We-Wah, a Zuni Berdache, from New Mexico, who was born biologically male but lived as a Two Spirit woman. via Chicago Whispers

Sociology and anthropology have long used the experiences of “third sex” cultures, such as the Native American Two Spirit people, to teach students about the social construction of sex and gender. In many cultures around the world, people are allowed to live their lives beyond conventional binaries; they need not adhere to the biological sex they were born into. These people are usually revered and there are special circumstances where individuals are allowed to shift their gender position. These groups, including the Two Spirit people, are used as examples in the sociology of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersexual (LGBTQI) issues. Recent scholarship, however, has questioned this practice, demonstrating that social scientists are applying Western concepts to misappropriate the Two Spirit phenomena.

My post gives a broad overview of the social science concepts of gender and sexuality. I then discuss the spirituality, gender and sexuality of Two Spirit people as well as the history and culture that informs their social position. Let me put my analysis in context: I am not Native American nor am I a transgender person. I identify as a non-white, cis-woman (that is, my biological and gender identity align). As a sociologist who has researched, published on and taught gender and sexuality courses, I seek to explore how Western social scientists, queer theorists and other social activists have misappropriated the Two Spirit experience to highlight social causes.

I propose that social science needs to move forward from our dominant understandings of the Two Spirit experience. My aim is to start a conversation about how we might expand sociological understandings of gender and sexuality using this case study. How do we best communicate the social construction of gender and sexuality to students and to the public? I argue academics and activists need to be mindful that, even with the best of intentions, misappropriation of cultural traditions of minority groups is dangerous. This perpetuates historical practices that have silenced Indigenous experiences. There are better ways to appreciate and form solidarity with Other cultures. This begins by listening to the way minorities speak about their own experiences, rather than projecting our seemingly-progressive perspective onto Others.

I begin by giving a background on what inspired this post as an example of public sociology. Public sociology describes how we produce sociology for mass audiences outside academia. My focus here is on how we use sociology in the classroom and in social media. It is vital to the longevity of our discipline that sociologists explain our key concepts to general audiences. At the same time, I see it important that we publicly own up to, and invite a public discussion about, the changing dynamics of power which influence social theories. We also need to take responsibility for the way we teach and publicly discuss social science ideas. This means being more critical about the ways in which social science ideas are produced and disseminated, especially via social media. 

Public Sociology of Gender & Sexuality

via Sean Kinney

My post today is expanded from my post on Science on Google+. The initial post was inspired by Sean Kinney. Sean is an American teacher with a keen interest on science and alternative modes of thinking. Sean posted a meme on Google+ (right) about the Two Spirit Native Americans. The meme depicts an unnamed elderly Native American person, with text advocating same-sex marriage. The text reads as if from the perspective of this Indigenous person, saying that “gay marriage” has been sanctioned in “our soil [...] for hundreds of years [...] Your ‘homosexual’ was our Two Spirit people… and we considered them sacred.”

Sean reached out to Science on Google+, a community run by over 20 scientists with PhDs in various disciplines. The community exists to provide a platform to share quality science with the public, to encourage interaction with qualified experts, and foster interdisciplinary collaboration. I am a Moderator for the Social stream, along with psychologist Chris Robinson (who also created and leads the community). Sean saw this meme and posted it, finding it interesting. Looking for a reference, he linked to Wikipedia. The post was then brought to my attention. Was this an acceptable example social science interests?

On the surface, the general topics being conveyed were social science: minority cultures and gay rights. The source, Wikipedia, is not an acceptable scholarly reference for our major Community categories. While teachers such as Sean may prefer not to link to Wikipedia, this is an accessible reference. The information is not locked behind a paywall that the public can’t get to (unlike much of social science journal articles and books). The material is relatively easy to understand because it is written in jargon-free language. The problem with Wikipedia is that it is edited by volunteers and the information is not always correct. In this case, the information is incomplete, as the Two Spirit people entry currently does not include any of the scholarly disputes I discuss below (something I aim to fix over the coming week).

As a sociologist who specialises on studying minority cultures and Otherness, it would have been easy to ignore this meme as well-meaning albeit sociologically incorrect attempt at public education. I could see Sean meant to spark a dialogue, which I wanted to encourage, but I could also identify many problems with the image and the message. First, the person in this image is represented as a Two Spirit person given how the text is written in first person, but they are not specifically named. It is vague whether the person in the photograph identifies as Two Spirit. Second, while the text alludes that  it presents a direct impassioned plea for gay rights, I have the distinct impression that this was not likely written by a Two Spirit person (for reasons explained below).

I suspect that this image may not have been produced by a Native American activist, scholar or leader who can speak from an informed community perspective. This comes across to me as one of the many memes I’ve seen all over social media, created and reposted by passionate and well-meaning activists who aim to give voice to Indigenous people. These are people who are eager to make connections between the historical struggles of minorities to current social movements, such as LGBTQI consciousness.

Here’s why I didn’t simply dismiss this meme. First, the dedicated team behind Science on Google+ spends a lot of time thinking and discussing how to improve public engagement with science. We are trying to elevate quality posts as well as increase informed public debate. For this reason, I wanted to engage with a critical reading of this image.

Second, in researching the origins of this image, I have since seen this image posted on other sociology sites, with poor discussion.

Problems of Teaching via Social Media

Sociological Cinema posted the above image on their Facebook page in September 2012. To their credit, the team notes that the image depicts “Pretty Shield (1866-1944), who was a medicine woman of the Crow Nation,” and they add that “To the best of our understanding, these are not her words.”

To date, this post by Sociological Cinema has been “Liked” by over 300 people and shared almost 250 times. In the comments, presumably mostly by sociology students, people praise the image uncritically. One person writes that it doesn’t matter whom the quote was written by:

this isn’t the first time someone gives a voice to someone else. Happens all the time in art , literature , movies , etc. To each, his own. [sic]

This is a problematic position to see on a sociology site. It is not okay to appropriate minority cultures even if it’s in the name of social justice. The sociological imagination suffers as a result. This isn’t a criticism specific of SocyCinema; scroll through the Tumblr Two Spirit hashtag and you will see this image reblogged enthusiastically, through different networks without critical engagement.

I note the biographical book about Pretty Shield uses the same image on its cover, but the blurb does not identify her as Two Spirit. In an interview, Pretty Shield speaks of Native American women who fought alongside men in battle, but she never uses the term “Two Spirit,” nor does she identify herself as Two Spirit. I cannot presently identify the origins of the meme, but it may have been created as a postcard that can be bought online.

Sociological and social science public outreach needs improvement; this includes the images, articles and other resources that we make available to sociology students, as well as the communication of social science ideas and research to the general public. As such, the image on Google+ prompted me to initiate a discussion about the Two Spirit people. Who are they? What do do their experiences tell us about gender and sexuality? How can we improve the way we analyse these experiences? The following case study aims to show how can we improve the visual communication of social science ideals to new audiences, without “Othering” minority cultures.

Definition of gender and sexuality

A Map of Gender-Diverse Cultures. By PBS.

In sociology and anthropology, gender and sexuality are very different to every day understandings. Briefly, we make a distinction between sex and gender. Sex refers to biological or bodily traits that distinguish “men” and “women.” Gender describes the social experiences, norms, values and subjective position that people use to describe their experience of “masculinity” and “femininity.”

In the common sense understanding, the appearance of our bodies, outward genitalia and chromosomes determine whether we are seen as either “men” or “women.” A wealth of empirical evidence from the social sciences shows that biological definitions of gender are not only rigid, but they are the outcome of cultural, historical and legal institutions that vary across time and place. The interactive map (above right) shows some of the cultures that do not adhere to two simplistic models of gender.

In the social sciences, we use the concept of gender to describe how people’s social experiences, personal interactions, and social institutions shape our understandings of femininity and masculinity. We talk about gender as a social construction, because when we look across history and in other cultures, we see that gender is organised in different ways, and these do not always match up with narrow ideas of genitals and outward physical cues.

Similarly, we do not study sexuality in an essentialist or in a rigid biological understanding, but rather we see sexuality on a continuum of cultural, historical and social experiences. Sexuality is a social construction because its meaning takes shape through a complex interplay of cultural experiences, social sanctions, and personal positions on our identities.

Take for example the concept of homosexuality.

Social Construction of Homosexuality

Two men 1894 via Tuscon Gay Museum

The word “homosexual” did not exist until the 19th Century. Prior to this, while men may have been having sex with men and likewise women with women, there was no word to describe these practices. Behaviours did not automatically become viewed through a prism of gender and sexuality. A man sitting on another man’s lap did not necessarily lead to the presumption that they were engaged in a sexually relationship. Physical expressions take different meanings from their cultural and historical settings.

During the Victorian era, the Queen ordered her physicians to investigate the sexual practices of the male aristocracy. The actions of this inquiry eventually led to the medical definition of homosexuality as a psychological pathology. It was only then, with the invention of homosexuality, that the concept of heterosexuality evolved formally. Before the creation of the category homosexual, the term heterosexuality did not exist. This was the first time in Western European history that heterosexuality became medically defined as a “natural” and “biological” phenomena. From here, we start to see behaviours and identities being reshaped as homosexuality is defined in opposition to heterosexuality.

The Law

It became enshrined in law that being homosexual was illegal while heterosexuality was not criminalised. This legacy reflects not some inherent biological discovery, but rather the interests of the elite; specifically the values of Queen Victoria. As the Queen had a problem with men having sex with men, this was outlawed. The Queen was not willing to believe that women would also have sex with women, so female homosexuality was not punished in the same way. Through the spread of colonialism Queen Victoria’s legacy continues to shape the way Western societies think of sexuality in the present day.

Many nations around the world have laws that prohibit male to male sex but there may not be any laws criminalising female to female sex. Homosexuality was outlawed in Australia until the mid-1970s and the ban was not formally lifted in the state of Tasmania until the late 1990s, following a drawn-out appeal.

If you look at the age of consent laws around the world, many nations have a higher age at which heterosexual-sex is allowed compared to homosexual sex. In Australia, three states make male-to-male sex permissible two years after male-to-female sex (16 years for heterosexuals, 18 years for homosexual men). Four states have no laws dictating female-to-female sex, even though there are age of consent laws for male-to-female and male-to-male sex. Again, this reflects the Victorian edict that homosexual men present a larger threat to elite interests than lesbian women (although the law denies the human rights of all LGBTQI people when it comes to marriage, child rearing and so on). Histrionically the upper classes perceive lesbian women as dangerous when they are overtly sexual and openly enjoying their bodies.

Given that social institutions such as the law, medicine and other agents of socialisation shape how we define sexuality, social scientists acknowledge that there are several gender experiences beyond simply being male or female. For example, we study intersex and queer identities around the world, as well as the “third sex” phenomena, which is where the Native American concept of the Two Spirit people are usually discussed.

Two Spirit People

“Historic photo of Navajo couple from the collection of the Museum of New Mexico, 1866.” Via ITVS

Native American notions of identity are communal. They depend upon community context, status and history. In many ways, gender is more fluid in Native American cultures in comparison to the rigid binary concepts of male-female that we know in Western societies. In the PBS documentary “Two Spirits” (which you can watch further below), Navajo scholar Wesley Thomas explains that Navajo culture has four genders:

1. Given that Navajo culture is matrilineal , the first gender is feminine woman (asdzaan). They are born biologically female and function socially as women;
2. Masculine man (hastiin), are born biologically male and adopt the role of men;
3. Feminine man (nádleehí) are born biologically male and function socially as women; and
4. Masculine woman (dilbaa) are born biologically female but function as men.

Canadian Cree-speaking blogger âpihtawikosisân attempts to translate Two Spirit terms from her culture, noting that English translations are not straightforward. She writes:

• napêw iskwêwisêhot (nu-PAYO ihs-gwayo-WIH-say-hoht), a man who dresses as a woman
• iskwêw ka napêwayat (ihs-GWAYO ga nu-PAYO-wuh-yut), a woman dressed as a man
• ayahkwêw (U-yuh-gwayo), a man dressed/living/accepted as a woman. I can see the ‘woman’ part of this word, but I am confused about the possible meaning of the rest of the word. Some have suggested this word can actually be used as a ‘third’ gender of sorts, applied to women and men.
• înahpîkasoht (ee-nuh-PEE-gu-soot), a woman dressed/living/accepted as a man. (also translated as someone who fights everyone to prove they are the toughest? Interesting!)
• iskwêhkân (IS-gwayh-gahn), literally ‘fake woman’, but without negative connotations.
• napêhkân (NU-payh-gahn) literally ‘fake man’, but without negative connotations.

As you can see from these examples which represent only two of a multiple cultural, historical and linguistic traditions, Native American cultures don’t construct gender as the singular possession of one gender or another. They don’t have the Western binaries of “men are this way; women are that way.” Instead, Native Americans of different cultures generally believe that all humans and animals possess both feminine and masculine qualities. This is part of their spirituality. At particular points of time, Native American tribes have a sanctioned practice that allows a person to swap genders. There are strict cultural codes that govern this transition. Not everyone is allowed to simply swap genders on a whim.

Gender, Sexuality and Spirituality

Crow Two-Spirits, 1928. Via âpihtawikosisân

Two Spirit people often take on wives and husbands of the opposite gender, but not always; they may have diverse sexual experiences with both men and women. Nevertheless, the Two Spirits are not regarded as homosexual, bisexual or even transgender. Anthropologist Walter Williams notes that, throughout history, Two Spirit people were expected to conform to gender roles of their reassigned gender, with “feminine” Two Spirit people being matched with a “masculine” husband.

Simplifying this complex practice, Two Spirit people are seen as having a biological sex that does not match their spirit gender. They are usually regarded as having special sensory qualities; they see, hear, taste, smell and feel things others can’t. This is because the Two Spirit people are seen to be linked to their ancestral spirits. They interpret visions. They are peacemakers. They exist to honour all living things, past and present, as sacred. As you can start to see, their identity is not specifically about sexuality, nor really even about gender per se. Their role serves a social and community function; to fulfil cultural and religious duties.

More significantly – these people are historically chosen by their elders to fulfil these roles.

Williams notes that Christian missionaries outlawed these marriages in the 20th century, and they actively sought to remove this practice. During the cultural revolution of the 1960s, Native American activists re-embraced the Two Spirit legacy, and this movement grew in the 1990s with Native American lesbian and gay activists adopting the Two Spirit identity. These activists removed themselves from the colonialist term bernache, which had negative connotations from early French explorers, although in other Indigenous accounts this term has made a resurgence.

There is a rising scholarship by social scientists who are beginning to recognise that Western academics and LGBTQI movements have misappropriated the Two Spirit experience.

Rethinking Two Spirit People as a LGBTQI “Poster Child”

In sociology and anthropology, The Two Spirit people are studied as examples of transgender culture, which some Native Americans have been refuting. A small but growing number of scholars are beginning to re-examine how Native Americans culturally conceive of the Two Spirit people from an Indigenous historical perspective.  In 1998 anthropologist Carolyn Epple argued that Western scholarship feels a need to categorise Navajo culture in terms of existing frameworks (“gay” and “alternate gender”). Even when attempting to pay homage to Navajo terms, they re-appropriate these outside of their Western colonial meanings (“berdache” and “Two Spirit”). This speaks to the narrow frames of reference of the Western social sciences and social activist movements. We need to rethink our intentions and their consequences on minority cultures.

Native Youth Sexual Health Network She’s our sister

Many Native American scholars would doubtless support and stand in solidarity with LGBTQI movements, and some Indigenous LGBTQI activists adopt this term (for example, see the Bay Area American-Indian Two Spirits; the Native Youth Sexual Health Network makes available a Two Spirit resource). Nevertheless, the Two Spirit people are not the “poster children” of gay experiences. This is because the very meaning of “gay” (or homosexual) is culturally defined.

