Is It Sexist If It's Based On Scientific Fact?

Hello,

Let's say (hypothetically) that a thoroughly scientific study was done on the difference in intelligence between men and women. Let's say the results showed that men are, on average, more intelligent than women. Would it then be sexist to make the claim "men are, on average, more intelligent than women" if it's based solely on this study? Would the scientists who conducted the study, in publishing the results, be sexist for so publishing them?

I've always thought of sexism as an attitude--a derogatory one--and not just a belief in certain differences between men and women if it's meant in or based on a scientific/objective context.

My personal opinion is that if the hypothetical study above was conducted and published and someone who had read it brought it up in a conversation (because it was relevant to the discussion), he/she would still have an obligation to be sensitive about it. It's still not an excuse to go around spouting out unflattering information just because it happen to be proved in a scientific journal. It's not a free license to say things like "men are, on average, more intelligent than women" without any concern for how that affects the listener emotionally. That's not to say I think it's sexist to bring a point like this up, just that it would be appropriate to say it in the right manner, something like:

"Now, I don't say this to be sexist, or to offend anybody, but it happens to be a proven fact that men are, on average, more intelligent than women. I only say this because it's relevant to the discussion and it's important for my point."

What do you think? Is it acceptable to bring up scientifically proven facts about certain differences between men and women (where one ends up seeming "superior" in some way to the other) if done in a respectful and polite manner?

 

This really all comes down to issues of what is "intelligence", how do we measure it, and what does it mean when women or non-whites score lower on "intelligence tests" created by white males.

 

Didn't read your post in it's entirety.

No, reporting results is not sexist, regardless of the cause of those results. To not report results or not do so accurately because they show gender disparity would be as sexist as it gets.

Equality among the sexes does not exist and never will - and that's just fine. What needs to be equal is opportunity. To steal someone else's example (I believe), being a firefighter is fucking hard, it's physically demanding to the point that many fit men are really not capable of it - women, on average, have dramatically less strength than men - but if a woman has the strength to, and wants to be a firefighter, of course she should be permitted to, capability should be the only thing that matters, gender should be irrelevant.

 

Actually the research showed that Men on average are smarter than blonde women---and so are black, brown, brunette, red, silver, and grey haired women... (I'M JOKING! I'M JOKING!)

Yes it is sexist----and here is why, people are people, and on average they have 1 boob, half a penis and half a vagina. Some people are smarter than others, some people are dumber than others. There is a study that found that on average, one group of men is smarter than another group of men. Now back to that average person----I have looked all over the place for that average person, because I figure I could reason with its male side to show me its boob---but you know----one would think that as an average, it would be everywhere, but no, I haven't seen a single one.

Now to that, you might counter that you are talking scientific research, with data, peer reviews, and everything. It was carefully done in a controlled environment, and might have even involved great diversity, and they even used a computer. (Please forgive any injection of humor at your expense, _underscore_, I am just having a little fun, and don't mean to insult you, or your mother, or your argument, so don't take those parts seriously.)

Well-----for the longest time, it was believed that white middle and upper class individuals had higher IQ's than that of ethnic groups. There was scientific proof----the vast quantity of IQ tests themselves. That lasted until it was demonstrated that IQ test questions have a strong cultural bias in favor of middle and upper class white people. In other words the tests were structurally flawed to produce such results.

Or consider that the Nazi's used science--eugenics--to prove that blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryans were superior to Semitic peoples---namely the Jews. Eugenics had its examples to back it up---its scientifically proven data----in fact eugenics is not even science, but rather a Social Philosophy---but prior to World War II, it was embraced world wide as a science---even resulting in forced sterilizations in places like California of unwanted people. The Nazi's demonstrated how evil such beliefs as 'science' becomes and today we know that Nazi eugenics was simply racism---not science-------but it was science back then. And eugenics still pops up all over in various forms-----it is, for example, very inherent in the right wing arguments over entitlements in the US today.

In fact, a scientific study demonstrating the superiority of men over women is just that----a eugenic study.

Ok----now you are going to come back and tell me-------"They even tested my mother for Christ sakes! It is scientific---and believe me, I know how dumb my mother is..."

Here's the thing-----I have been working for years on a book that deals with the oldest word in the human language (The c-word to be exact, and I don't mean cancer). I have found that world languages are filled with evidence that suggests that mankind did not originally see much difference between the genders----basically we were just two halves of a whole in the reproductive process. Then there are clues that point to the early planter cultures and the rise of the group ethic and the in-group out-group mentality that accompanied an understanding of the superiority of one gender over another. Initially it was the female over the male with the rise of the goddess cults. But as City-States formed and the institutions of civilization took shape, the male rebelled and became superior to the female.

