Reading is Fundamental, yo. Via miss_curse_10 @ Flickr.
Since the story came out before Harpyness went live, we failed to comment on The New York Times Magazine story about a number of (highly problematic) current studies on female sexuality entitled “What do Women Want?”
Although I gleefully shredded it in my head, I was personally unable to churn out a response in a timely fashion. Happily, others in the feminist blogosphere did a bang-up job, and I seriously recommend you check out the responses of Phila at Echidne of the Snakes and Jill at Feministe.
If you enjoyed those take-downs, you might also enjoy the letters the Times got in response to the story (including one from Jaclyn Friedman, one of the editors of Yes Means Yes!) I am tempted to cut-and-paste my favorite bits of the various letters in, but I’d rather give you somethings to read and chew on to get you through a dreary Monday. Feel free to vent in comments.
Thanks for posting the link to the letters at the Times. Between the letters posted at the Times and the various blogs out there, others have summarized my thoughts on that article in a way that I’m unable to.
I’m so frustrated with evolutionary psychology. I used to study it as an undergrad–and I loved it. It made so much sense to me… but over time as I’ve learned more about feminism, I’ve come to realize that there’s a lot that’s just plain wrong with it.
I’m wondering–has anyone else had to reconcile their love of an academic area of study because it’s at odds with feminism? Lucky for me, studying and working in public health forces you to acknowledge how inequalities and discrimination affects the health of populations, so I haven’t had a problem with my academic field yet!
Emer — I advocate for the rights of criminal defendants and it often puts me at odds with feminist values and movements. I’m especially uncomfortable with the constitutional implications, for example, of domestic violence courts where the civil and criminal cases are heard by the same judge. It’s very uncomfortable.
I totally hate the drivel that gets passed off as evolutionary psychology. I think the field should be looked at as a bunch of science fiction or just fiction writers — interesting thought experiments, but fairly untethered to evidence and critical thought.
Oh yes, Emer. See my post on my nasty professor. The biggest problem with practitioners of evo psych is that they truly seem to believe that if a trait or characteristic is not genetic or inborn, it does not exist. They are like Libertarians in that they do not believe in “society.” It’s maddening.
Jaclyn actually went off on the NYT article during the YMY reading in DC.
Another problem, too, is that writers and reporters have no appreciation of, or respect for, the complexities and implications of the actual research.
Evo-psych is my personal bugbear, and I can’t let it go un-mocked. Even though I’m not a scientist, it’s just so patently loony! “Back in caveman times…” Puh. Leeze. I’ve just read another sloppy bit of garbage that uses “it’s in the genes!” as justification for certain types of behavior. Fisking to come, I assure you.
And I think I probably ended up in my field, rather than law, where I thought I’d go early in college, because it’s pretty politically liberal, open to non-white-straight-dudes (though we’ve got plenty of those). Also because apparently, I can’t stand the idea of having a adult’s income.
“What this woman wants is an end to tired clichés dressed up as science… a world in which anyone wondering what a woman wants knows that the best thing to do is just ask her.”
Yes! Exactly! Amen!