We see this within the LGBTQI movement itself; some people do not want to position themselves as being gay or lesbian, so they prefer to call themselves queer, which is a separate category of belonging and identity. Similarly, some Two Spirit people may not identify themselves as gay or lesbian or queer, since the original conception of this term was about embracing the spirituality of two genders.

In general, Western political activists tend to appropriate Indigenous cultures in memes with the best of intentions – to advocate for environmental or sexuality issues – but this is something that Native American scholars and activists want to stop.

“Other” cultures have their own understandings and histories. From a Western social activist perspective, we may see Indigenous issues as being the same as our minority politics, but they are not. As I’ve explained here, the cultural position of the Two Spirit people is not about gender and sexual politics per se, nor about their sexual preferences. Instead, the Two Spirit people hold a symbolic place of honour in their societies.

As âpihtawikosisân argues, Native Americans do not need privileged white academics and activists to teach them how to respect Two-Spirit people. Native American culture had already conceived of gender and sexual equality in their own ways, independent of Western liberal definitions of equality.

we already have those teachings. Reclaiming them and redefining them for the 21st century is a difficult, but beautiful undertaking. And perhaps the words we use in our own languages will be new, if they did not exist before. Perhaps they will be new because we have lost the words. Perhaps we never lost them. Perhaps they are merely waiting for us to use them again, properly. Hopefully soon I will look at the Cree words that have been suggested, and settler connotations will no longer colour my view of these words.

This is not work non-natives can or should do for us.

Colonialism dislodged the social status and rights of the Two Spirit people. In trying to find solidarity for social movements in the West, such as LGBTQI politics, academics and activists are unwittingly perpetuating colonialist practices. By misappropriating Native American culture, by not seeking to see their practices within their own cultural context, activists subsume the historical struggles of Native Americans.

Gay marriage is an important cause that social science advocates. Gay marriage may indeed help to restore the marriage rights of Indigenous people, but not at the expense of reducing the image of Two Spirit people into mouth-pieces for white-led causes. The LGBTQI community is not cohesive; people of colour are not treated equally. Intersections of race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and class matter just as much in LGBTQI movements as they do in academia and in wider society.

Who has authority to speak on behalf of whom, where, when and how? The power of representation in images matters. All of these historical and social issues are effectively whitewashed by memes that appropriate Indigenous culture. White privilege is at work, even within minority social movements.

Rethinking the Sociology of Sex and Gender

Western sociologists happily teach that our role is to find the “general in the peculiar” and “the strange in the familiar.” The first phrase stems from Peter Berger Invitation to Sociology. The second is an extrapolation of Berger’s argument that, “The first wisdom of sociology is this: things are not what they seem.” I have taught these phrases to students in the past, as many sociology lecturers continue to do. It’s a great pedagogical device. At the same time, we need to reflect what this means in practice. In this case, when we teach about “third sex” cultures, we are effectively making the unfamiliar familiar. But at what cost?

Western scholarship transplants Western concepts of gender, transgender and sexuality onto Other cultures. Rather than viewing the Two Spirit phenomenon in its own cultural meaning, we make it “familiar” by reconstructing it as a political identity aligned with transgender and gay rights. This may be the case for some Two Spirit people, but not all. Even when Two Spirit people adopt transgender and gay labels, this position is the outcome of complex socio-cultural and historical struggles that affect Native Americans distinctly.

A study from October 2012 surveyed 6,456 transgender and gender nonconforming people. The survey finds that almost one quarter live under the poverty line (living on less than USD$10,000 annually). This is six time the rate for the general American population. Over 3.2% of the Native American sample were HIV positive and a further 8% did not know their HIV status. In comparison, 2.6% of non-Indigenous transgender and gender non-conformists from other ethnicities were were unaware of their HIV status. Furthermore, 56% of the Indigenous respondents had attempted suicide in comparison to 41% of non-Indigenous people.

Thirty-four percent of the Indigenous sample had been refused medical treatment due to discrimination and a further 65% had delayed seeking medical treatment due to fear of discrimination. Eighty-six percent of the Indigenous participants had faced physical harassment at school; they had more than twice the rate of unemployment compared to the national average (18% versus 7%); and they experienced six times the national rate of homelessness (40% versus 7%).

The aforementioned PBS documentary on Two Spirit people centres on the murder of Two Spirit Fred Martinez, who was the victim of homophobic and racist violence.

These figures on discrimination and violence suggest that Native Americans who identify as transgender and gender non-conformist experience multiple disadvantages that go beyond their sexual and gender identities. Holding up Native American Two Spirit people as LGBTQI poster children for gay marriage is problematic on several fronts. It privileges one cause (marriage) over institutional racism, sexual and racist violence, socio-economic disadvantage, health, and other ongoing effects of colonialism.

We need to respect the cultural traditions and struggles of other cultures, by becoming more aware of the concept of Otherness and how this frames our understanding of the world. The notion of the Other illustrates how dominant cultures define their own experience as the default human position. Dominant cultures perpetuate colonialist practices by using their own cultural values and traditions to make sense of, and judge, how we view Other cultures. In effect, academics and activists have Othered the Two Spirit people, by inscribing their own politics and interests onto this practice, and not approaching Native American culture from their own historical and social perspectives.

Moving Forward

As this post shows, the social sciences are no different than other fields of study. There are alternative ways of understanding social phenomena in response to new ideas and emerging data. Our knowledge and theories change or are adapted as we forge new synergies with other scholars. Just as legal and social definitions of sexuality and gender have changed over time, social science concepts and theories change and adapt in the face of new empirical evidence. With the case of the Two Spirit people, social science needs to reconfigure how we study these cultures as a monolith experience, and do away with a singular Western lens.

So how do we stop contributing to the Othering of Two Spirit and other diverse gender minority cultures? First, we need to rethink our own cultural position. Do we belong to the minority culture being discussed? No? Then rethink your choice to speak on behalf of that culture, or to use their image, culture or traditions to advance your own personal cause. You mean well, but without meaning to, you may be doing that community more harm than good. Second, we need to be open to life-long learning and critical engagement with other cultures. Do we know enough about a particular social experience to make comparisons to another society? You can only answer “yes” if you are an expert in a given field; otherwise, seek out alternative and reputable sources to broaden your understanding of human experience.

Even then, don’t succumb to making direct analogies. It is better to position yourself clearly: “I am a white/ non-white sociologist; from my training and the available evidence, this cultural practice can help us to think about gender in this way…” Then read your data critically, taking into consideration how your cultural position of privilege informs your methods and conclusions.

Don’t let the conversation stop once you publish that article/blog post/image/meme. Make yourself available for respectful discussion. Speak up when the conversation heads in the wrong direction. Remain self-reflexive; this is the duty of sociology, to always question our position and knowledge, to change and adapt and grow public awareness.

Public sociology has been a prevailing theme in journals, books, and conferences. In forthcoming posts I will discuss this further, but in the mean time, it’s high time that we start practising a critical and reflexive public sociology. Producing visual content to debate social issues is important. Let’s start thinking about how to do this better in our classrooms and for public consumption.

Learn More

Navajo construction of gender, PBS “Two Spirits”

Steet art portrait of Salvador Allende. Via Thierry Ehrmann, Flickr

Today is the “Other September 11.” On this day in Chile, 1973, President Salvador Allende was killed in a coup by Augusto Pinochet. My blog post explores the ongoing impact of this event on Chileans living in Australia.

In his historic speech, Allende’s final address to the nation, he talks of his sacrifice against imperial forces and his vision for the future. SBS News has a great website commemorating this event, including the role that the Australian Government played in feeding intelligence to the USA, which eventually led to the rise of the Pinochet regime. When the Australian Labor government came to power in 1972, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam is said to have been appalled about Australia’s involvement in the coup and removed his Government’s political support.

Australia began accepting Chilean refugees in the mid-1970s. The Chilean-Australian community grew from 6,000 in 1971 to over 24,000 by 1991.

Chileans in Australia

In my forthcoming research,* I show that Chilean migrants are doing relatively better than most other Latin groups in Australia, but they are not as socially mobile as other migrant groups from non-Latin backgrounds. Partly, this is due to the lack of resources that these Chilean political refugees had when they were forced into exile during the 1970s and early 1980s.

Sociologist Mytoan Nguyen wrote about the legacy of the coup on Chilean migrants in Australia. She finds that Chilean-Australian activists continue to work tirelessly to raise awareness of the regime and to remember the dead and missing across time and distance. Nguyen carried out her fieldwork research in a post September 11 environment  - a date that is more widely associated in Australia’s public memory with the 2011 terrorist attacks in the USA. The Chilean-Australian activists Nguyen spoke to lamented that the Australian public did not know much about the “other” September 11. For these activists, the politics of the War on Afghanistan was reminiscent of the USA’s involvement in the Pinochet regime. At the time, these first and second-generation Chilean migrants were critical of the international politics of the USA:

The problem is that the towers in New York being hit by planes has somewhat overshadowed our struggle, and our struggle lies beyond that …  today we have a unipolar government in the world, and basic needs and human rights around the world are being crushed by the military [that is] being fostered and sponsored by the US government.

These activists organised public rallies in Melbourne and Sydney. In Western Sydney, the Latin community successfully erected a bronze statue of Allende in 2003. These acts of public commemoration were important to their construction of collective memory in the diaspora. This term describes how migrants and refugees in different locations around the world feel united to a place or culture specifically in response to forced migration. Nguyen argued that these participants were engaged in “the politics of mourning.” As these activists understood it, Chile was a Catholic country where burial is an important ritual for families. The fact that so many people were “disappeared” meant there was no body to bury. This only compounds their sense of injustice. One young second-generation university student emotionally recounted the multi-generational impact of the Pinochet regime on her family in Australia and in Chile:

My grandfather is one of the detained and disappeared. This event (Chile’s September 111 is about remembering the people who died defending democracy, who died defending their right to live. It involves a lot of pain because my father is one of the tortured and disappeared. I’ve got two photo s here [pointing to her buttons] . . . one is of my grandfather and another one is of my cousin’s other grandfather, she has two grandfathers who were disappeared , and we don’t exactly know what’s happened to them. There has been information that’s told us that after they were tortured, their bodies were tossed into the ocean, so their bodies will never be found and [we will] never lay them to rest. And because we don’t have the opportunity {to bury them/, it’s just like this never ending pain that resurfaces every year …

Forty years after the coup, 60,000 people in Chile have marched in honour of the “disappeared” – people who opposed the regime were taken from their homes and never found again. The dictatorship left a further 3,200 people dead and another 38,000 people tortured. Chile’s official enquiry into the disappeared, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, officially recognise that 1,000 people were disappeared. Amnesty International reports the figure is  3,216.

Notes

*My research on Chilean migrants was presented in 2011: Being ‘Latin-Australian’: Constructions and Social Consequences of Pan-Latin American Identities in Australia, paper presented at Imagining Latin America in Australia Workshop, Sydney, University of Western Sydney, 12-13 August.

Art by John Haggerty via 2HeadedSnake.

Below is a great interview with sociologist Dr. Tina Uys, who talks about the urgent need for sociology in South Africa (where she lives). Inequality is shifting rapidly in many ways, for example in education, but it does so without adequate institutional support. Uys discusses the problems facing South African sociology, such as funding cuts. Uys then talks about her journey through her sociological career, one which did not begin with sociology in mind. I see that Uys’s story may be common. It certainly echoes my own career.

Today’s post is about the pressing need to better market a unified vision of sociology to our students. Academic, applied and public sociologies serve different interests: one is about theoretical development, the other about serving government and community services, and the latter is about engaging the public’s imagination. Elsewhere, I’ve shown that applied sociology is poorly understood by academics. It’s like we’re a collective of practitioners working adjacent to one another, without a broader external view of how we fit together. It’s time to bring our various sociological approaches together.

South African Sociology

Uys teaches at the University of Johannesburg and she is also the Vice President for the National Associations of the International Sociological Association (ISA). She talks about the ‘survival strategies’ of students in higher education in South Africa. Uys says the student body in the University of Johannesburg has become ’80% black’ and most are ‘first-generation’ students who do not have much financial or academic support. This has made it difficult for students to adjust to the academic demands of university life.

Sociology clearly has an important role to play in shaping South African education. Sociology provides a framework for understanding the economic and social forces that limit the ability for students to become upwardly mobile. Sociology puts these struggles into historical and comparative perspective in relation to other nations. Yet as Uys notes, sociology itself is suffering from systemic educational processes. Uys argues that lecturers are over burdened. Funding cuts makes it harder to teach effectively. This is a common problem experienced by higher education departments around the world.  (For a comparison, see the British Sociological Association’s Sociology & The Cuts series and the Campaign for Public University.)

Sociology by Accident: Integrated Vision & Marketing

Uys then goes on to discuss her journey through sociology. Uys says she became a sociologist ‘by accident’. She came to university to study psychology, but she became drawn to the issues in sociology.

This is the story of my life and that of a few sociologists I know. I went to university to study literature and my back up was psychology… and yet here I am 12 years later, an applied sociologist (I’ve shared my story out of academia on Sociology at Work).

It would be good to see our discipline to start addressing this common story – that many of us find sociology by accident due to poor marketing. The Australian Sociological Association, The American Sociological Association and various sociology journals have identified this as a problem with the way we publicise our skills and knowledge to students and to other publics. This has also been addressed as a major stumbling block in getting our professional identity recognised.

The challenges facing sociology as a profession are addressed separately under the rubric of public sociology, such as through the work of Michael Burawoy and Duncan Watts. Burawoy argues that sociology treads a fine line between being at the mercy of market forces and being left behind because the public is disengaged with what sociologists offer:

When society is threatened so is sociology. We can no longer rely on the state to contain the market and so sociologists have to forge their own connections to society, i.e. to develop public sociology. We have to do more than passively serve society, but have to conserve and constitute society. In this sociology has many potential allies and partners within society as they too come under increasing assault from state and market. That is the broader contemporaneous context within which sociology operates.

For many years, I have been arguing that sociology needs to break down the divide between the intellectual work of academics and the practical work of applied sociologists. One of the main rationales that governments and universities use to cut back on funding and resources in sociology departments (and other humanities and social science departments) is that we do not attract as many students as other more applied fields. Social science is not as highly valued as it should be as a result.

The struggles sociologists face outside academia is that people don’t know what we can do. If we can’t market ourselves properly to our own students, and we continually rely on people ‘discovering’ sociology through a sense of curiosity and wonder, sociology is never going to reach its true potential and meet the challenges of the future.

Photo by socialistalternative via Flickr

This week I interviewed sociologist and activist Dr Dan Brook for Sociology at Work (video below). I enjoyed chatting with Dan about his philosophy that sociology is inherently about social justice and social transformation. Any sociologist would agree with this – but how do we actually help achieve tangible social change? I’ve been thinking a lot about why some social justice movements are more successful than others. This has been on my mind for awhile, since I met with an old colleague a couple of months a go.

My colleague is a fellow sociologist and a political refugee who can never return to their birthplace due to persecution. After resettling in Australia, my colleague had been an academic for some time, but he felt limited in his capacity to achieve social change. He left academia and has been working as a researcher for law enforcement for the better part of a decade. This colleague is older than I am and he has a wistful view of social activism in the 1960s. He wondered,”Why don’t people care today like they did back then?” I explained that people back then were not inherently more radical – the fact is that social justice was at their door. It was on the news every night. Many people they knew personally were dying in wars overseas. The political economy was personally affecting their everyday lives. My colleague did not like to hear this; he wanted to think that people were simply “better people” back then. As he saw it, people simply cared more about the world before and they don’t care much today.