On a psychological basis, the shift into a group ethic in the early planter cultures from the more individualistic hunter-gatherer zeitgeist began a long process of increasing focus on conscious-mind (or ego-based) existence, and seeing the world in ever more objectivistic terms and perspectives (I use ego, in a Jungian sense here). In other words, humans began to become increasingly alienated from their unconscious selves. We were no longer whole individuals. In this way, humans began to specialize in gender specific traits. Men focused on the so-called rational traits of the conscious mind, while for women it was the irrational traits of the subconscious---rationalism for men, for example, and intuition for women. Masculine traits focused more on the objective side such as logic, while the feminine traits were focused more on the subjective side, such as love, and feeling. This did not mean that men were better at logic or rationalism than women, nor did it mean that women were better at intuition and love than men. It did not mean that women were better at childbirth than men---wait a minute, scratch that last part…

The onset of civilization, and especially after the rise of the masculine, men were viewed as the aggressive gender, and women the passive one, so it made sense that women would take on the more passive traits, which were more Dionysian, or tied into nature---in a sense the much older and titanic traits. Men, in their more aggressive nature, would naturally be associated with the more aggressive Apollonian traits associated with the force of man and his own rise above his own nature through the development of his ego, just as he subdued the Titanic forces of his past.

The problem is that still today we live in a very masculine-dominant world, and have become even further alienated from our own selves. Therefore these gender roles and traits are programmed into us, at a cultural level. We are programmed at a level that is so essential and fundamental to our social roles and even to our existential experience, that it seems that it is truly the only way it could ever be.

But if women because of this programming are more likely, for example, to go into nursing, while men are more likely to go into being a doctor---then what would the scientific evidence show us? Doctor’s on the average would measure higher on an intelligence scale than nurses. After all, Doctors have studied medicine for much longer and at a much more intricate level than nurses.

The real question that would address the implications of such a study would be more along the lines of whether or not a woman has the ‘potential’ to be more intelligent than a man. We do not have any manner of measuring such potentials----intelligence tests and IQ tests are always going to be culturally biased, and therefore flawed.

Now----is there a respectful way of interjecting such a flawed experiment into a conversation? Like any other eugenics issue or argument, it has a discriminatory conclusion. You are basically telling the women in the discussion----“I am glad you shared your quaint opinions with us today, but you know that you will never be an equal to one of us. Now run along honey and fix us some dinner.”

 

Liberals are just as against evolution as fundementalist christian conservatives.

There was a study that found there is greater standard deviation among men's intelligence than there is among women's intelligence, not greater average intelligence, greater standard deviation.

Standard deviation is a value in statistics that tells you the average amount each value is from the mean, or average.

The study found that there is greater standard deviation among many different things for men than there is for women.

The authors hypothesized that men have had to take more chances genetically to mate than women, and other studies seem to corroborate this theory

For example other studies using chromosomal analysis and mitochondrial DNA analysis have found throughout 200, 000 years of known human history 80% of females have reproduced, while only 40% of males have reproduced.

Anyways a dean at Harvard was fired for proposing the reason there are more men in STEM than women is because there's greater standard deviation among men's intelligence than there is among women's intelligence, and he was fired from Harvard for making this proposal.

Liberals reject findings in scientificstudies on evolution, just as fundemental christian conservatives reject findings on scientific studies on evolution.

Fundementalist christian conservatives create museams with humans riding on the back of dinasours, and liberals fire people.

 

same argument as race, is it racism if based on scientific fact?

 

Thanks for your replies everyone...

Keep in mind, MVW, that the intelligence thing was only an example. You can pick any other example you like, and you can state it in terms of men being shown to be better than women at X or women being shown to be better than men at X. My point is whether we should make a distinction between seemingly sexist statements based on attitude, prejudice, preconceptions, etc. or based on what seems to be a hard fact of reality.

But I take it you think it's sexist either way. You seem to be saying that to appeal to science or objectivity at all is to have a bias in favor of the traditionally "masculine" way of gaining knowledge and establishing truth, as opposed to the traditionally "feminine" way of intuition and subjectivity. Is this what you're saying?

If this is true, it would undermine any scientific findings, including those that are neutral in regards to sex differences or show that the sexes are equal on things like intelligence or other measures. In other words, it's not so much the results of the study that might be sexist, but the fact that it was done scientifically. And this would imply that if someone felt that men were superior to women on some trait X based on both their intuition and some scientific study they came across, and weighted them both equally, then that person could not be charged with sexism, at least not according to your reasoning.

I'm not sure if this is what you meant to say... did I misunderstand?

 

Good question. Is it?

 

no. but saying it in a context not related to this imaginary study would be

 

Yes. pickle - harvard is run by feminists, and scared shitless of feminists, like everybody else who tangles with them and wants a positive public image.

