well as other PoC. That’s not harmless even though the stereotype is that they’re particularly good at something.
There’s a fairly famous video on Youtube of Neil DeGrasse Tyson answering an obnoxious question from an audience member which went something like “what’s up with chicks in science?” He describes how, when he expressed his desire to go into astrophysics, the standard response was something like “wouldn’t you rather play basketball?” So, even though a stereotype of being athletically gifted doesn’t sound like a bad thing, it’s then used to discourage black kids away from more academic pursuits which then limits what those kids are able to do once they leave school. Again, not harmless.
Look at the stereotype that women are nurturing. Being nurturing isn’t a bad thing right? But what are the results? The results are that women are expected to give up their careers to have families because they make better parents. They’re the ones who have to take time off work to stay home with sick kids. Women who prefer to remain childless get nagged by people about their biological clocks, etc. Women who choose not to give up their careers when they have kids get people tut-tutting at them for not being as involved as they should be. None of that is positive even though the stereotype itself isn’t a negative trait.
And men don’t escape unscathed from that stereotype either because a lot of employers don’t offer parental leave to fathers after the birth of their children because of this attitude that parenting is more of a woman thing.
Also, for what it’s worth? Your paternal, lecturing attitude and tut-tutting about Ophelia’s language is a great example of the kind of thing atheist/skeptic women often cite as a deterrent to their participation. Many of us find attitudes like yours and Sam Harris’ tiresome and are beyond exasperated with it and we have every right to express that in the way we talk about it.
Nigel!
Hi!
You didn’t make your case and as to “being offended.”
“It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I’m rather offended by that.’ As if that gives them certain rights. It’s actually nothing more… than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I am offended by that.’ Well, so fucking what.” – Stephen Fry
Have a seat.
Seven, what if it really is true that Africans are more athletically gifted than Caucasians? I am not saying it is, but if someone could demonstrate that scientifically would such scientist be a bigot? You have provided several good examples of how even positive stereotypes can have negative effects. I don’t dispute that. But you seem to be saying that those negative effects render any kind of inquiry into this subject a form of bigotry. What if a scientist has no motives other that to determine whether something is true or not? Is that bigotry? Are there certain lines of inquiry that cannot be pursued because of cultural sensitivities?
@ Folie Deuce
You seem to want very much for me to be saying that.
I’m beginning to doubt your sincerity here. You sound like you’re fishing for a gotcha. I’d love you to quote anything I said that gave you the impression that I think observing a trend and then subsequently trying to suss out the possible causes would be bigoted in itself. I explicitly said, in response to your first post here, that the lawyer you mentioned was merely observing a trend and even linked to a discussion of research which was studying that trend to support my point and that the bigotry in Harris’ comment was from assuming intrinsic biological differences in the face of evidence to the contrary.
If a scientist could demonstrate that African Americans are, on average, more athletically gifted than Caucasians there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem would come when we start using that information to funnel African Americans away from pursuits in which athletic ability isn’t beneficial. This is something we observably do even without evidence so I don’t see any reason to think it would change if he had the evidence. And it would be just as unwarranted if we had the evidence because “on average” doesn’t mean that all of members of X group are better than all members of Y group at Z activity.
So, no, I don’t think studying these things is inherently bigoted. What I do think is that is that trying to focus on biology to explain why there are so few members of X group in Y field before we’ve made sure that we’re not throwing up any cultural roadblocks to their participation is bigotry at work (again, bigotry is not necessarily an active desire to keep a group oppressed; it’s people acting upon cultural assumptions in a way that disadvantages a particular group). Why do I think that? Because that’s how science works. You have to control for confounding factors. Before you can say A causes B, you first have to make sure you’re studying it in an environment where nothing else could be causing B.
So, continuing with the example of African American athletic ability, any study which failed to look at the ways we push African American kids into athletics and away from academics and tried to reach a conclusion based solely on biology would find itself in my circular file posthaste. Not because I think it’s a line of inquiry “that cannot be pursued because of cultural sensitivities” but because it would be bad science.
Thanks for your response. Getting back to the article I posted re: Harvard law school, this is part of a decades long debate about the Socratic method in law schools. The argument is that women respond less favorably than men to this type of teaching method and its confrontational style. Are the women, who make that argument sexist? If so, how is their claim any different than what Harris wrote here: “My work is often perceived (I believe unfairly) as unpleasantly critical, angry, divisive, etc. The work of other vocal atheists (male and female) has a similar reputation. I believe that in general, men are more attracted to this style of communication than women are. Which is not to say there aren’t millions of acerbic women out there, and many for whom Hitchens at his most cutting was a favorite source of entertainment.”
I happen to suspect that both the feminist critics of the Socratic method and Sam Harris are wrong, I just do not see why only the latter is labeled sexist.
@ Folie Deuce
This will now be the third time I’ve answered this question. The part of Sam Harris’ comments that you’re quoting is not the bigoted part. The bigotry is where he asserts intrinsic differences between the sexes as the source of these disparities in the face of demonstrable knowledge that we very much discourage this “critical posture” in girls and encourage it in boys.
The criticism of the Socratic method is that even though it purports to pick students to answer questions at random, it’s still subject to the teachers’ biases. The only way you could actually be randomly calling on a student is if you maybe assigned them all numbers and used a random number generator to choose. The minute you stick a human in the situation and ask them to pick at random, you’re completely fooling yourself if you think the results are going to be anything like random. I think that, in a perfect world, where we didn’t socialize girls to dislike confrontation and where people didn’t have biases against the intellectual abilities of women, there would be no problem with cold calling because you would actually have a level playing field. I think the problem probably isn’t solved by abandoning the Socratic method but by making sure we’re giving girls just as much encouragement as boys in all the years before they start Harvard Law School.
The point I have been making, which the Socratic method very well illustrates is that we condition girls from a very early age not to be assertive. It’s a quality that gets labeled as bossy in girls but gets positive reinforcement with boys. You can’t look at the Socratic method, observe that women seem to do worse than men and then immediately conclude that there must be innate biological differences causing men to just be inherently better at it. If that’s what these women you keep referring to are arguing then yes, they’re just as sexist as Sam Harris because they’ve just rolled with their preconceptions instead of doing the science properly.
Seven of Mine: Shrieking Feminist Harpy@19:
I want to give that post a standing ovation.
That warrants a guest post on its own. 🙂
Nigel@10: Read the post on Ophelia’s blog ‘Harris responds to sexist fan’. Then, come back and tell us whether it is still necessary to be able to read Harris’ mind, and then decide who’s really being devisive. I’m totally ok with being devisive actually, if it means getting the sexist asswipes ‘out’ so people know who to avoid.
Yes, well said, Seven of Mine, throughout, but in #24 particularly.