Today’s post shows that “caring” is only part of the picture when it comes to social justice activism. Resources such as money, time and technology has a significant impact on people’s ability to turn a grassroots social justice issue into social reform. Social context also matters. What is the political, social and economic climate in which activists work? I will also show that there are two general types of activists whose resources and networks help them yield higher returns on their efforts.

Mabo Celebrations in Melbourne 2010. Commemorates Indigenous activist Eddie Mabo, who fought and won an historic 10 year native title battle in the High Court of Australia. Photo by Leah Feldman via Flickr.

Sociology of Social Activism

Sociologists Pamela Oliver and Gerald Marwell argue that people will volunteer and act on social causes when they care about collective goals. This happens when they see personal benefits, especially if these are linked to personal identities. “Activists are at the core of most collective action. Sometimes they act alone, but often they seek to draw others into collective action…”

In Western societies, the 1960s are thought of as a golden age of social protest that lead to social revolution (although the 1920s were also key in white women’s liberation). In the Middle East, there have been other waves of social revolution, most notably in the 1970s and again the past couple of years.

At times of relative peace, people are less likely to join social movements. At times of social upheaval, such as when there is widespread conflict, lack of basic services, food and shelter, then more people will self-organise to call for social change.

Types of Activists: Volunteers and Professionals

Oliver and Marwell identify two types of activists: volunteers and professionals. Volunteers mostly work through personal networks, organising charity runs and social events to raise money. They tend to be easily motivated off a cause when they don’t see the support they imagined. Professionals are better organised: they will plan different campaigns, predicting certain gains from particular target audiences, and they have contingency plans in place in case they don’t meet their goals.

Resources will affect the success of social activism. This includes the money, time and technologies available to activists when organising events. Perhaps counter intuitively, Oliver and Marwell find that money has less constraints. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from, whether 20 people give equal amounts or one donor contributes a large sum. The money will be spent according to where it is needed most. Time, however, does have many constraints: it matters who is donating their time, as different activists and volunteers will have different skills and experiences that can make or break the success of a particular movement. Lobbying requires trust, and so activists who have full-time workers will build better relationships than groups that have a group of interchanging part-time volunteers.Leah Feldman

Red Nose Day is an international not for profit. This photo is from the UK by Elliott Brown via Flickr

Professionals make better use of technologies to raise funds. They use a variety of methods, including large functions to attract lucrative donors; telemarketing; securing grants and contracts; direct mail; paid canvassing; making use of other types of technologies that make it easier for people to make donations easily and efficiently. White, middle-class activists tend to have the resources (money, time and technology) available to them in order to make this happen more effectively. Professionals will “ritualise” their efforts, by holding annual revenue-raising events as well as annual days of solidarity or of social protest. Oliver and Marwell find that the biggest change in social activism in recent decades has been the rise of professional organisations who manage social causes. The authors note that there have always been paid activists, the professional organisations today have invested more money into paying for professional services of experts to help their cause.

Conservation Volunteers Australia. Photo by Brisbane City Council via Flickr

Volunteer organisations don’t have the same resources. They rely on small-scale sporting events (local fun runs), volunteer canvassing, raffles, bake sales, car washes, concerts, dinners and other small-scale social events. By virtue of their organisation, and lack of resources, volunteer events don’t demand much commitment from their activists or their supporters, which is why the return on their efforts are limited in comparison to professionals. Additionally, as activism relies on personal networks, relying on weak commitment makes it less likely that supporters will then recruit their friends, families and colleagues into the cause.

In comparison, professionals will invest resources in networking. Their resources and knowledge make it easier for people to join their events in a committed way, by organising buses to pick up local organisers and their supporters; maintaining regular communication with contributors; organising media officers to run publicity campaigns; giving official titles to their activists so that they’re readily recognised by supporters and donors (such as appointing local organisers for events); and organising regular education campaigns so that the public will have ongoing exposure to their social cause.

G20 Protests, Melbourne Nov 2006, Photo by Rusty Stewart via Flickr.

Oliver and Marwell’s review shows that professionals are better placed to raise funds and keep a cause in the forefront of the media and public’s minds. At the same time, professionals don’t have the same capacity to generate grassroots mobilisation, specifically because so much of professional activism relies on money transactions. Grassroots activists who are passionate about a cause are not motivated to join a cause for financial activities and therein lies the conundrum of social activism during times of relative peace. The volunteers have the passion but they lack the resources to inspire others into action. The professionals have the resources, but they are too reliant on monetary transactions so that the cause does not appeal to grassroots activists.

The Occupy Movement

Oliver and Marwell wrote their paper in 1992, two decades before the rise of the Occupy Movement. The Occupy movement itself has been characterised by a mix of volunteer and professional traits. It can be seen as a grassroots movement as many people around the world joined protests. Some of these lead to social change, with mixed results in the so-called Arab and Latin American Springs. But in Egypt, Brazil and other nations, there was widespread conflict and basic freedoms and resources were at stake. In Egypt there was a change of Government but citizens are still being repressed under new leadership (see my discussion of the Arab Spring). In the USA, Australia and in other Western nations, the Occupy movement gained widespread support, but it did not lead to social reform.

Occupy Sydney, Oct 2011. Photo by Kate Ausburn via Flickr.

In both developing and developed nations, activists included grassroots supported who participated in marches and other protest activities. Some activists had specialist skills, including hackers such as the Anonymous movement that has maintained consciousness-raising as an ongoing goal of their campaign. In both cases, however, activists did not successfully co-opt the support of elite supporters. This is because the Occupy movements have been anti-authoritarian and anti-elite. The key concern was taking power away from the rich (“1%”). The Occupy movement has also been criticised for not having a clear vision for leadership change and social policy reform, which limited its capacity to become a social revolution in the West.

Since the professional activist model relies on revenue raising, and the Occupy movement was specifically anti-capitalist, it’s little wonder that the professional model has not been fully adopted. While the Occupy movement had grassroots support, the activist base did not gain the momentum needed to create wide-scale social reform.

Do we need a new model of social protest? How might sociology help to re-organise the model for effective social justice activism?

How an Applied Sociology of Activism Might Help Create Social Change

Here is my interview with Dr Dan Brook.  He says sociology prepares students for future work as activists, though he notes that social change happens slowly:

I believe not just in going for immediate and obtainable goals, but trying in a larger way to change our culture. I think that’s the special niche, perhaps, of sociologists. We realise how important culture is, and if we can make certain cultural changes – which are not easy, it takes a lot of people and it takes a lot of time – but when we make those cultural changes we find the social and political changes are much easier because we have a widespread support for it. It seems more natural then.

Over to You

Do you belong to an activist movement? Can you see other reasons why activist movements don’t always lead to widespread social change? How might sociology help advance social activism in tangible ways?

“Exhaustion of food budgets might be an important driver of health inequities” – Hilary Seligman and colleagues

By Zuleyka Zevallos, PhD
The internet is filled with many science blogs and websites holding themselves up as experts on all sorts of research topics. It’s frustrating to see the high volume of articles where non-experts feel qualified to dismiss social science research. The damage is worse when it’s journalists and scientists without social science training, because the public doesn’t always know that these people aren’t qualified to write about social science. I will demonstrate this through a case study of the sociology of diabetes.

With increased media attention on diabetes, the public has come to expect certain behaviours from people who have this condition. While some people understand that there are some differences between the two broad types of Diabetes (Type 1 and Type 2), there are many misconceptions about what causes diabetes and how this condition should be treated. With these misconceptions comes judgements about the people who get diabetes, and why this may be the case.

I am not an expert on the biology of diabetes. I can however speak to the sociological aspects of this disease. As an applied researcher, I have worked on projects in the sociology of health, such as examining the influence of organisational practices on health outcomes. I’ve also researched socio-economic disadvantage amongst minority and vulnerable groups and the impact this has on social integration, help-seeking behaviour and wellbeing. Social disadvantage will be the focus of my analysis here. I use my discussion on the socio-economics of diabetes to explore the problems that arise when non-experts wade into social science issues using individual explanations (such as personal experience and opinion) rather than scientific evidence about societal processes. I call this “arm chair” social science because it does not adhere to the social theories and methods for analysing social issues.

My post begins with the social science research on diabetes, centred on the research of Hilary Seligman. Her team’s work was refuted by a science blogger who is not a social scientist, and who subsequently posted this critique to Science on Google+, a large multidisciplinary Community that I help moderate. Below I discuss Seligman’s longitudinal research on how poverty affects the experience and management of diabetes. Seligman uses the concept of “food insecurity” to situate her research. I draw on other studies that lend further support to this concept. I discuss the influence of social location on the management of diabetes. That is, I will examine the socio-economics of where people live as a key factor in diabetes care. I end with a discussion of the exchange on the Science on Google+ Community and the problems of viewing diabetes from an individual perspective.

Social Science of Diabetes

Let’s start with the new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs. Epidemiologist Hilary Seligman (MD) and colleagues find that Americans from low socio-economic backgrounds who have diabetes are more likely than other income groups to end up visiting a hospital due to hypoglycaemia.

Hypoglycaemia occurs when blood glucose level is too low. Common causes include strenuous exercise, alcohol, too much insulin, but also “Delaying or missing a meal; (and) Not eating enough carbohydrates [my emphasis].”

Seligman’s team examined hospital admissions for an eight year period (2000-2008). Hospital visits increase by 27% at the end of the month for poor people, though there are no temporal fluctuations for people from higher socio-economic backgrounds. Seligman’s team argues that food insecurity is a key factor in these patterns.

Food Insecurity

Food insecurity: “The limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”

The USA National Research Council defines  food insecurity as having limited access to safe nutritional foods that are obtained through “socially acceptable ways.” That is, without resorting to “emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing, or other coping strategies.”

Returning to Seligman’s study, diabetic patients from poor backgrounds are running out of money to pay for food towards the end of a monthly pay cycle, which affects their low blood sugar levels, triggering a health emergency.

This research is one of various longitudinal projects led by Seligman, who examines the link between food insecurity, poverty and diabetes. For example, using longitudinal data from the National Health Examination and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999–2002, and involving a sample of over 4,400 Americans, Seligman’s team finds that a higher proportion of people who experienced severe food insecurity are also diabetic (16% versus 12% of food secure and 10% of mildly food insecure). Food insecure people also experience greater levels of anxiety and stress which further exacerbates their health problems. Elsewhere Seligman has also found that food insecurity leads to multiple heath issues increasing cardiovascular risk. Furthermore 69% of people with diabetes who also live with food insecurity are unable to achieve a healthy blood sugar level (hemoglobin A1c). In comparison, 49% of food-secure diabetes sufferers experienced this problem, suggesting that food insecurity plays an important role in managing diabetes.

Poverty and Health Disadvantage

Data from numerous studies support the conclusions of Seligman’s team study. The social science on the material reality of poverty, food insecurity and health shows that diabetes management is not really a simple matter of personal choices. A review study shows that up until the mid-2000s, research on diabetes firmly established that poverty significantly impacted the risks and management of diabetes, but these studies initially downplayed the institutional impact of poverty on diabetes. At that time, most studies focused on individual-level causes and treatments, such as the dietary, lifestyle and exercise habits of individuals. These studies did not examine the material reality and institutional constraints under which these habits are made.

In the present-day, studies continue to find a link between food insecurity, diabetes and health management, but the focus is now firmly on the institutional and social factors.

The American Dietetic Association has identified that food insecurity is a contributing factor to diabetes. Food insecurity is correlated with chronic illnesses including diabetes.

Low-income people who are diabetic are more likely to experience food insecurity and as a result they are more likely to require treatment by physicians relative to people with diabetes who do not experience food insecurity. Other studies have identified that people with diabetes experience hypoglycaemic reactions as a direct outcome of not being able to afford food. Food insecurity and socio-economic factors influence how people with diabetes access quality care and their “ability to adhere to recommended medication, exercise, and dietary regimens, and treatment choices” [my emphasis]. The same conclusions on food insecurity and diabetes are supported in other nations like Australia.

Social location

Socio-economic & material constraints on illness & wellbeing. This includes the spread & management of disease plus access to safe & adequate resources of care.

The sociology of health examines the socio-economic and material constraints on well-being. Social location matters to the management of diabetes. In low-income urban areas, it is not so much that people choose to eat “bad” food that impacts their blood sugar levels, such as high sugar or high fat junk food. The fact is that, in some areas such as urban poor neighbourhoods, healthy food is not readily available at local food stores or when such healthy food exists, it is too expensive. Travelling to another neighbourhood to buy fresh vegetables and other healthy food have to be factored into the costs of purchasing food. Where people are tenuously employed, underemployed, unemployed and otherwise suffering from food insecurity, the costs of food rise.

The same is also true in poor rural areas. In one study of over 2,500 people, those suffering from diabetes (12%) were significantly more likely to live in food-insecure households (37.9%).

Moreover, when poor people make food choices, these decisions are weighted against everyday necessities, such as their bills. Their food needs and personal health comes secondary to paying the rent and other essentials. For example, the Hunger In America study included 62,000 clients who receive emergency food assistance by the national Food America (FA) national network, and a further 37,000 FA agencies including food programs such as food pantries, soup kitchens and emergency shelters. This study finds that almost half of the clients had to choose between paying for food versus utilities and heating (46%); 39% were forced to choose between food and rent or mortgage; 34% were choosing between food and medicine or medical care, and similar proportions were choosing between food and transportation to sustain other living costs such as travelling to work.

Most poor people still rely on walking and public transport to buy food, which negatively impacts their health, specifically by greatly limiting their ability to access secure healthy food sources. This situation is especially acute amongst minority people of Black and Hispanic backgrounds, the elderly and poor families with young children.

All of these data do not negate that diabetes is a complex disease involving genetics, nutrition and other factors. What this body of research shows is that there is a sociological component to this disease. Socio-economic relations hamper the risks and management of diabetes for different groups. A sizeable proportion of poor people with diabetes are, as Seligman and colleagues suggest, foregoing food in order to survive. So if the social science evidence supports this phenomenon, why can’t non-social scientists accept the conclusions?

When Non-Social Scientists Comment on Social Science

Stephen Macknik, who has a PhD in neurobiology, decided to write about Seligman’s latest study and refute her findings based on his personal experience of diabetes. Macknik is a blogger for Scientific American, writing a column called “Illusion Chasers.” He filed his post under “Fat Tuesday.” He believes that Seligman’s conclusions on food insecurity are wrong. He thinks these people aren’t experiencing hypoglycaemia at the end of their pay cycle because they have run out of money. He thinks it’s because they’re spending the last of their money on junk food. He says what is actually happening is that they overindulge in high carbohydrates, which triggers hyperglycaemia, and then as their blood sugar levels crash they experience hypoglycaemia. What evidence does he have for this? None.

He notes that he is diabetic, but he has never been poor, unlike the participants in Seligman’s study. He dismisses the concept of food insecurity because he simply believes that poor people with diabetes are making bad dietary choices. This is an individual level perspective on health based on speculation, not science. Moreover and most problematically, Macknik does not actually draw on the peer-reviewed science. He simply comments on a report about the study from the New York Times.

Macknik then posted a link to his blog to our Science on Google+ Community, which is how I learned of his post. One of our Community members, Michael Verona, questioned Macknik’s rationale, noting that the study has empirical evidence to back up its findings, while Macknik goes off personal musings. Macknik replies at length on his academic credentials. None of which include social science. I responded with a summary of the information I include here on my blog. Macknik did not respond.