 

Yes---I understand that it is an example, and I would say that there are numerous things that men are better at, and women are better at-----women are better at ovulating, men are better at ejaculating. Women are better at giving birth, men are better at, uh, telling them to push harder as they give birth. Men can turn many women into mothers, while women can only turn one man into a father (unless you are from one of the various tribes---such as many of those in the Amazon---that believe that it takes the semen of numerous men to make a well-rounded, healthy, talented baby).

But if you notice---such eugenic-based studies as those you are talking about, even if you are not citing an actual study but providing a 'what-if' always----and I mean always support the dominant group---whether they are white people researching non-white people, Nazi's researching Jews, cripples, the mentally, and dissidents, the upper classes researching the lower classes, Christians researching non-Christians, and yes, even men researching women.

It is not exactly science that I have issue with---the fact is, it was science that discovered the flaw with the IQ tests. I would also say that it is the social sciences that would back up what I am saying about why such a study would be flawed. It is science that eventually shows the flaws that existed in every single study that proves the superiority of one group over another.

I do have a problem with the intent of such a study-----people are people, which is what we eventually discover. There are smart people and their are dumb people, it doesn't matter if you are white, black, male, female, civilized or uncivilized. Any time such a study is done, it ignores the science that demonstrates the inherent flaws in such a study.

 

Women tend to be more verbal and social, while men typically display greater natural ability to process three dimensional space and motion. A true sexist assumes that everyone is typical for their gender, rather than being open minded enough to realize that you may encounter a couple where their relative strengths are just the opposite of what you expected.

 

Sorry---I kept falling asleep last night as I posted that.

To clarify a little further, I am saying that, other than the biological differences I stated in the previous post, there are no true gender differences---they are only culturally programmed into us, and this programming is largely justified because we find ourselves so alienated from our own selves.

I have lived in cultures where women are still believed to be best suited for the kitchen, and raising children. The professional world is heavily dominated by men there. Women clean desks and make tea, and even when they do the same jobs they get far less pay and little recognition for it. On the other hand I have lived in a culture where the men, for the most part, play a traditional dominant role as lazy oafs (drinking and socializing) while the women did much of the work. There the women are the backbone of society and accomplish far more professionally than most of the men do today. Here too men tend to have dominant professional positions, but many women hold dominant positions there too, and the workforce is composed of a greater percentage of women than men. In this latter case much of what is accomplished in the professional world is accomplished by women---including decision making. They usually get fair pay and are recognized for what they do. Women tend to be more educated there as well.

Even if we were to take into consideration culturally programmed gender roles as a factor of measuring the intelligence of men and women it would not be accurate. Intuition can arguably represent a different dynamic than reasoning based on learned information. One is subconscious and feeling-based, the other is conscious and logic based. This is why I said that the only accurate way would be to measure based on the potential for intelligence rather than the level of intelligence---which is what IQ tests try to do---but so far to date, this is impossible without relying on cultural biases (as is demonstrated already by the inherent flaws in IQ tests).

The objectivism of science and rationalism is great, until we allow it to deny the subjectivism of individuality and our own existential freedom.

 

I think the example in your op sucks. IQ tests are culturally and socially biased and they also test for several different types of intelligence and quantify it into one number. If you start to break it down into different types of intelligence you may see one gender excel in one area, and the other gender excels in a different area. It isn't really fair to say overall one gender is more intelligent than the other.


if you used a different example you would have to be careful to present only statistically factual information. You can say more men become mechanics than woman, but you can't say men are better mechanics than women as there is no way to quantify that.

 

I don't see any feasible way to measure intelligence. Standardized testing is already proven horrid. If a test like that were to come up.. (Though I'm never one to believe in statistics) I'd make the argument that women haven't had the same access to education as men on average.

You're also looking at only 2 groups. With that small of a variance, you could make many wild claims with statistics. "Women are on average more literally skilled than Men." "Men are on average better musicians than women" Anything you wanted.. because of course one will rank a bit higher than the other. But it's meaningless as always, because this doesn't mean anything to an individual. Let's say, "Men ARE more intelligent than Women on average" This statistic doesn't mean a woman can't be smarter than all of her male friends. It doesn't mean anything.

So when a person goes blabbering around a statistic like this in conversation, it makes me think the person thinks of the human potential being limited by gender. Which in turn is sexist.

 

MVW, thanks for clarifying your point.

And could that be considered sexist?

I agree with all of that.

