A specific question about generalizations

[Orrex]

I've been reading and posting to the Women's Rights Forum for long enough to have a handle the general tides of opinion and debate here, and I've noticed a trend that I would like to discuss, with your collective indulgence.

Please don't flame me—I'm asking this question honestly and in sincere good faith.

Routinely (and hardly inappropriately!) an article or story or link will be posted detailing either some primitive male attitude or else a feminist critique of a regressive behavior by some subset of men. Soon thereafter someone, typically male, will post an objection along the lines of "not all men are like that," and someone else will quickly rebut that the article in question is speaking only of a certain group, so that men not of that group need not feel beseiged or insulted or misrepresented.

Sounds reasonable to me, to be honest. An article attacking, for example, a permissive male attitude re: rape is not attacking me, because I do not hold that attitude; therefore I myself need not feel singled out by the article and can instead learn from it (which strikes me as the progressive thing to do in any case). Similarly, a portrayal of a subgroup of men as particularly sexist or violent or bigoted is not an attack upon men as a whole or upon any one man; it is in fact a portrayal of the subgroup.

However, it seems to me that a representation of a women or a subgroup of women is more readily taken as a commentary on women overall. That is, if a particular woman or subgroup of women is portrayed in some derogatory manner, then readers here will likely object to that portrayal as a negative and nonrepresentative stereotype. This is spelled out perhaps most explicitly in entry in The Male Privilege Checklist posted some months back:

4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won't be seen as a black mark against my entire sex's capabilities.

and its inclusion there is especially telling, considering that several males in this Forum reacted negatively to the perceived generalization of men and were quickly advised that the Checklist applies to some but not all.

In short, readers are required to construe a statement about one man as pertaining solely to that one man, but somehow a statement about a woman becomes a commentary on women in general. Sure, this is the Women's Rights Forum, wherein certain protocols of communication are understood, but this phenomenon occurs on the whole of DU and elsewhere, and in any case I don't think that's a complete answer. If there were a dedicated "Men's Rights Forum" (not that one is needed), would an equivalent double-standard be tolerated?

What do you suppose is the source of this perceived One-Represents-Many attitude? Does the perception actually exist, or am I misinterpreting what I've read?

I would value your insights on this matter. Again, I'm not trying to start a shouting match, though naturally I encourage responses by people with strongly opposed views.

Thanks for your time and your thoughts.

[lukasahero]

1. I wish I had more time to consider this in depth

but I can offer a single commentary on your single item from the "Privilege checklist" and that is "history".

"4. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won't be seen as a black mark against my entire sex's capabilities." History is what makes this a woman's reality.

Larry Summers summed it up nicely when he suggested that the reason women "weren't succeeding" in science was because "women" weren't smart enough. Women have been kept out of jobs because it was deemed that "women" weren't capable. Women have been (and across the world still are) kept out of school because "women" shouldn't be too educated. Men have no similar history. The Checklist item is valid.

Your observation deserves discussion but I ask you to consider how long a history of holding women accountable as a monolithic "all" has wreaked havoc on how women as individuals bear the burden of their success and failure. Men have always been allowed to succeed or fail based on their individual abilities. Women are still not allowed that kind of privilege.

[patrice]

2. source = the individual's motive

And either a general lack of understanding or misuse of what "knowledge" (the basis for saying anything about anything, i.e. Science) is and how it is constructed.

Whatever trait you're talking about, if it were possible to create a valid and reliable test for that trait in a representative sample of the subject population, the data that test will produce (i.e. the measurements of the trait in the population) will manifest a "normal distribution" (a.k.a. the bell curve). Meaning there will be relatively few subjects highly characterized by the trait, relatively few subjects lowly characterized by the trait, and by far most subjects characterized by an average of the measures, i.e. ratios of strong trait to weak trait near the group's central tendency. This means that "either/or" is, by far, usually wrong.

People often misuse "generalizations". One needs to ask why.

[noamnety]

3. The academic term you're asking about is "stereotype threat"

"If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won't be seen as a black mark against my entire sex's capabilities."

The short summary is that if you feel you are representing your "group" in an area where your "group" typically underperforms, you will underperform. (statistically speaking)

The longer explanation is that this is a studied/tested/proven phenomenon. It can be reproduced in any group, not just minorities. The classic study described in the documentary "A Class Divided" demonstrated that in less than a day, brown-eyed children who are identified as part of the lesser-performing brown-eyed group will underperform on tests. And the following day - even after JUST seeing the brown-eyed children going through the same thing, the same effect was achieved on the blue-eyed kids. (might have the order of the brown/blue reversed, but no matter).