Part of my critique to Macknik goes to the heart of my recent writing on public science outreach. The media dominates how lay people find out about science. Sometimes this reporting is correct. Often times it is skewed because it goes off a press release. (For the record, the New York Times article is brief but faithful to the ideas of the study.)

Blogging and social media have expanded how people read about science, but with this comes a host of problems. Non-experts feel entitled to refute scientific evidence based on subjective understandings of the world. Tom Nichols has outlined a powerful argument against this sense of entitlement. Speaking of the lay person wanting to dismiss expert analysis based on personal opinion, Nichols writes: “The expert isn’t always right… But an expert is far more likely to be right than you are.”

As I noted last week, personal attitudes are shaped by cultural beliefs and values, which in turn influenced by socio-economic status and other forms of social privilege. I showed that even amongst scientists, social privileges influences how people engage with scientific evidence.

A neurobiologist refuting the structural forces on disease based on a personal hunch (and coloured by privilege) is no better than a lay person refuting science based on something they watched on TV or YouTube.

Macknik admits that something needs to be done to address diabetes on a social level. The problem is that he feels qualified to disagree on why it’s happening based solely on stereotypes of what he thinks poor people do with their money. Blaming a specific subset of people for exacerbating their health problems only serves to increase the stigma they already face. These people are doubly disadvantaged, being both poor and afflicted with an illness that is not well-understood.

Science blogging carries with it tremendous responsibility. As Verona pointed out to Macknik, blogging under the Scientific American banner lends Macknik’s ideas additional authority. The average reader may not immediately be able to distinguish between a neurobiologist writing about this than a social scientist. Not all science experts are qualified to speak to other fields, and certainly not without valid scientific evidence.

When scientists write on other people’s research, our insights should be qualified within our disciplinary expertise. If we’re going to write about other studies, we need to add value. Most academic research sits behind a paywall and it is written in scholarly language. This means we have a responsibility to carefully explain the science using plain language, and to expand on or critique the findings using scientific evidence. Whether we have a PhD or not, extrapolating from personal experience is not science. The fact that Macknik is not poor perhaps makes him less sympathetic to the social reality faced by disadvantaged people, but I noted in my response to him that, had he been from the same background, this is still not scientific evidence. Social science analysis relies on empirical evidence, just as neurobiology and other fields do.

Macknik muses that poor people are splurging the last of their money on the “dollar menu,” resulting in “too many carbs rather than too few calories.” He draws on his subjective experience about diabetes as well as his personal ideas about how poor people live. There is a connection between obesity and poor nutrition for Type 2 diabetes, but the link is not so simple. First, obesity and associated chronic illnesses such as diabetes are also linked to food insecurity. This is especially a problem for children as well as women, two groups at a higher vulnerability to illness due to poverty. Second, these effects are compounded for racial minorities from lower socio-economic backgrounds, such as Hispanic people and Black Americans.

Either way, diabetes isn’t simply about individual neglect or simply making frivolous snacking choices. For some people with diabetes – the disadvantaged sub-group that Seligman was studying – the reality of living below the poverty line means having to choose between eating a proper meal and paying bills as well as keeping the roof over their family’s heads.

Seeing the food practices of people with diabetes as an individual choice – regarding high and low carb food – fails to take into consideration the socio-economics of food insecurity and public health. Given that the social science is solid, why would a science writer feel entitled to use their subjective ideas to argue against empirical evidence?

Moving Forward

Social Science: Evidence-based Expertise. Don’t rely on personal opinions on social issues. This can increase misconceptions & stigma of vulnerable groups. Original photo Anssi Koskinen, CC 2.0. Adapted by Other Sociologist

There may be a couple of explanations why non-social scientists think they are qualified to speak about sociological matters even when they lack the expertise.

First, as sociologist Duncan Watts argues, because social science deals with social issues, people see that the topics are familiar enough to be understood through “common sense.” Subjective experiences feel compelling because they give us first-hand experience in a topic. The problem is that common sense is often incorrect when we try to apply it to other groups outside our personal networks. Personal opinions are also informed by cultural beliefs that individuals don’t always understand in connection to history and social forces.  Experience is not the same as expertise. Understanding social phenomena is the speciality of social science.

Second, different societies understand health and illness in specific ways. Western societies tend to focus on health as an individual management issue. Social scientists like Seligman go beyond this individual perspective. Sociologists see diseases like diabetes as a public health matter. This is very hard for the general public to accept because specifically because it goes against “common sense.”

Diabetes involves self-care for sure. For example, individuals enter into dietary and lifestyle changes; they monitor their blood sugar levels; and they continue to see specialists. As I’ve shown, however, these individual actions are constrained by social pressures. Eating healthy is not just about avoiding junk food, it’s about what food is available, and in this case, whether enough food is available at all. Following doctors’ orders is easier when an individual does not have to cope with additional financial stress. In a society where values of individualism are the norm, health is perceived as a private matter that individuals manage alone.

Health and illness are not always just about an individual choices. While people have agency to make decisions about what’s best for them, these decisions are prioritised according to material and social constraints. In the case of poor people experiencing diabetes, their personal health sometimes has to take secondary position to their financial reality.

As the research shows, when people don’t have much money, food and health become a day-to-day management strategy, but other living expenses like shelter take priority.

The public doesn’t need further confusion from “common sense” and “arm chair” social science. We need real social science and collective social action. Diabetes research is a multidisciplinary research site, dependant upon collaboration across various disciplines. The causes and solutions of different types of diabetes need to be tackled from various angles, with diffusion of knowledge flowing across the life and social sciences.

Subjective ideas about diabetes are distracting. Let’s move away from individual explanations. Diabetes has a strong social component that is not about individual failure. Instead, it demonstrates public health inequality. The sooner society accepts this, the better we can move forward and better support those who need help most.

Connect With Me

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Photo: Astronomers by vastateparksstaff via Flickr, CC 2.0

Remember that news article that was going around saying that a high proportion of Americans can’t tell astrology from astronomy? Matthew Timothy Bradley tackled this on the Science on Google+ Community, by going to an analysis of the original source. I’m republishing my comments and expanding my argument to make two points that are a common theme in my writing: 1) Media hyperbole on science needs careful critique by scientists. 2) Scientific literacy requires our sustained engagement. I include some of interesting figures that speak to the public’s lack of understanding about what scientists do, how funding works, and how trust in scientists influences the public’s assessment of the output of our research. I’d like to have a conversation about how to move forward in dispelling the hype and myths surrounding science.

Astronomical Misrepresentation of Science

Various major news publications reported on The National Science Foundation (NSF) study in February. The media focused on the idea that a large group of young people think that astrology is “scientific.” Matthew points to an excellent blog post by Richard Landers that re-examines the NSF data with respect to the questions they asked.On the original thread, the always brilliant Johnathan Chung notes differences in the responses across different age groups. He also notes that the public’s confusion may be related to changes in language. Most people are now used to thinking of astrology as “horoscopes” but if they are unfamiliar with astronomy (the science) they may misinterpret the word astrology to mean the scientific study. So: while they may understand that horoscopes are just a bit of fun, and they know that there is a formal science field that studies the universe, they may be confusing the words.

Johnathan notes that the media ran with shock headlines and did not adhere to the caveats in the original study.I noted the data in Lander’s post are illuminating but still contain gaps.At the heart of the problem is that most people are semantically confused about the difference betweenastronomy (a science) and astrology (not a science). Yes the words sound similar in English, which may explain why some people are confused.It may follow then that if the researchers had asked people a question about astrophysics that there may not have been the same level of confusion, since this word has the concept of physics embedded within, which is probably more clearly identified as a specialised area of science. Yet given the level of science fiction speculation I read about certain areas of astrophysics (e.g. black holes), I’d be curious what the findings might be for this discipline.

What I would like to see in a further study, is to dig deeper into the qualitative distinctions and what they mean for scientific literacy. If you take the qualitative answers from the poll in Landers’ blog post, to some people, astrology means:

Astrology is the study of how the positions of the planets affect people born at certain times of the year… The study the heavens for finding answers to life questions. (My emphasis)

These qualitative responses suggest that to some people, the “correct” meaning of astrology is still mistaken as a form of science.

Photo: Astronomer by Tobias Lindman, via Flickr, CC 2.0

Landers’ blog post provides a useful point of comparison to a study completed by the European Commission. A higher proportion of people think that astrology is scientific (41%) when they are specifically asked how scientific is astrology?, versus a lower proportion of people (13%) who think that horoscopes are scientific when asked specifically about this.

I see that these findings still suggest a troubling trend: that people don’t understand what astronomy is. Why is this? It shouldn’t be the case, as this is a major field of scientific study. There is already plenty of evidence that the public doesn’t really understand the basics of science (I wrote about this here). So despite the qualitative distinctions, there is a public education problem here that needs to be addressed.

Rajini Rao brought out other findings from the NSF study, noting that younger people were more likely to see astrology as science. Only 42% of people aged 18-24 thought that astrology was unscientific. A lower proportion of older people aged 35-44% today say the same (51%), where as in 2010, 64% of older people thought that astrology was not scientific. This trend is even more worrisome – older people are relatively less confused about astrology, but the misinterpretation is growing.

Rajini invited us to look at the broader report, which shows other trends that influence the public’s understanding of science.  The images below and the rest of my discussion draw on this report.

Science Literacy

Poor knowledge of astrology is growing amongst older people relative to previous years. Is this because, as people get older, they forget their science education?

The study also identified well educated people with “factual knowledge” of science were less likely to confuse astrology for a science.

There is indeed more to this study than what was reported by the media. The most interesting patterns are somewhat contradictory to the pursuit of enhanced science outreach. For example, 80% of Americans surveyed are interested in new scientific discoveries, but then again, amongst those following science “closely” most are paying close attention to the weather, and only 16% of people follow other science news this closely.

The NSF study shows that a larger proportion of people get their science news from the internet today (42%) relative to previous years. This makes it all the more important for us to correct media hype such as the original reporting on this astrology finding, and all the more reason for us to contribute to criticising junk science news. (Science on Google+ is committed to these aims using the hashtags #ScienceMediaHype and #DebunkingJunkScience).

Public knowledge of what scientists do. By NSF (Click to enlarge)

The broader study also finds that while most people have a high opinion of scientists, only half of the people surveyed say that they have a good or strong understanding of what we do.

The public is more likely to have a clearer idea of what applied fields do, specifically engineering and computer programming. Space exploration ranks low as a topic of scientific interest, which would explain the poor knowledge of astronomy.

All of this shows that public education on science needs more practical support and active engagement by scientists.

Making Progress

The NSF data show that public trust in science is relatively better than in other institutions, but still, this is outweighed by the proportion of people who distrust science. Around 2/5 of Americans trust scientists and the medical community, but half trust the military. Conversely, a higher proportion of people distrusted other institutions more than they distrusted science, but organised labour was distrusted the least.

It’s possible to lift public understanding and trust in science when we look at the NSF’s international data. Overall, more Americans think that the harmful results of research outweigh its benefits, and this discontent has grown slightly since the last two surveys were conducted in 2008 and 2010. Scandinavian nations and Canada have a higher proportion of people who think science has done more harm than good. Then again Canada also has the highest proportion of people who have confidence in the good produced by science, along with nations like Taiwan, South Korea, Czech Republic, Austria and Mexico, while the Philippines has the highest confidence in science.

Belief in Science vs Faith. By NSF. (Click to enlarge)

Historical experience, public framing of debates and understanding of the practical and tangible benefits of institutions all influence how people understand their benefits. I’ve previously shown that a lack of understanding of science, such as its advantages and risks, affect the level of trust the public has in science. As I’ve shown previously, lack of trust in science is also associated with personal beliefs, values and attitudes.

There is some conflation of belief in faith versus belief in science. Around half of Americans think that there’s too much belief in science, which makes them similar to most European nations. Religion alone does not account for lack of trust, however, as education level and other socio-economic variables are also influential.

Public opinion on federal funding of basic research 1985-2012. By NSF. (Click to enlarge)

Perception of science funding has fluctuated over the years. This trend is influenced by economic and political pressures at particular points in time. Around a decade a go, more Americans believed that the government was not spending enough money on research. Close to 80% of Americans think that there’s not enough funding of education (presumably at the primary and secondary levels), but less than 40% think that there’s not enough funding of scientific research.

Soon, I will return to the issue research funding and trust in science. In a nutshell though, in some cases, people mistrust science because they don’t understand how science research is funded. People think all the money comes from lucrative private companies such as “big pharma.” The reality is that most research is funded by Government, and this funding is being decreased.

While most people think that scientists are devoted to solving important problems and that our work is not boring, there is misconception about how we carry out our work. More people think that scientists work alone, that our work is dangerous (this could mean different things to different people) and that we’re peculiar people. Misconceptions about what it means to be a scientist are likely to affect how people understand – and more importantly misunderstand - what we do, how and why we do it.

Moving Forward

I started this post reflecting on the misinterpretation about astrology and astronomy. Clearly there are problems with how people understand quantitative survey questions, so we need mixed methods to get to a deeper understanding of what all of this means. As I mentioned, people think science is dangerous and that the benefits do not always justify the costs. Why do people think this? Where do they get their ideas? If we take the astronomy example, clearly the media are not helping. They serve only to confuse the public on many science matters, offering only superficial slivers of information on rich, complex studies.

And now for the perennial question: How do we do better science outreach?

Clearly we have many dedicated scientists doing quality public engagement, but we need more. Given that applied science fields are more familiar to people, boosting the profile of applied research may help to increase public understanding of science. This is an especially important challenge for the social sciences, and sociology specifically, as our applied work is rarely highlighted as a strength.

But how do we dispel some of these myths about science funding, the pros and cons of research, and what it means to be a scientist? Is it enough for more of us to engage, or does the nature of our outreach need to change?

Write your ideas in the comments below!

Scientific literacy requires sustained engagement. Support
Applied Science & Public Outreach.

This article as first posted on my Google+.

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Last week, I co-hosted a panel discussion by STEM Women on Everyday Sexism in Academia, along with Dr Buddhini Samarasinghe a Molecular Biologist from the UK. Our guests were Professor Rajini Rao PhD  in Biochemistry who runs her own lab at Johns Hopkins University USA, and Dr Tommy Leung, Evolutionary Biologist with the University of New England, Australia. The video covers five scenarios that arise in early career academic life: sexist comments that undermine women’s confidence; sexism in publishing; “tone policing” how women speak; a mentor who inappropriately asks a junior researcher on a date; and the way in which women scientists are spoken about in stereotypically gendered ways. For example, women are described as mothers and wives first, and scientists second, while men are just “scientists.” In this post I cover the highlights of our discussion. First, I provide an overview of the sociological definitions of sexism, and how everyday experiences of sexism feed into broader patterns of sexual harassment and gender discrimination.

Sexism in STEM is not: Subjective; “Just a joke”; Accidental; Political Correctness. Sexism in STEM is: Institutional: Exclusion; Hurtful to progress; Damaging innovation

I recently wrote up an overview of the sociological and legal definitions of sexism, which you can find on the STEM Women website. Sexism describes the ideology that one gender is superior to another. To put it another way, it’s a system of attitudes, beliefs, stereotypes, and other types of bias that perpetuate the idea that women are somehow lesser than men. These attitudes may or may not be voiced overtly, but they nevertheless guide social interaction and behaviour.

The word “sexism” has taken on a life of its own in the public imagination, when people joke about what it is, even suggesting that there’s such a thing as “reverse sexism” (there isn’t), typically when denouncing affirmative action or gender quotas at work. The scientific meaning of sexism is lost when people argue about what sexism is or isn’t. Many people think sexism is subjective. That’s incorrect.