The general consensus in this thread seems to be that it's the context and the meaning of the speaker making the statement that determines whether it's sexist or not (and that we're pressed for a real world example of when such a statement could be said in a completely non-sexist context or with a non-sexist intent--at least when it comes to intelligence). I'm inclined to agree with this. I can't really think of a good example when such a statement about the IQ differences between men and women would be brought up to serve a non-sexist purpose. Like I said to MVW, however, I'm not really fixated on intelligence. For me, the question is more about to what extent could it be considered sexist to state a brute fact about reality if it so happened be unflattering or degrading to one sex and not the other.

For example, consider this scenario: a group of people are having a debate on whether women are better than men at X (I'll leave X undefined on purpose), men are better than women at X, or both sexes are the same. They approach a group of social scientists and hire them to do a study to settle the question. The scientists do the study, hoping and expecting to find that both sexes are the same, but disappointingly find that one of the sexes scored significantly higher than the other (again, not saying which). But they've been paid to deliver the results and so they do, publishing them in a journal. Are they sexist--the scientists--for deriving the results they did? For publishing them? If their methods were sloppy, should we charge them with being sexist or is this just bad scientific practice?

 

Inspired by your post, I did set up an experiment today to see which were better---men or women. I used a large population of diverse people, both genders, and that represented a very diverse cross section of the population---ethnically, by age, and economically. The question I asked was, 'Which sex makes a better sexual partner, a man or a woman?' (Now I do feel very strongly, in fact exclusively so, that women make better sex partners---but believe me I did not let my personal preferences affect the results).

The results were conclusive, and not surprisingly---just as I had expected----women. It was surprising that a significant portion of the male population thought that men made better partners. The majority of women also thought that men made better partners. After careful consideration for a moment or two, I decided that since the latter test group was all women, their answers didn't really count and would just be entirely deleted from the results. That solved a good portion of the inconsistencies in the study. But there was still a problem with a number of the male subjects. Obviously, they didn't understand the question. So the question was rewritten: 'Which makes a better sexual partner, a woman, or more women?' This time the results made actual sense, the subjects responded with a 100% preference towards a feminine partner--but not surprisingly---'more women' was the dominant response. Clearly women are better than men, and so much so that it is, the more the merrier...


(Sorry----I couldn't help myself. I have a serious response I was going to go into from here----but now I am again very tired and can't keep my eyes open------I will continue my answer in the morning.)

 

While last night's post was done in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion it illustrates a problem with scientific research in an age where relativism is reaching a critical mass in our culture. In other words---one would think that the objectivistic empirical data used in any study would give us accurate and purely objective results that would provide, as much as possible, the truth.

Unfortunately truth is more relative than ever---therefore it is more a question of who is paying for the study, and what agenda they are trying to achieve. In a world where vast amounts of scientific data on global warming, is refuted by a significant portion of the US government, including those who are 'in charge of science' so to speak; where homosexuality is evil, and therefore dangerous, because it was written down in a book some 4,000 years ago or so; and where men in power, who do not have vaginas, objectively decide that they know everything there is to know about vaginas and therefore have the right to legislate vaginas; then it would not be surprising that there would be a scientific study that would prove, as in my last post, that women make the best sexual partners.

In a world that gives as much credence to anti-science and pseudoscience as it does real science, and where scientific studies are bought and paid for to produce specific results and conclusions, eugenics-based research that seeks to identify superiority in one group of humans over another is a dangerous thing.

There is a book that was written by Carl Jung in the 1950's that was very good. It basically spoke out against the post-World War II era objectivism in favor of the value of the individual---it is called The Undiscovered Self. In our own nation, the shift towards objectivism became so critical in the 1950's and early 60's that our culture spawned an ubermensch to save us from ourselves---the Hippies. Once again we find ourselves embracing objectivism at the sake of the individual. Only this time it is in a world where relativism has destroyed the value, integrity, and even the authority of what we, as a culture, take to be scientific truth.

Any such study that seeks to prove the value of one human over another should immediately be deemed sexist or racist depending on what groups the study attempts to classify.

 

I must say that I wasn't aware that the biological differences between a man and a woman went to that extent----and yet both are made from the same primal embryonic structure (for example the clitoris as structurally a primitively formed penis). Yet I would still consider a study that indicates that men are more intelligent than women as sexist, as well as any other similar study, because of the reasons I have stated, the fact that it does imply superiority, and because it does fit number 2 in Meagain's quoted definition of sexism.

To state that one gender is more intelligent than the other is a more broad conclusion based on greater assumptions and with wider implications than stating that woman are global thinkers and man are sequential thinkers (though even this difference may be the result of cultural programming rather than physical structure---consider that sequential thinking is, if I understand correctly, a linear thought process, and theory suggests that linear thought was imposed upon man with the invention of writing. Either way, global thinking relates more to the subconscious, while sequential thinking relates to the conscious mind and therefore fits right into the stereotype of gender roles).