That was one day worth of indoctrination into stereotype threat. Women and blacks typically get this training not just one day, but every day, day after day after day for years.

So the problem isn't one of women saying "OMG, now I just made all women look bad!" The problem is that women actually perform worse academically and physically when they are brainwashed like this, which makes them not live up to their potential.

Steele extended the concept to stereotypes after joining the faculty of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1987. While advising a program for minority students, he noticed that although these young people had enrolled with the same SAT scores as others, their grades trailed those of white students and they dropped out in much higher proportions. The trend still holds true across the country: In the 1990s proportionately one fifth more blacks left college than whites. When they did graduate, their grade-point averages were two thirds of a letter grade lower.

Steele wondered if the Michigan students suffered from a kind of self-image threat, so with colleagues Joshua Aronson and Steven Spencer, he designed a series of studies. They gave sophomores matched by SAT scores a frustrating section of the Graduate Record Examination. When first told that the test evaluated verbal ability, the black students scored a full standard deviation lower on average. But when the researchers described it as a study of problem-solving techniques unimportant to academic achievement, the scores for blacks leaped to the same level as those for whites.

Mathematically accomplished women react comparably, Steele has observed. When given a difficult set of problems, they assumed their math abilities were under fire and scored significantly lower than men. But when told that gender could not affect scores, the women did as well as equally skilled men. Steele developed the theory of stereotype threat--that is, when people are challenged in an area they care deeply about, such as intellectual ability, the fear of confirming negative stereotypes can hurt their performance.

Social psychologists rapidly accepted the idea and even identified stereotype threat in groups not typically associated with bias. When experimenters told white golfers that the quality of their game would reflect "natural athletic ability" instead of their strategic intellectual prowess, their performance was much worse than that of black players. White male students' performance was similarly depressed when they took a math test in which Asian-Americans were said to do better. Internalized self-doubt could be eliminated as the cause, Steele and his colleagues concluded, because white men are not typically susceptible to worries about collective inferiority.

http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000AB254-3CFA-11E7-BB5883414B7F0000

The reason this becomes a matter of white male privilege - even though psychologically speaking, any group is susceptible to it - is that the reality is white males are affected by stereotype threat far less than women or blacks. There is not a pervasive message in our culture that white males are less successful at verbal skills, at public speaking, at science and math, at management, at academics in general, and so forth.


Edit to add: I can't tell you how strongly I recommend actually reading something on gender issues, so you are familiar with actual studies and real data.

[Orrex]

6. From this, it sounds like "brainwashing" is an apt description

The reason this becomes a matter of white male privilege - even though psychologically speaking, any group is susceptible to it - is that the reality is white males are affected by stereotype threat far less than women or blacks. There is not a pervasive message in our culture that white males are less successful at verbal skills, at public speaking, at science and math, at management, at academics in general, and so forth.

So it's not that white males are immune to stereotype threat, but rather that society is set up to reduce/minimize that threat's effect upon white males? I can see that, I think.

When experimenters told white golfers that the quality of their game would reflect "natural athletic ability" instead of their strategic intellectual prowess, their performance was much worse than that of black players. White male students' performance was similarly depressed when they took a math test in which Asian-Americans were said to do better.

This is intriguing to me, and it would seem to present an interesting possibility (if it wasn't already explored in the experiments); might several subjects be told that their racial or gender group typically does better on a test, to determine what impact a positive expectation might have?

Internalized self-doubt could be eliminated as the cause, Steele and his colleagues concluded, because white men are not typically susceptible to worries about collective inferiority.

I'd like to see further data on that part, because I think that it pertains directly to my original question. That is, if a male reacts to a perceived generalization based on his gender, does that not speak of "worries about collective inferiority" as well? Granted, it's on a much different scale, but I think that it's at least similar.

Thank you for your extensive reply.

[noamnety]

8. Yes yes and hypothetically

So it's not that white males are immune to stereotype threat, but rather that society is set up to reduce/minimize that threat's effect upon white males?

Yes to both of those statements - and I would phrase it a little stronger than minimize - maybe "eliminate" is the word we want. There's no stereotype threat, if there's no cultural indoctrination that as a class white males are inferior to other genders/people of color.

might several subjects be told that their racial or gender group typically does better on a test, to determine what impact a positive expectation might have?

Yes, and the blue/brown eye experiment showed that. The students who were told they were in the better group surpassed their previous normal test scores (the scores from before the study occured, when they weren't in a good group or a bad group, they were all just kids.

That is, if a male reacts to a perceived generalization based on his gender, does that not speak of "worries about collective inferiority" as well? Granted, it's on a much different scale, but I think that it's at least similar.