There are different terms floating around that often confuse people. For example, hostile sexism is the type of overt physical and verbal aggression people often think about when they think of “sexism.” Benevolent sexism includes inappropriate “compliments” that focus on a woman’s looks, which inadvertently reproduce the idea that women should be judged primarily on their physical appearance and sexuality.

“Unintentional” or “accidental” sexism encompasses the “jokes,” comments and behaviour that people put down to ignorance. This includes everything from putting up pictures of semi-naked women at work, “overlooking” women on meeting invites or other career opportunities, and “casual remarks” and “oversights” like speaking about professionals, such as engineers, using the pronoun “he.”

In the STEM Women article, I show that these various terms and the attitudes and behaviours described by hostile, benevolent and unintentional sexism are all the same: they are all examples of sexism. The fact that one person might view one example as more extreme than another has no bearing on the impact these attitudes and behaviours have on women. Their cumulative effect is that women are denigrated, undervalued and expected to “put up” with sexism.

The sociological concept of everyday sexism captures the idea that everyday social exchanges, whether they’re “benevolently,” “unintentionally” or “accidentally” sexist, are actually connected to broader issues in sexist culture, such as sexual harassment and institutional discrimination. Sexism is more than the things that we say and do: it’s about the prejudices that underpin sexist culture. It’s about all the individual and collective things we do and say that makes possible sexual harassment and discrimination. You can read more about the legal definitions and evidence of how sexism manifests in science over on our STEM Women website.

In our STEM Women panel discussion (the video above), we talked about the sociological definition of everyday sexism, which demonstrates how everyday social exchanges between individuals are connected to institutional discrimination. Specifically, how conversations between academic colleagues that are sometimes called “benevolent” or “unintentional” sexism, are actually the outcome of systemic issues of gender inequality. This includes “jokes” that play on a woman’s gender and sexuality (“You’re a cheap date”); complimenting a woman on her looks and propositioning a junior colleague at a conference; and critiquing a woman scientist for the way she speaks, such as saying she’s “too aggressive” in negotiations or “not nice enough” when addressing sexism (this is often known as “tone policing”).

Science: You’re doing it wrong. When scientists use a provocative picture of a woman hoping to make people pay for article access, the marketing gimmick is sexism.

We also covered the recent case where the Journal of Proteomics published a photo of a bare chested woman in an abstract to promote a scientific paper, which STEM Women critiqued. Finally we discussed how, even in professional contexts, people often discuss women scientists as mothers and wives first, rather than focusing on their professional achievements. For example in The New York Times obituary of rocket scientist Yvonne Brill.

Everyday sexism shows that women’s gender is a both a barrier to professional recognition, as well as a heavily policed focal point of scrutiny.

People think these seemingly innocuous examples of sexism are subjective – that women should just take a joke and not be “so sensitive.” We showed how social science actually connects these everyday comments to the professional barriers that women face in their scientific careers. This includes women’s pay, their career progression and professional esteem, their publications, women’s contribution and participation in STEM, and other more overt forms of workplace discrimination and sexual harassment.

Learn more about STEM Women, an initiative led by women scientists, and supporting the careers of women in STEM. Join us on Twitter or Google+.

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Photo: Weronika via Flickr CC 2.0

In Bangladesh, four million people work in textile factories. Their work accounts for 80% of their country’s annual exports. Yet they work in extremely dangerous conditions. It’s been a year since 1,100 workers died in two incidents of fire and structural collapse in April 2013. My post explores this tragedy through a sociological lens, looking at empirical studies of the local working conditions and social reality in which garment workers live. These tragedies are an ugly reminder of the unequal economic relations that sustain globalisation. One of the visceral Western response to these tragedies may be to cry for a boycott of these companies. Sociological research shows that the resolution is much less tidy. The story behind this is not simply about corporate greed. It is a tale about gender inequality and the social costs of economic mobility. Let’s start by remembering the 2013 tragedy.

Who takes the responsibility?

Over 1,100 workers died in two factory collapses in 2o13. The New York Times produced a moving short video on the Bangladesh Rana Plaza garment factory tragedy from the 24th of April 2013 (below). Featuring the work of photojournalist Ismail Ferdous, this video tells part of the stories of the people who died and a further 2,500 workers who were injured. The video includes the heartbreaking, iconic image of two bodies huddled together in the rubble (below). Ferdous says his photography represents

the voice of people who died… No one knows their story – how they survived making these clothes for first world countries.

Photo Times Asi via Flickr CC 2.0

The video notes that of the four million people work in clothing factories in Bangladesh, most of them women. The minimum wage is $68 per month though most factories pay less.

The tragedy reverberates beyond the loss of life, but also on the families who are dependent on these women’s income, in an economy where working class and poor women have few options.

Ferdous says, the fashion “tags remind me of the collapse.” Images of these fashion brands amid the devastation are all the more poignant when one considers the wealth these labels represent. The fashion houses linked to this tragedy include Benetton, who markets itself as a cosmopolitanism and progressive brand; El Corte Ingles, one of Spain’s largest department stores; J. C. Penny and Walmart, two of USA’s biggest department stores; and many more.These brands represent a multi million dollar industry, yet the Trust Fund set up to support victims needs a further $25 million to cover medical costs and loss of income to families. Human Rights Watch reports that only one single company has made a sizeable contribution to this Fund ($8 million by Primark), while 15 companies who manufactured products in these factories have yet to make a donation.

In the video, Ferdous asks: “who takes the responsibility? A Western viewer might watch this powerful video, feel enraged and consider that boycotting these companies is the answer. Sociological research actually suggests the answers about responsibility and social action are not as straightforward as they may seem.

Sociology of Gender & Exploitation

Sociologist Ethel Brooks studied how women and children who worked in garment factories protested their unfair working conditions in Dhaka in the late 1990s. Dhaka is also where the latest factory deaths took place. Brooks finds that unfair working conditions in Bangladesh were similar to the exploitation of workers employed by international garment companies in other developing nations such as El Salvador, and in sweatshops in cosmopolitan cities, such in New York. International condemnation of child labour in Bangladesh led to wide-scale protests by international consumers as well as by local unions. Factories bowed to pressure and fired 10,000 children they had been exploiting, which left them displaced.

Brooks chronicles how labour unions and activists brokered a program to get these children educated. But, she asks, what happened to them as a result? What were their local work options once they finished study, when the largest employers are the very same companies that exploited them in the first place? What happened to the women and other adults who continued to work in these factories? New bargaining agreements were put in place and international interest on these workers waned. Working conditions reverted back not long afterwards. So it is happens that 15 years later, the lack of labour rights have resulted in the deaths of 1,000 workers.

Photo Dhaka garment workers. By Tareq Salahuddin via Flickr CC 2.0

Naila Kabeer conducted a similar study of Bangladeshi women in Dhaka and London who work in textile factories. Kabeer notes that despite the horror of child labour, people outside Dhaka did not understand what this work meant to its locals. Children, especially girls, are vulnerable to sexual abuse while their parents are away working long hours. While they worked in factories, they were surrounded by other women, girls and relatives, which lessened the likelihood of facing this abuse. (Although Kabeer also notes that some factory owners preyed upon young women.) This sounds horrific, but Kabeer unravels the social fabric connecting factory work and other spheres of life in Dhaka.

When the children were fired there was no one to look after them at home. Many women were forced to quit to look after these children, which meant that at least two financial contributions were now missing from the household (the mother’s and child’s). The women who opted to keep working were constantly worried about their children, which negatively impacted on their productivity in the factories, which further jeopardises their precarious employment. In contrast to their alternatives, factory work was considered by workers to be a “relatively safe and regulated environment.”

Kabeer’s and Brooks’ ethnographies attempt to question the ramifications of international consumer-led boycotts on local workers. What happens to workers when short-lived campaigns are deemed successful? What are their employment and social alternatives? Can labour union movements survive when international companies are only compelled to act when the international media shines a transient, damning glare?

I find these studies useful in situating the current situation in Bangladesh. As the graph to the below shows, the number of textile factory workers continues to increase in Bangladesh. Who looks after these worker’s rights in a way that won’t further endanger them, or have other negative consequences on their living arrangements?

Source: BGMEA via BBC

Beyond Boycotts

Beyond Boycotts: Gender, Globalisation and Garment Factories in Bangladesh

Consumer protests are important, but fleeting international condemnation do not go far enough. Inevitably media attention moves on, while local workers are left without a voice. These factories simply shifted the appearance of exploitation, and continued to neglect and abuse the working conditions and pay of their adult workers. As Brooks notes, many factory workers in 2007 were still women. As I showed, the same is still the case today. Brooks argues that international pressure has to be sustained and collaborative. Imposing certain ideas of capitalist freedom (no child labour) while neglecting the local reality of workers has limited effect on workers’ rights. International consumers can do much better by demanding long term reforms not just on factory floors, as Brooks writes, but also on “floors to corporate boardrooms, retail outlets and advertising outlets.”

There is an international imperative not to turn our eyes away, nor to forget the tragic loss of life in Bangladesh’s garment factories. Yet we should also consider thoughtfully about taking action that won’t further jeopardise the livelihood and safety of the women and children whose present and futures depend on this industry. The Bangladesh factory catastrophes can be avoided through stronger regulation of the international garment industry, better local working conditions and worker’s rights, stronger oversight of infrastructure, and tighter accountability by international parent companies that outsource their labour to developing nations.

Photo: Milgram Experiment participant. Via Pacific Standard.

The Milgram Experiment, which supposedly shows that all human beings are capable of participating in torture under the watchful eye of an authority figure, has captivated popular culture for half a century. Why is that, given that there are finer social science studies out there? This post describes the experiment as well as another famous psychology experiment, the Stanford Prisoner Experiment. I critique these studies as well as exploring the public’s fascination with them, despite their methodological flaws. I provide a case study of how popular culture reproduces the Milgram Experiment as a universal “truth” about humanity’s innate propensity towards “evil.” The truth is that the Milgram Experiment is highly flawed and it tell us very little about our genetic predisposition for torture. What the Milgram Experiment does show, however, is that storytelling falls back on simplistic narrative about good and evil. Social science, in this case psychology and neuroscience, is just another plot device to reproduce the basic notion that “good people” can be made to do “bad things.” The social reality is much more complex and disturbing because it forces us to re-examine the relationship between obedience, culture and social interaction.

The Milgram Experiment

Image: Drawing of Milgram Experiment. Via Wikimedia

Stanley Milgram (1933-1984) was a psychologist who set up an experiment in the 1960s where people dressed in lab coats asked participants to administer electric shocks to other people who were in another room. While there was, in fact, no other person receiving these shocks, the participants were not privy to this information. Nevertheless, most people complied with the orders (after some encouragement). The study argues that most people followed these instructions because human beings have been trained not to question people who are perceived to have a higher authority. Supposedly, the Milgram experiment shows that, given the “right conditions”, most “good people” do as they are told, even if they are instructed to do something “evil”. You can see a BBC replication of these experiments below.

Milgram’s study is closely affiliated with Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prisoner Experiment, where one group of university students was asked to play the role of prison guards and another group of students played the part of prisoners. The people playing the guards subsequently abused their position of authority.

Even after five decades of controversy and criticism, both the Milgram and Prisoner experiments retain strong cultural authority by offering a similar overarching explanation about the “evil nature” of humanity. These experiments are used in various professional fields such as in management training and they have been used to explain the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes as well as human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib. In 1979, Milgram said on the American 60 Minutes:

I would say, on the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments, that if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.

American school teacher Jane Elliot‘s blue eyed/brown eyed exercise in A Class Divided is based on a role-playing exercise with a similar premise: people are not born racist, they are socially conditioned to discriminate. Elliot’s teaching exercise is better managed as it is designed to teach children about discrimination.

The Milgram and Prisoner experiments have permeated popular culture. This should be a coup for social science, as it means our ideas diffuse into the public. Unfortunately, this development has not been ideal as the research has been twisted and lost its potential for educating the public on the nuances of human behaviour.

Pop Psychology Gone Wrong

Horror auteur Eli Roth re-staged the Milgram Experiment in 2011 for a Discovery Channel special titled How Evil Are You? (below).  Roth’s documentary inspired me to write this post for two reasons. First because as a horror film connoisseur, I love some of his movies like the delicious Cabin Fever (though detest others like Hostel). Second, this special has all the loathsome characteristics of sciencetainment (fluff entertainment posing as science): it recreates the experiment both as an amusing fact, but without serious engagement with the study and its methods. It also conveniently sidesteps five decades of critique.

Neuroscientist Jim Fallon who has made a career of popular writing on serial killers, appears on the show. Fallon administers a “DNA and blood test” to determine whether Roth has “the evil gene.” Note that there is no such thing as an evil gene. Fallon is filmed showing Roth “brain scans” (fMRI images) that are played to dramatic effect. Fallon says they show that Roth’s brain is activated when viewing neutral pictures, which he says is “positive” as it supposedly demonstrates Roth is capable of empathy. Yet when he viewed images of horror, Fallon says “that empathetic part is turned off… almost like a temporary psychopath.” This phrase is also misleading, as there is no such thing as a temporary psychopath. The DSMV V, the official manual used in psychiatry and psychology, recognises six personality disorders (defined as a “pattern of impairments and traits“). Psychopathy is not one of them. Its closest application is the Antisocial type, which is about taking advantage of others and aggression – but not specifically about killing and most certainly not about an evil gene.

So: even though Roth explains that he was physically unable to watch horror films as a child without “projectile vomiting” and over the years he developed the ability to not only watch – but direct – horror films (that is: works of fiction)… Fallon still acts as if the brain scans prove a genetic disposition towards “evil.” Never mind that brain imaging does not show a correlation between emotional, cognitive and genetic predisposition to violence. Brain imaging is a useful tool for mapping areas of the brain in response to stimuli, but there are problems with overstating what these images mean. Even a dead salmon can show activity in an fMRI scan.* Brain scans are seductive because they are visually compelling, but the scientific community has been careful about how we interpret these images. “Brain scans are not pictures of cognitive processes in the brain in action.” As a neuroscientist, Fallon should know better than to stage this spectacle.

Roth, who is of Jewish descent, says he is interested in the Milgram experiment as an explanation for the Holocaust. Ultimately as he says on his show, he seems to believe that anyone is capable of “evil”:

There’s an even more frightening possibility – what if anyone – you, me, your next door neighbour – has the capacity for evil? What if all of us, under the right circumstances, are capable of committing the most horrible acts?”

This is one of many pop culture representations of the Milgram experiment. Known as the “just following orders” trope, a version of the experiment is found in various works of fiction, from books such as The Reader and in films such as The Experiment starring Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker.

Never mind that the Milgram Experiment was not about proving or disproving “evil.” Rather, it was focused on how people respond to authority figures during a lab experiment.

The Critique

The study has been critiqued heavily over the past four decades on the grounds of research ethics. Milgram used deception and potentially scarred the participants. The study has also been criticised for experimental bias. It does not measure how people behave in real life, but rather how they respond to commands in a staged setting. The set up of the original experiment was seen as absurd by some of the participants and so they experienced no qualms about complying with the instructions.

Advertisement recruiting participants to the original Milgram Experiment. Via Sociological Images

The study was set up to prove the ideology of the scientist; that is, it proved what Milgram already believed about human nature. The study was also not representative of a cross-section of society – it initially recruited White men who were paid to participate in a “study about memory” (see the recruitment notice on the right). Payment is not uncommon in science studies, to compensate for the participants’ time, but studies do have to be purposefully recruiting a specific segment of a sub-population, in which case it is not representative of all society. Otherwise, the sample should be random. Milgram’s was the former so it is not representative of all Americans, let alone all of humanity.

As Australian social scientist John Laurent shows, Milgram’s experiment is an excellent example of the social construction of science. The Milgram Experiment continues to be presented as psychological “truth” about the awful side of human nature, particularly in first-year undergraduate textbooks. Yet Laurent argues that Milgram’s research is a historical product borne of a time when B. F. Skinner‘s theories of behavourism prevailed and psychologists were less interested in individuals’ subjective understandings of the experiments for which they had volunteered. That is, the experiment was set up to elicit a specific response within a lab without seeking to understand how and why participants complied with the instructions. Psychologist Ian Nicholson argues that the study is best understood as a historical performance of Cold War American masculinity.

Subsequent studies claim to replicate the original findings. For example, see this review in A Backstage Sociologist from 2008 and The Situationist from 2007 and 2011. One study has attempted to address the limitations of the original study, by controlling for experimental bias. The study used 31 French undergraduate students (29 women) who were told the shocks they were administering were not real, but in some cases, they could see a “victim” hooked up to a machine, and they could hear and see them reacting to the shocks. This study finds that people were less distressed about administering shocks to people of a different racial background - namely North Africans . In this case, pre-existing prejudices enabled the participants to de-humanise the “victims.” Conversely, participants experienced greater discomfort and a lower desire to comply with administering shocks when they were told, and they could see, that the person who was receiving the shocks were of the same racial background as the participant (French). The participants were more likely to exhibit a level of mental anguish or depression two months after the experiments in relation to the French victims, but not so for the African victims.

Levels of compliance differed when the participants could see the “victim” receiving the (simulated) shocks. One third of the participants administered the shocks to the full capacity as instructed; another 35% administered only to the level where the victim was in visible pain and asked for the experiment to stop; and the rest continued a bit further, to when the victim became silent. The people who fully complied with the orders and administered higher shocks had pre-existing anger issues. They were also more likely to blame the researchers and victims when they were asked to explain why they complied with orders. For the rest, being able to see and hear the victims respond in pain resulted in distress in the participants, which is why they stopped applying the “shocks” even though they knew the shocks weren’t real. The researchers write:

it is interesting to observe that despite the fact that all participants knew for sure that nothing was real, they tended to respond to the situation as if it was real.

So you see, context, culture and social relations all play a role in people’s willingness to obey orders unquestionably. In fact, not everyone is equally likely to comply with orders. The situation, interaction and affinity with victims mediate compliance. It isn’t as simple as people automatically being predisposed to follow orders. It isn’t really even about some people being “good” and others being “evil.” Personal experience, emotion, rationalisation and detachment from Others matter.

Pop Culture’s Fascination With Innate “Evil”

I am intrigued with how science is portrayed in popular culture, especially social science. I see that there is sociological merit in understanding how scientific theories take hold of mass culture. The Milgram experiment tells us very little about the limits of our universal humanity. Instead, it tells us something about how people behave in response to researchers in a lab. Sociologists generally do not ascribe to any universal truths about “human nature”. The cultural fascination and reproduction of Milgram’s research in popular culture actually tells us something profound about the mainstream “Western” collective mindset that reduces the idea of human ethics and decision-making into easily digestible one-line discourses. Phrases such as “all human beings are inherently good or evil” or “most good people do bad things because other people tell them to” reverberate in many books, movies and TV shows.

Pop culture’s fascination with the Milgram experiment is ultimately that it provides a simplistic good-versus-evil narrative about human behaviour that otherwise horrifies and confuses us. The idea that people in lab coats – those in positions of authority – can coerce us into transgressing human decency is reassuring in its simplicity. We can then imagine that we are above such amoral behaviour if we were in a similar position. We can also absolve ourselves of thinking through how our own cultural biases influence our willingness to follow orders without taking personal responsibility. The fact is that no singular factor influences human obedience. Culture, time, place, social norms and other social factors impact how we act in times of duress, and not all human beings will react in the same way.

The Milgram experiment might provide some solace with its neat explanation of how authority corrupts, but the reality is much more complex.

Credits

This is an elongated version of my post was originally published on Tumblr.

* Hat Tip: Doctor Tommy Leung for the research link to the salmon fMRI study.

Photo: Jimmy Kang via Flickr

In March, sociology students in Taiwan were criticised for being released from class to attend peaceful protests occupying the Legislature Yuan from the 18th of March 18 to the 10th of April 2014. Sociology lecturers called this “the most practical lesson of sociology.” Since dubbed the “Sunflower Student Movement,” the youth were protesting a trade-in-service agreement with China. On the one hand, Taiwan’s Education Minister said that teachers should support their students’ education rights. On the other hand, he criticised teachers for supporting this through peaceful protest. Instead, he argued that teachers should have done this “through rational debates and discussions.”

Today in Australia, students are being similarly critiqued for protesting the deregulation of university fees as a result of the impending changes to the national budget. Universities Australia told the ABC program Lateline on the 3rd of June that increased fees will mean up to a 60% increase in debt for some university degrees. This translates to an additional 6 years of repayments for full-time workers. For a part-time worker who takes time away from paid work to start a family, the research suggests this could mean up to 20 years of additional debt.

The similarities in the media and political discourses of how the Australian and Taiwanese students conducted their protests are worth exploring further.

Australian Student Protests

Much like the Taiwanese students, Australian students have been criticised for disrupting civil democracy. This is the very point of social protests – to interrupt the status quo. Media groups and leaders have focused on the students’ methods, essentially deemed to be impolite and therefore undemocratic. A group of students demonstrated on a popular ABC political program, Q&A, by heckling Christopher Pyne, the Minister for Education, who was a guest on the show, and for holding up a protest sign “unprofessionally.” Broader groups of students participated in several peaceful marches around the country (though the media has been trying its hardest to taint the protests as “violent”).

The student protests have been called “ineffective” and “unproductive” by conservative commentators. Q&A’s host, journalist Tony Jones, said the students’ disruption of the show “is not what democracy is all about.” As the host who facilitates conversation on the program, Jones is well within his rights to steer the dialogue between the guests and the audience as he sees fit. He can even critique the students if he so wishes, for breaking the scripted plan for the program. After all, shows and forums have rules of conduct. Yet as a show that prides itself on offering a unique public platform for democracy, Jones’s attitude is grossly off point about what democracy means. In fact, Q&A describes itself thus:

It’s about democracy in action – on Q&A the audience gets to ask the questions. It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you’re from – everyone can have a go and take it up to our politicians and opinion makers. Energetic and opinionated – Q&A brings Australia’s egalitarian and larrikin spirit* into the studio. Q&A is about encouraging people to engage with politics and society. (My emphasis)

Q&A has continued to lampoon the student protests since, inviting older guests to comment on the students’ action, which continue to focus on the idea of manners and polite debate. All of these guests, Jones and the politicians who are pushing for this reform are old enough to have benefited from Australia’s former policies that supported free education. For example, two guests on Q&A on the 26th of May, comedienne Jean Kittson and artist Tim Storrier, painted a picture of a by-gone golden era of student protest in the 1960s and 1970s, which Kittson specifically characterised as mostly a bit of sexy fun that was derailed by political agendas. The current-day protests are neither fun nor sexy to Kittson, from her privileged position in the present day. Nor should they be. If protests were agreeable to those in power, there would be no point in having them.

Revolutions Are Not Meant to be Quiet

Protests happen when some groups are fed up with being ignored, abused and denied their rights. For those in safety, whose lives will be largely untouched by reforms; for those in power who don’t like seeing these protests play out; the question is not about the mechanism of protest, but rather the policies that led to the political rallies in the first place.

.@theprojecttv Student protest in Sydney was peaceful save for the incident with flare. Was not violent as reported. pic.twitter.com/SeZDaSixu7

— SusannaFreymark (@SusannaFreymark) May 21, 2014

It’s clear that class and power play out in similar ways in these two very different democratic contexts in the Asian-Pacific region. The idea that students should be relegated to quiet debate behind closed doors is the antithesis of social justice movements and civil rights action. Only people who are comfortable and not at risk by new laws would argue that students should relegate their political debate to the classroom.

Democracy is not about waiting to be heard. Peaceful social protests and other forms of social activism represent sociology in action. Last year, I spoke with sociologist Dr Dan Brook, who talked about how students’ activism is a form of applied sociological practice. He said:

“The whole point of sociology is to learn stuff so that we can make our society better. So that we can reform, or if necessary, revolutionise our society. The whole point of sociology is to bring improvement into people’s lives.”

Sociology, politics and culture are inextricably linked – at least in practice, if not always in theory. I don’t think we can have one without the others. – Dr Dan Brook

Learn More

Read my other related articles on the sociology of social protest and activism:

• Nelson Mandela’s ProSocial Moral Disobedience
• Why don’t more people join social justice movements?
• “There Are No Unclean People, Only Unclean Systems”: The Sociology of Religion and the Delivery of Social Justice
• My Tumblr posts on various protests from around the world

Note

*Larrikin is an Australian term for a unique form of dry, loud and anti-authoritarian humour.

#YesAllWomen

The Wikipedia page for #YesAllWomen, a record of an anti-sexism online protest movement, is being edited to make it “less misandrist.” This Wiki page documents the Twitter hashtag that is being used internationally by women to share their experiences of sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination following the Isla Vista mass shooting in America. Some men are using this tag to listen and support women, but predictably, others are abusing it to hurt women and argue that the hashtag is “sexist against men.” The Wiki edits matter because Wikipedia has a massive problem with sexism. These edits reflect the very issues of gender violence, intimidation and power that the #YesAllWomen hashtag is trying to address.

Gender Bias in Wikipedia

Between 8% to 13% of Wikipedia editors are women. The Wikipedia Foundation recognises the public encyclopaedia is skewed towards men. It seeks new ways to entice newcomers, because both recruitment and retention of women is an ongoing challenge. Specifically, its surveys reveal “systemic bias” in the “average Wikipedian,” who is an English-speaking male form a Christian-majority country, in a developed nation in the Western hemisphere, technically inclined, well educated, aged 15–49 and employed as a white-collar worker or they are otherwise a student. For a universal open access project, Wikipedia fails on every measure of diversity: geographic, linguistic, racial, sexuality, economic, and of course gender. There are projects set up to address these short-comings, but the problems are very far from being resolved. The issues are socio-cultural, rather than technical.

Many of Wiki women have spoken out about how their entries are often edited by men in malicious ways, using sexist, racist, homophobic and violent language (trigger warning). Wikipedia finds this is driven by its “conflict-oriented culture” which forces women to leave as they are treated aggressively by male editors. A Wiki study reports:

“Unexpectedly, we find that female editors are more concentrated in areas with high controversy… and are more likely than males to draw corrective actions from fellow editors… In summary, the available data indicate that female editors experience more adversity than male editors in all the areas that we studied.” [My emphasis]

Sexism

Sue Gardner, the former Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation (she left the position last month), has written several times on Wikipedia’s lack of gender diversity. In 2011, she noted that various studies and articles have found that registered women editors tend not to contribute much writing. Some of them say it’s due to Wiki’s interface, but overwhelmingly, it is due to Wikipedia’s sexist culture, specifically, feeling “intimidated by the tone of the discussions.” Women editors are put off by having to muster the energy to get “into fights with dudes.” Women don’t want to invest the little leisure time they have only to have their work undone by sexist men. One woman editor says:

“I used to contribute to Wikipedia, but finally quit because I grew tired of the “king of the mountain” attitude they have. You work your tail off on an entry for several YEARS only to have some pimply faced college kid knock it off by putting all manner of crazy stuff on there such as need for “reliable” sources when if they’d taken a moment to actually look at the reference they’d see they were perfectly reliable! I’m done with Wikipedia. It’s not only sexist but agist as well.”

Another woman reflects on her experience writing about gender violence:

“the Wikipedia entries on the Violence Against Women Movement and Act were very misleading, incorrect in some cases, and slightly sarcastic and minimizing to the work of women rights advocates. Every time an advocate would try to make corrections and update the entries, it would be removed and edited back to it’s original misleading version. I think many advocates felt like it was pointless to try and change it-or didn’t have the same kind of time and energy around it that these majority male editors have to maintain sexist and incorrect posts.”

Under-representation of Women

Support The Royal Society’s Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. Via STEM Women

Wikipedia sexism is also reflected in the lack of entries on women professionals and historical figures, including women scientists. STEM Women, which I am a part of, supported the Royal Society’s Wikipedia hack-a-thon. The annual event highlights the lack of Wikipedia articles about notable women scientists.

The issue is not just about editing – it is about the basic topics that women want to cover on Wikipedia which relate to women’s issues broadly defined: prominent women figures, women’s interests, and women’s knowledge. To be blunt, the gender inequality on Wikipedia is about a power struggle over gendered knowledge.

Knowledge and Power

An illustration of White male privilege. Via Pinterest.

In sociology, we see that the acquisition, communication, reproduction and debates about information are influenced by socio-economics, including gender. On Wikipedia, the very act of writing about women or women-related themes is seen as political (“controversial”) and this automatically attracts hostility and excessive-editing. While men will argue with other men on Wikipedia pages, the pages written by women about women draw relentless negative attention.

As male views are dominant, they are not seen as gendered. Being male is the default. As it is seen as normal, and men’s presence is nothing out of the ordinary, male writing is perceived to be value-free. When a woman writes about women, it is contentious simply because her gender makes her knowledge and presence conspicuous. If a woman writes about women’s issues, she must automatically be biased – or so goes the sexist argument. When a man writes about other men, men’s issues, interests and topics, he is presumed to be objective by virtue of his gender.

Women’s knowledge on Wikipedia is Other; that is, it is different and therefore suspect and it invites furious edits and deletions simply because the average Wikipedian male sees that women don’t belong in their space. Women are threatening merely because they want their knowledge to be represented in a male field, Wikipedia, which is actually supposed to represent humanity. A loud and busy segment of Wikipedia men want women erased, silent and otherwise passive. They position women as merely observers of history, even when it involves them. This is how history has largely constructed women’s knowledge, as Other and subservient to men’s perspective, as Simone de Beauvoir famously argued in The Second Sex:

The issue with this latest edit frenzy on the #YesAllWomen Wiki page is further evidence of the misguided move to support so-called “reverse sexism,” a nonsensical term I wrote about recently in reference to the “not all man” defence” (see below). Women speaking out about sexism is not an act of sexism. Sexism describes institutional inequality that benefits some groups over Others. It requires social power, which men collectively hold, even if they don’t want to acknowledge these structural benefits.

#YesAllWomen is about creating safe spaces for women. Some men understand this; unfortunately many do not. Astronomer Phil Plait argues that this hashtag is an opportunity for men to reflect about the problems with masculinity, violence and entitlement. It symbolises the need for men to listen to women, not react defensively. He argues: “We men need to do better”:

Even though we may not be the direct problem, we still participate in the cultural problem. If we’re quiet, we’re part of the problem. If we don’t listen, if we don’t help, if we let things slide for whatever reason, then we’re part of the problem, too.

The Wikipedia page on the #YesAllWomen movement documents this global conversation about women’s experiences of masculine violence. Acts of gender violence reflect institutional problems with the way gender is constructed,enacted and socially enforced. Men who are editing this page say they want to use “more neutral” language. In actuality, they are simply defending their own social privilege on a platform that already favours men. In so doing, they contribute to more of the same gender violence that the #YesAllWomen dialogue was set up to explore and tear down.

Learn More

Notes

Image 2 text: What’s wrong with this picture? Professor Julia Slingo is Chief Scientist at the Met Office in Britain. Yet she merits only a few paragrpahs on Wikipedia. Support The Royal Society’s Wikipedia Edit-a-thon 4 March 14. Help spread Awareness of Women Scientists.