I'm gonna rephrase that statement to be hypothetically true. If a male reacts to a perceived generalization based on his gender that he has less innate ability by underperforming, that would speak to his worries about collective inferiority. Hypothetically, yes.

I say hypothetically because we don't get the nonstop bombardment of messages from tv, from video games, from movies, from advertising, from journalism, from the makeup of boardrooms or colleges or the military or history books that white males have less innate ability.

[Boojatta]

13. If there's a pervasive message that C is false, then there isn't a pervasive

message that A, B, and C are all true, but there may be a pervasive message that A is true.

Written by lwfern:

There is not a pervasive message in our culture that white males are less successful at verbal skills, at public speaking, at science and math, at management, at academics in general, and so forth.

Written by someone who may or may not be misinformed about the conclusions reached by authors of psychological studies:

Incidentally, I know that such generalizations would offend certain people. I'd like to emphasize that this is not my intent at all, nor do I wish to make excessively broad generalizations about either gender. However, a multitude of psychological studies do claim that men have-on the average-a greater aptitude for mathematics and mechanics than women do, whereas women tend to perform better (than men? -- Boojatta) at linguistics and communication. These tendencies coincide well with my own observations, so for now, I'll assume that these studies are reasonable descriptions of gender differences.

Source:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Why-More-Women-Should-Consider-a-Career-in-Computer-Programming&id=6029

[noamnety]

14. The key phrase in my post was "pervasive message"

While there may be studies showing that men don't perform as well as women on verbal tests, the media doesn't bombard us with the nonstop message that men are stupid when it comes to language.

The message we get is that public speakers are male, as the default setting, (Cronkite, Rather, Olbermann, Murrow, and politicians), and that writers are male as the default setting (classic novels, journalists, etc.).

The cultural message we are bombarded with is that men are more successful as public speakers and as writers.

[SemperEadem]

4. The source?

IMO, the Bible and by extension, the church. It became ok since the day Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden of Eden to negatively judge all women.

Take for instance the words of the 16th century Presbyterian firebrand, John Knox, in his vulgar diatribe "The First Blast Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women", which was aimed at Queens Mary Stuart of Scotland and Queen Mary I Tudor of England (mainly because they were Catholic Queens, but Queen Elizabeth I Tudor was offended by his hysteria when she, a Protestant Queen, ascended the throne in November, 1558): "For who can deny but it is repugnent to nature, that the blind shall be appointed to lead and conduct such as do see? That the weak, the sick and impotent persons shall nourish and keep the whole and strong? And finally, that the foolish, mad and phrenetic (women) shall govern the discrete and give counsel to such as be sober of mind (men). And such be all women, compared unto man in bearing of authority. For their sight in civil regiment (government) is but blindness; their strength, weakness; their counsel, foolishness; and judgment, phrensy, if it be rightly considered."

It is of little wonder that now, in the 21st century, that women have no tolerance of such broad-stroke, negative language being used to justify subjugation our sex. You also have to be made aware that it was only in the 20th century that women got the right to vote in this country and in England... and it wasn't handed over to us willingly. Women had to fight--they had to endure beat downs by men--in order to gain this right. It took a damn amendment to the consitution (#19) for it to happen. The justification used to deny women the right to vote was biblical, since according to the bible, one woman was judged to be 'wicked', then all women then must be wicked because God said so. That is anathema to a thinking, intelligent woman.

[Orrex]

7. Well, any complaint about biblical stupidity is right on the money IMO

There's enough destructive nonsense in that craggy old tome to justify its wholesale abandonment as any sort of moral guidebook. I mean, I don't go to 2000-year-old sources for scientific, aesthetic, or economic theory, so why would I identify such a book as a relevant source of modern morality? Phooey, sez I!

You've tapped into a concept of societal momentum, for lack of a better term. I guess the more formal designator is "provincial wisdom," which in itself is of course a fallacy. If it was good enough for a fellow's great-great grandfather, then it's good enough for today, right? Nonsense, obviously, but alas it carries great weight, and I think that it presents a serious strategic challenge for anyone working to change it in the modern world.

Of course I know the 19th Amendment, by the way, and among its other virtues it demonstrates clearly that the "founding fathers" weren't the demigods that modern Consitutional literalists wish them to be (I'm talking to you, Scalia!)

[Orrex]

5. Those are some great responses--thank you!

I confess that I left my office shortly after posting and was a little nervous about what would await me when I got back to DU. I am greatly pleased by the throughtfulness of the replies.

Thank you all for the good discussion so far!