Image 3 text: [White male cartoon angry points to a blackboard with writing, saying, "OMG! This is totally unfair TO ME!" Text reads] “Times people cared about White men’s feelings [many] versus times people didn’t care about men’s feelings [once].”

Image 4 text: “Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being… She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.” Simone de Beauvoir.

Photo via Flickr

The Abbott Government in Australia has previously stated it does not believe in climate change and it has significantly withdrawn funding for this line of research in its latest Budget (along with funding for most non-medical scientific research). A recent change on the Department of Environment’s website has removed a reference to the link between extreme weather conditions and climate change. The Department says this change reflects the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is incorrect. In order to provide some context for my post, it’s best to understand the Abbott Government’s historical and current position on climate change. I specifically focus on the public discourse by Abbott and his Ministers. They discuss climate change science as both something that is open to interpretation and something that can be fought with selective use of science.

The IPCC describes climate change as:

a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. It refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.

Climate change action is an interdisciplinary effort, requiring the knowledge and contribution of scientists, community planners and health workers, and other experts from many fields. It requires research as well as social policy intervention at the local community, state, federal and international levels.

I wrote part of this post on my Google+ and I encountered much push-back from a vocal minority of individuals vehemently opposed to the science of climate change.* As such, I wanted to expand on my original argument, and put climate change denial in sociological context. Research shows that political interests shape the extent to which climate change science is rejected, particularly when individuals have a direct or vested interest in an economy of fossil fuels, or where they have an ideological opposition to renewable energy and social change more broadly.  My focus is on the sociological consequences of extreme weather events, specifically on community planning and community resilience (the knowledge, resources and planning necessary to deal with extreme events).

Abbott Government Position on Climate Change

Abbott’s position against climate change science is well-documented. Consider this interview from 2008:

I refuse to be terrified of the future. I think that humankind has been pretty good at coping with the challenges that we’ve been given. If you look at Roman times, grapes grew up against Hadrian’s Wall – medieval times they grew crops in Greenland. In the 1700s they had ice fairs on the Thames. So the world has been significantly hotter, significantly colder than it is now. We’ve coped. I don’t say there aren’t problems, haven’t been problems, might not be problems, but I refuse to be terrified of the court [of scientific opinion]…I am always reluctant to join bandwagons. I think there are fashions in science and in the academe, just as there are fashions in so many other things.

Here, Abbott argues that because other people in other places, at other points in time, coped with the elements, climate change is not a big issue. This brand of “scepticism” that argues science is just a bunch of “fads” and conflicting opinions, is not actually engaging with the scientific evidence.

In 2010, Abbott infamously said, “Climate change is absolute crap.” In 2011, he said, “I don’t think we can say that the science is settled here.” He’s somewhat softened his stance in the last couple of years, especially in the lead up to the last election. He now says that climate change is important, but it’s “not the biggest issue” facing the world.

Climate change is a significant global issue. It is a very significant global issue. Is it the most important issue the world faces right now? I don’t believe so. It’s one of a number of significant issues that the world faces and we’ll do our bit.

Abbott’s subsequent actions contradict this position that we should take preventative action to address climate change.

Abbott continues to rely on the antiquated idea that Australia is “a land of droughts and flooding rains,” evoking a line from a popular Dorothea Mackellar poem from the year 1911. Abbott insists that this history means we can cope with future extreme weather, despite the scientific evidence that we cannot simply leave extreme weather events to play out without scientifically informed policy intervention.

Abbott Advisors’ Climate Change Discourse in 2014

Abbott’s key business advisor, Maurice Newman, went on national TV in late April 2014 to say that the scientific evidence on climate change was inconclusive. Like Abbott, who previously evoked a misguided narrative of historical climate events, Newman similarly argues that science is open to interpretation:

Newman: We know first of all that the survey which came out with the 97 per cent number was flawed in the first place. So we don’t pay any attention to that. What we do look at…

(ABC Journalist) Emma Alberici: There have been roughly three that have come up with that.

Newman: They all come up with flawed methodologies. So we don’t pay any attention to that. We know that there are a whole host of scientists out there who have a different point of view, who are highly respected, reputable scientists. So the 97 per cent doesn’t mean anything in any event because science is not a consensus issue. Science is whatever the science is and the fact remains there is no empirical evidence to show that man-made CO2, man-made emissions are adding to the temperature on earth.We haven’t had any measurable increase in temperature on earth for the last 17.5 years. If you look back over history, there’s no evidence that CO2 has driven the climate either. So I know that this is a view which is peddled consistently, but I think that the edifice which is the climate change establishment is now starting to look rather shaky because mother nature is not complying.

Newman dismisses the 97% of climate scientists in favour of one scientist he likes, Roy Spencer, who conveniently argues what Newman wants to hear. Newman insists that the other science he doesn’t “believe” is not credible because if you look at “history,” climate change is a figment of the science community’s imagination. “if you go back in history, and you look at when the sun has been active and when the sun has been inactive, will you find the climate on earth responds accordingly.” Never mind that the sun has never failed to be “active.”

Nevertheless, Newman uses science that fits with his worldview to refute the science that does not support his agenda: “I just look at the evidence. There is no evidence.” Later he argues, “But it isn’t a question of consensus. It’s a question of science.” In this view, science is whatever politicians want it to be.

In May, our Treasurer, Joe Hockey, argued that wind mills were “utterly offensive” and a blight on his scenic drive to work in Canberra, our nation’s capital.

In June, Abbott tried to push a climate change alliance with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This alliance aims to push Australia and Canada to oppose the Obama-led global agenda on climate change, and they hoped to encourage the U.K., New Zealand and India to join them. Abbott refused to put climate change on the agenda for the November G20 Summit, saying that this is the United Nation’s job, while the G20 should only deal with economic issues. This is in spite of the fact that climate change is directly affected by, and in turn affects, economic policies.

Last month, Abbott tried to have one of our oldest forests in Tasmania removed as a World Heritage Site to enable deforestation, a request that the United Nations denied. He’s been trying to repeal a carbon tax (a move that has suffered significant drawbacks this week). Plus Abbott has significantly withdrawn funding for a renewable energy program. Ahead of his recent visit to meet with President Obama in June, Abbott said he would not support renewable energies. He explained: “I’m not going to take climate change action which does clobber the economy.”

Removing Official Reference to Climate Change

One of the first decisions that Prime Minister Tony Abbott implemented during the first 24 hours following his political win was to cut science programs. He abolished the Climate Change Commission, he cut the position of Science Minister and soon thereafter, he slashed science funding. The former Climate Commission is now operating as an independent not-for-profit organisation as The Climate Council. Their Chief Executive, Amanda McKenzie, has spoken out against the decision to remove the Department of Environment website’s link between extreme weather and climate change. She says:

There is a common misconception that Australia has always had extreme weather so we should not be concerned now, but we are already seeing more forceful, extreme weather. Bushfires have increased in south-east Australia in the past 30 years, and we’ve just had our hottest 12 months on record. The evidence is absolutely unequivocal on the link. We know bushfire conditions are getting worse. We have to take the government on its word that it takes climate change seriously but there have been inaccurate statements made around extreme weather and it’s critical the public is provided the right information on these matters.

A major issue is that the Abbott Government is positioning its environmental policies through an anti-science ideology. Economic growth is pitted against sustainable practices. Climate change becomes something to be rejected on the basis of personal belief  (“we believe that human-caused climate change is not real”). This short-term view on environmental policies will cost Australia’s future highly over the long-term. As I’ve noted previously, “belief” in science is a value-laden position guided by personal world-views and political feelings, not by scientific evidence.

All in all, Abbott and his Government continue to display poor policy and decision-making on climate change (and other pertinent social issues). Good leadership would be to listen to climate change experts. Let’s now see what the international science community has to say on this, specifically on the connection between extreme weather. My interest is on the sociological impact on community planning.

Scientific Consensus on Climate Change & Extreme Weather

Community resilience requires public awareness about climate change and its impact on extreme weather

The international scientific community has enough evidence to show that certain extreme weather events “have changed in frequency and/or intensity over the last 50 years.” For example, the IPCC notes that cold weather and frosts “have become less frequent over most land areas, while hot days and hot nights have become more frequent.” The effects vary according to location. Heat waves have become more frequent in some places; heavy rainfall has increased in other areas; and extreme high sea level has increased.

The IPCC has produced a series of reports documenting the effect of climate change on extreme weather. Extreme weather produces increased vulnerabilities that climate scientists model so that we might plan for, and reduce, the risks (see here and here). The latest IPCC report for example looks at adaptations and vulnerabilities. The IPCC notes that the impact of extreme weather events depend not just on changing weather conditions but also on “exposure and vulnerability.” Socio-economic patterns, such as age, health, disability, location and education can impact on the ability of communities to prepare for extreme weather events.

Different world regions require different disaster management strategies and public health responses. In brief, these include:

• Australasia: addressing sea level rise, and reduced water availability in Southern states.
• Africa: adjustments in technology and infrastructure to improve ecosystems, basic health, and diversification of livelihood (such as to address food insecurity).
• Europe: coastal and water management, environmental protection and land planning.
• Asia: “development planning, early warning systems, integrated water resources management, agroforestry, and coastal reforestation of mangroves.”
• North America: municipal-level adaptation and planning and “longer-term investments in energy and public infrastructure.”
• Central and South America: ecosystem adaptation and conservation, community management, the development of resilient crops, strengthening climate forecasts, and “integrated water resources management.” (IPCC)

The IPCC further notes that the connection between climate change and extreme weather significantly impact sustainable development amongst local communities, with global consequences:

Climate extremes, exposure, and vulnerability are influenced by a wide range of factors, including anthropogenic climate change, natural climate variability, and socio-economic development… The interactions among climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk management may have a major influence on resilient and sustainable pathways.

Misinforming the public has real consequences for how communities deal with and prepare for extreme weather events like bushfires. So why do Liberal Government policy-makers refuse to acknowledge the connection between the scientific evidence on climate change when tackling extreme weather events?

Climate Change Denial as Ideology

Funding Distribution – 2003 to 2010. U.S. Climate Change Countermovement Organisations. (Click to enlarge)

As noted, I have previously explored how personal belief and political ideologies influence the willingness people have to accept robust scientific evidence. This is especially the case if they belong to a privileged group who feels their identity or way of life is threatened by research, or where their social group stands to lose power. Environmental sociologist Robert Brulle has shown that propaganda that negates climate change is funded by fossil fuel companies (see also image right). He argues: “The debate over climate change involves a political and cultural dispute contest over the appropriate field frame that governs energy policy.”

Social scientists Lianne Lefsrud and Renate Meyer studied how beliefs about climate change are related to personal identities and professional interests. They surveyed 1,077 professional engineers and geoscientists in Alberta, Canada, who are also members of the professional self-regulatory authority in their region, the APGA. The study notes that the largest employer in Alberta is the petroleum industry and their employees in turn make up a hefty proportion of the APGA: “In oil and gas companies, almost half of CEOs are professional engineers or geoscientists and most senior management teams and boards have at least one licensed professional [who are members of APGA].”

In Lefsrud and Meyer’s study, the participants who dismiss the idea that climate change is impacted by human activity also argue that governments should not support national or international initiatives to target climate change. Specifically they were asked about the Kyoto treaty. The study was published in 2012, and probably conducted in 2008-2009,** which is noteworthy because it was well ahead of the IPCC’s 2013 landmark international study on anthropogenic (human-caused) climate change.

The participants who oppose the idea of human-caused climate change fall into two groups (or “frames”). The economic responsibility group who believe we can never know whether climate change is caused by either humans nor by nature. The argue that climate change poses no significant personal risk to humans’ daily lives. They believe that climate policies should protect the economy. To put it another way, that climate policies should protect them and their employers. A typical statement cited in the study exemplifying this group: “Don’t we pay enough taxes as it is?”

The nature is overwhelming group believe that climate change is “natural” and unavoidable. They believe humans are insignificant in affecting nature. They make scientifically erroneous statements in the study such as, “‘If you think about it, global warming is what brought us out of the Ice Age.” The researchers write:

adherents of those frames that are more defensive and oppose regulation (‘nature is overwhelming’, ‘economic responsibility’) are significantly more likely to be more senior in their organizations, male, older, geoscientists, and work in the oil and gas industry. Adherents of these two frames comprise 33.7% of our respondents overall, but 63.3% of top managers in the oil and gas industry as opposed to 19.1% supporting regulation. [My emphasis]

So you see there’s a relationship between vested interests and beliefs about climate change. Tony Abbott and his Cabinet can be seen to embody these two frames of references, which reject the importance of climate change action on the basis of selective science, and economic concerns.

The IPCC propose a model of effective action that includes reducing exposure and vulnerability to extreme weather risks and increasing community resilience. In this case, a big part of resilience is public awareness about climate change and its impact on extreme weather. Shying away from educating the public about this connection is dangerous. The idea that Australia has always had bushfires does not take into consideration our changing population over time, and how the changes in the way we now live impact on our landscape. The Government’s failure to educate on these shifting dynamics encourages citizens to be complacent about changing conditions in our environment, rather than encouraging communities to be ready for these extreme weather shifts.

Learn More

Want to learn more about the IPCC’s scientific review and the connection between climate change and extreme weather? Check out Dr Noah Diffenbaugh‘s discussion with Science on Google+. He speaks about his research in the video below from 45:50 minutes or read my summary of the discussion. (Scroll to the third section titled Thunderstruck for Noah’s presentation.)

Below Noah answers questions about the IPCC report and climate change.

Notes

*View my original post on Google+.

**Lefsrud and Meyer’s study may have even been conducted earlier, as the notes in the article describe that the initial findings were presented at a conference in 2009. Most of the references cited in the study are from 2010. The IPCC’s international study that compiled the leading science from around the world was published in 2013. It found that the overwhelming majority of scientists support the science that climate change is caused by human activity.

Many people understand that celebrities are not health experts, yet the media persist on giving them a public forum to share their health and lifestyle advice. Journalists insist on printing celebrity musings without critical insight. This is dangerous. We see this in the anti-vaccine movement, but it’s pervasive in other ways. Over the next couple of days I’ll present a couple of case studies focusing on why it’s especially damaging to present celebrity ideas about women’s health without consideration to the social impact.

First up, I show the problems of presenting scientifically invalid ideas about vaginal health. A popular young American actress, Shailene Woodley, has reportedly suggested that genital yeast infection and other genital conditions can be cured by exposing vaginas to sunlight. She says she read this advice in an article by “an herbalist.” The media has repeated this advice and even recommended it with relish.

Young women who have limited access to sexual health education and who may not understand their bodies do not need to be exposed to pseudoscience. The individual musings of celebrities can be ignored at the individual level. At the social level, however, the media have cultural authority and a responsibility to inform readers about health issues. This is done by drawing on expert advice, not egging on damaging celebrity endorsements.

Let’s talk about vaginal health in an honest and informative way.

Vaginal Nonsense

Public fascination with celebrities extends beyond their artistic work. The media persist on getting celebrities to share their bodily rituals, a practice that is especially acute for women celebrities. Celebrities seem to do a lot of body work; their looks are tied to their careers, which means trying out different diets, exercise regimes and other health and beauty routines. Often times, this body talk is pushed by journalists who are obsessed by what women eat or don’t eat, what they do to stay in shape and so on. Sometimes celebrities share advice some might find helpful. Other times, they provide medically or scientifically inaccurate advice (or they are misquoted). This leads to public confusion about health and science. Today I focus on a seemingly fun piece about a young actress providing “holistic” advice about vaginal health. Peering beyond the “fun” angle (tee hee hee, vaginas!), we see that what is passed off casually as “science” is both incorrect and dangerous.