[omega minimo]

10. Thank you for trying to help clarify this

:thumbsup:

[omega minimo]

9. The trick is to have a sense of self DISTINCT from behavior that is societal

and to not conflate the two.

It's confusing for some men to understand when we say "It's not all about YOU" and it's hard for some of us to understand why they can't see the difference and view ideas objectively without getting THEIR egos bruised.

A recent thread explored it to the point that I was left with no other possible conclusion (gone round this block on DU many times) that for SOME men, it is just impossible to make that distinction. Lwfern had some brilliant posts on the contributing factors to why that may be so.

That last big thread left the question, what is it they are afraid of (retribution)? And is that fear enough to prevent them from having the confidence to view the concepts intellectually and not (completely) personally?

[Morgana LaFey]

11. Another reply

and you've had some good ones.

In short, readers are required to construe a statement about one man as pertaining solely to that one man, but somehow a statement about a woman becomes a commentary on women in general....

First, I think you've overstated the problem a bit. I can read something derogatory about A woman or even women in general and sort it out and KNOW that I'm not included in that group, no problem. But an awful lot of men here just can't seem to do that. OR, perhaps they don't want to. They just want to hijack a thread (and subconscious motivations count too, you know!) and make it all about them, or deflect the general criticism. Or whatever.

BUT, there's another factor at work in why I WILL be offended even tho I can see clearly I'm not in the group of women negatively identified, and that is, seeing stereotypes of women promoted harms ALL women because it's not that I'm individually and specifically insulted, but rather that it feeds the minds and attitudes of the rest of the population so that I WILL meet up with people whose views and attitudes toward women tend toward the negative because of the promotion of these stereotypes.

See? IOW: It's the STEREOTYPES, stupid. (And I'm making a joke, not calling you stupid.)

I've never been and never COULD have been mistaken for a "dumb blond," but I know that that stereotype hurts women. It hurt Anna Nicole Smith, even while she played to it, just as it hurt Marilyn Monroe. And I'll also say that one reason I never could have been mistaken for a "dumb blond" is that I put a lot of effort into making sure I couldn't be. So it harmed me too, during the several years I was a blond, and it harmed me when I wasn't because I still had to work hard to be SURE that no one mistook me for a dumb broad (of whatever hair color).

Stereotypes are crippling, and they diminish women's lives in real ways.

Gender slurs are incredibly harmful, as well, and also diminish women's lives and hopes and options for fulfilling our full potential - in ways that don't relate at all to the individual woman being slurred and denigrated. DUers who like to use the words "bitch" and worse really don't understand this (or perhaps they do). I see those words used, and they are almost ALWAYS -- 99% of the time -- quite gratuitiously used. The DUers knows he (or sometimes she, alas) is using a word that supposedly DU frowns on, but that will be allowed, and so like naughty children knowing they're getting away with it, go right ahead and use it, just becauze they can. It's very discouraging.

[Quantess]

12. I despise the 'One-Represents-Many attitude'.

People really need to look beyond stereotypes, and additionally, we need to appreciate that there are mature individuals who are able to see each person for their merits not attributable to the stereotype of their gender / sex / etc.
(If you didn't catch that, since you're a guy and all, I was talking about you.)
:evilgrin:

'In short, readers are required to construe a statement about one man....'
They're REQUIRED TO, these days? Damn, it's a wonder anyone wants to be a reader anymore, LOL.

In short, I just don't really get your point. I'm not a woman who minces words, however, you seem to.
I DID miss every one of those threads you mentioned, though, which doesn't help me to know what you're talking about.

It's all about growth capacity in terms of learning about other people who are different than you, but also alike in may ways. Tonight on DU I asked a question dealing with race, because, like you, I just need some insight on how people of a different "category" of people see things.

It's somewhat sad that different groups of people see themselves as so different, even male to female, that they don't understand each other, and even regard one another as a different species! (Yes,we have all heard the colloquial male species or female species Or even the common, but insidious "men and women are SO different!!1!"

When in fact, (well, if you believe scientists, LOL) men and women are something like 99% alike. Sure, that 1% difference feels like a heavy hitter, as we all know. But, no matter what gender a child is, each child is a little like their father and a little like their mother, and, every person alive on earth today was born of a mortal human woman (unless the headlines on The Globe are true). A few ignorant dimwits hate themselves for being "HALF WOMAN"1!!1!, while simultaneously thinking that women all want to F*** them or get raped by them .

Orrex, I don't remember having any interchange with you, but you seem like a nice person. I want you to know that I do appreciate nice men, and I do understand that there is only so much an individual person can do to bridge the gap. However, every little bit counts.