Jezebel, a pop feminist website, discussed an article where a journalist tried to live out the health advice of Shailene Woodley.*

Woodley is a young actress who appears in the wildly successful film The Fault in our Stars, which is based on the even more beloved book by John Green. Apparently, Woodley is taken by holistic ideas of health, which is perfectly legitimate for her as an individual. A problem arises when New York Magazine then publishes an article titled My Week Living Like Shailene Woodley where a celebrity lifestyle writer acts out the random statements made by the young starlet. I’m going to focus on one element appearing in NY Mag: Woodley’s assertion that sunbathing can combat vaginal infections. In the original interview with In the Gloss, a beauty website, Woodley says:

I was reading an article written by an herbalist I studied about yeast infections and other genital issues. She said there’s nothing better than vitamin D.

To clarify: Woodley has not asked that people follow her ideas or lifestyle. Because she is a woman, and so much focus is on her looks, Woodley is apparently often asked about her beauty and body routine. She is evidently answering according to her personal philosophy and practices, as she has every right to do.

The irresponsibility comes from journalists who print this lifestyle advice without deconstructing some of the dangers or complications that might arise. More specifically, the NY Mag writer has transformed Woodley’s personal musings into health advice:

Tanning nude (i.e., sunshine contacts a vagina). Friends: Just do it. It’s lovely and warm. Shailene promises this will guard you from yeast infections, and who is to say she’s wrong. I was lucky to be on this remote mountain, but I still got a chill buddy to guard.

Who is to say Woodley (and the NY Mag reporter by association) is wrong? Science!

​Woodley has shared small vignettes about how she lives her life in the context of the inane questions posed to women celebrities. Woodley is not imposing her ideas on anyone. Still, when celebrities give health and lifestyle advice, their ideas tend to get a life of their own, especially on the internet.

Vaginal Health

As I noted on Jezebel, there is no scientific basis for sunbathing to cure yeast infection nor any other vaginal condition. Vitamin A deficiency (not Vitamin D) has been linked to yeast infections, as Vitamin A is important to immunity. For example, in extreme cases of abnormality, vaginal HIV-1 DNA has been associated with abnormal vaginal discharge and “severe vitamin A deficiency.” One 2011 study suggested that Vitamin D may be explored as a possible way to treat vaginal infections after treatment for urinary tract infection, but this research has yet to be conducted, and it does not refer to yeast infections. Nor does it suggest that sunbathing is the way to test this connection.

Vaginal yeast infections, and vaginal health in general, is already shrouded in social stigma. This need not be the case. Healthy vaginas already carry bacteria including a small number of yeast cells. Vaginal yeast infections are actually very common (see the information below if you’re interested). People who have sex with women should understand how yeast infections work as it can be sexually transmitted.

Genital yeast infections happen when there is an over-abundance of the candida albicans yeast bacteria. The imbalance is usually connected to taking antibiotics, and in some cases as a reaction to elevated oestrogen levels during pregnancy or hormone therapy, or in extreme health conditions, such as HIV infection (see study I linked above) or diabetes. Vaginal yeast infections can be treated in various ways, including antifungal medicine, and by other general rules of sexual hygiene (for all genders). Sunbathing is not one of the medical treatments advocated by experts.

Aside from the general health risks of skin cancer, the vagina works as a self-cleaning system for a reason. It’s own acidic pH and fluids prevent many infections (unless there’s an illness) and so vaginas generally work just fine and should not be exposed to UV rays. And for the record, we only need minimal weekly exposure to sunlight to get adequate Vitamin D (read more below). Additionally, research shows that self-diagnosis is an important way to identify and avoid vaginal yeast infection. This means women need to understand how vaginas actually function, and be familiar with their own bodies. Misinformation complicates this process of health monitoring.

Beyond Vaginal Mysticism

Picture this: you’re a girl or a young woman who is a fan of Woodley. You don’t have good access to education about sexual health and you know little about what, if anything, you should do to keep your vagina healthy. Hearing any type of nonsense can lead to problems. Even on the Jezebel comment section, there are grown women debating the merits of sunbathing one’s vagina (though mostly about how this might feel, not necessarily with regards to curing yeast infections). Whatever your age or gender, vaginas are already veiled in equal parts mystery and social stigma. We rarely hear the word vagina or its so-called “impolite” and pejorative synonyms, let alone talk about how they really work. What we don’t talk about society can become elevated to the realm of mysticism. Vaginas are magical, secret things that are seldom discussed openly as needing day-to-day health rituals.

Vaginas are simultaneously sexualised and abhorred: they’re sexy when they’re portrayed in pornos; they’re positioned as ugly when they menstruate; and they’re either scary or awe-inspiring during childbirth. They’re a source of titillation and derision.

The social conundrum that vaginas represent in Western culture is best illustrated in the comedy Superbad. In one scene, Seth (Jonah Hill’s character) notes that vaginas are ugly when they’re pictured alone, but they’re sexy when accompanied by a penis in a porno. Later, he is scared and excited that a woman rubs her pubic area over his leg during a dance but then freaks that she “perioded” on him. Everyone laughs at him because he has menstrual blood on his pants. As feminist Chris Bobel argues, there’s a “prohibition against talking about menstruation” and the same came be said about vaginal health.

Germaine Greer once tried and failed to change the meaning of the word “cunt”: “I tried to take the malice out of it… it didn’t work. And now, in a way, I’m sort of, perversely pleased, because it meant that it kept that power.” In reviewing Greer’s work, I noted that much of the language women use to describe their genitalia is either clinical (vagina) or babytalk (“vajayjay” or “my front part”). I’ve used vagina here purposefully in a similar spirit to Greer, as I think this word is a good starting point to encourage more broadened talk about women’s sexual health.

The fact is, that outside of a hypersexual image of vaginas in adult films or the scenes of births in documentaries, vaginas are rarely seen. The concept of the vagina is political by virtue of the fact that politicians, especially conservative men, want to govern the reproductive rights of women. But vaginas are also personal beyond what we choose to do with them in connection to sex. They require maintenance and in this sense, social conversations about vaginas should be more common than they are.

Vaginas are more than just an object to be fetishised; there is more to think about than abject fear of menstruation or reverence of childbirth. Vaginas do lots of things outside of sexual contexts and for this reason women require health education and support. We don’t really teach girls this beyond how to use tampons in high school. So here is a young actress talking about how she proactively takes care of her vagina. This is great! She’s not waiting until she gets an infection; she’s out there reading about what she can do to keep her vagina healthy. Unfortunately, while she may enjoy sunbathing her vagina, and is well within her rights to do so, her personal beliefs are not presented, nor should they be taken as, lifestyle advice. Whatever she Woodley said, she did so within the context of an interview about herself. Yet journalists share the story, one has restaged it, and the information is pushed to the public without education.

As celebrity culture expands, some celebrities feel empowered by media interest in their bodies and lives to write books about lifestyle and health, even when they’re telling the public to do the most basic things like drink more water. A few celebrities build empires out of this work. Celebrities have wealth, time and teams of experts at their disposal. Woodley is not participating in this; she simply answered a question in a way the media deemed quirky. One writer steamrolled off this and got more press by replicating Woodley’s vaginal practice (if she indeed even said this as quoted). Still, the information celebrities access from random “herbalist” articles is coupled with earning power to correct health damage. They can afford to pay for professional intervention if they get ill in a way that may not be the case for ordinary folk, especially impressionable young people.

Woodley did not tell women to sunbathe their vaginas as she does; an adult reporter who should know better did this. It would be helpful if journalists actually sought to inform the public, and corrected misinformation when they write up the health musings of celebrities. Women’s bodies and sexual reproductive health are cloaked in shame. Health misinformation is not benign, especially when it comes to vaginas, a body site that is rarely discussed and is already masked in mystery. So much so it seems, that any mention of it is worth aping for a few reader clicks.

I wanted women to be able to say it. The same way I would say: “You think cunt is nasty? I’m here to tell you cunt is nice… Cunt is delicious. Cunt is powerful. Cunt is strong. – Germaine Greer, feminist

Learn More

Science of Yeast Infections

• Plain language descriptions: Vaginal Yeast Infections and overview.
• Sexual transmission: genital yeast infections (open access) and yeast infection in non-pregnant women (paywall)
• Importance of self-diagnosis (paywall)

How Much Vitamin D Do We Need?

The Australian Cancer Council research shows that, on average, people with lighter skin only need 2-3 hours of Vitamin D exposure during winter months per week. Exposure should only be limited to the face, arms and hands, with sunscreen. In summer only a few minutes of direct sunlight is recommended. People with darker skin may need three to six times the amount of Vitamin D exposure with sunscreen.

Notes

* I have published a small part of my critique on Jezebel.

Note: This blog post was first published on Google+ on the 31st of July

A new, already highly controversial, article by Professor of Chemistry, Neil Hall, proposes a “satiric” measure that maps the popularity of scientists on Twitter versus their impact factor (the number of publications in prestigious academic journals). He calls this the “K-Index,” named after a woman celebrity, Kim Kardashian. Why Kardashian? This index is meant to show that social media is as shallow as Hall deems this woman celebrity. Published in the renowned peer-reviewed journal Genome Biology, and unsurprisingly given his premise, Hall finds that scientists with a high impact factor score have a low value on the K-Index. This is mean to be a good thing, according to Hall, who sees scientific communication as being too important to be left to social media.

My post is inspired by Dr Buddhini Samarasinge who critiqued Hall’s conclusions. She discusses how and why scientists use social media, as well as age dynamics. Scientists who have a high publication record have had longer careers, established under a different, and better funded system. They have published more by virtue of the longevity of their careers and the opportunities that come with tenure (long-term and secure academic employment). They are often older and, as I will show, more reticent to use social media. The fact that they have a low K-factor should be a surprise to no one. Early career academics are more likely to be using social media because it is part of their everyday lives. They do not neglect publishing in peer reviewed journals; they do both, but, being more likely to still be studying, or being employed in the early stages, they will not have racked up as many publications. Buddhini argues that scientific publishing and social media do not have to be discreet activities. One does not invalidate the other. Instead they are complimentary to the public communication of science.

It is clear that Hall’s K-Index attempts to demean the outreach work of scientists by pitting academic publishing against social media. I want to focus on the hidden narrative of gender and science morality in Hall’s article.

Science should never be an old boy’s club. Diversity matters. Photo adapted from Flickr

K-Index and Women’s Sexuality

Buddhini makes a strong case for why social media increases public engagement with science. Communicating science on social media means throwing away the jargon and making science both interesting and educational for lay audiences.

And so it’s interesting that Hall, a male scientist, made a point to begin his article with two examples of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) who were ignored by scientific institutions in their day: palaeontologist Mary Anning (“I expect you have never heard of her,” says Hall) and mathematician/computer science pioneer Ada Lovelace. He writes: “It may be no coincidence that all of these overlooked heroes were women.” Interesting too that he does not name contemporary women scientists nor are they from his own field of genomics. Hall then sets up the “K-Index.”

The K-Index by Neil Hall. Via Genome Biology

Hall manages to mention Kardashian’s sex tape, and derides her position as a business woman. In the space of two paragraphs, he has managed to play into the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, which is a social science concept used to examine the rigid stereotypes in which dominant culture places women. It’s a no win typology. Women are either saints or sinners when judged against sexist ideals.

Hall laments that revered women in science were paid no attention in their day. As mentioned, he names two women (woah, he must really be into this equality stuff!). It is no accident that Hall sets up these two saintly women scientists in contrast to Kardashian. What’s the point of comparing two historical women of science to a woman from present-day popular culture? It’s nothing more than old-fashioned sexism dressed up as pompous science posturing. And who loses in this comparison? Everyone.

In Hall’s article, scientists using social media are tarnished with the same brush as Kardashian, who must be a worthless person because she dares to make a living off her fame in an industry that is not science. There is an elitism here that is not benign. Scientists and reality TV stars serve different functions and are not in competition for attention. The public, believe it or not, are allowed to like different things, and some people even enjoy popular culture as well as science. To set up a false dichotomy saying otherwise is disingenuous. What Hall is actually saying is that some scientific practices are not worthy of the public’s time and that scientists who use social media must solely be motivated by fame-seeking. Actual scientific research does not bear out this poorly conceived hypothesis (which Hall has not actually tested).

Who else loses in the Madonna/whore Kardashian/Lovelace comparison? The public, that silly horde who sometimes follow scientists who don’t have a high publication rate in high-impact science journals. Social media used for public engagement is therefore by comparison equal parts frivolity, not worthy of attention and the intellectual equivalent of promiscuity. Because having sex and fame are two Very Bad Things, right? Apparently so if you’re a scientist who came up with a pseudo-scientific measure to demean public outreach for “just a bit of fun.”

Setting aside Hall’s attempt at slut-shaming, and regardless of whatever anyone thinks of Kardashian’s fame – Hall’s article is problematic on many levels, even if it is, wink, just for fun.

White Male Privilege in Academia

“Today’s Angry White Men look backward, nostalgically at the world they have lost.” – Michael Kimmel, sociologist

Hall says he “tried to pick a randomish selection of 40 scientists” who are big in genome research. He’s already in violation of research ethics (it’s not that hard to try to work out which scientists may have been included in the sample). He seems to be motivated to ridicule a specific sub-set of scientists whom he clearly thinks are not deserving of public engagement.

His “analysis” is presented as a tongue-in-cheek with only three references including Wikipedia and two news sites. But it’s not just a bit of fun, is it? It’s moralising about what science should be and how scientists should spend their time. The author concludes:

“In an age dominated by the cult of celebrity we, as scientists, need to protect ourselves from mindlessly lauding shallow popularity and take an informed and critical view of the value we place on the opinion of our peers.”

Hall then tries to make a “serious” point about gender. In his non-random sample of scientists, only one woman had a high Twitter following. Eleven out of 14 women he included in his sample had low Twitter counts. “Hence, most Kardashians are men!” proclaims Hall. Plot twist! As if only women are vapid creatures whom we might expect to be debasing themselves in the superficial world of social media. He then argues his “study” (his quote marks) does not prove women’s low standing in science.

Nice try. But here are some actual science facts that speak to the blind-spots of White male privilege that Hall has indulged in. On the one hand, we have the reality of social media use. Young people, women and urban dwellers use social media more often than older men. Young educated people of colour also use social media at a relatively higher rate. Twitter users are generally highly educated and predominantly use social media for news information.

On the other hand, consider women’s place in science publishing. Women are less likely to be published in prestigious journals and they are less likely to be sole authors, but they also collaborate more. Women’s research is less likely to be funded; women are less likely to be hired for science jobs; I could go on. The correlation between male scientists having a higher social media following simply conforms to other patterns in science studies showing that women’s contribution in STEM is devalued. Research suggests that more women academics are blogging and using social media, but this work is not deemed as prestigious as other forms of academic work like publishing in high impact journals. Hall is buying into this idea, which actually perpetuates the de-valuing of women’s scientific achievements.

Science & Social Media

Social Media: Bringing Science to new places.

As Buddhini notes, the vast majority of people who write about science on social media do so with zero professional benefit. In fact, we do it in our personal time. And in the grand scheme of things, we are the minority. Studies have shown that academics remain overwhelmingly cautious about using social media. Academics fear privacy, abuse and that their work may be de-valued if they use social media, but they also see that it’s valuable to connect with other researchers through social media.

Despite Hall’s rudimentary musings, research finds that highly cited researchers do use social media, albeit sparingly. It makes sense that if they do not use social media consistently, they are unlikely to build a strong following. Hall has missed a major point about the function of social media, and the fact that the word “social” is there for a reason: you don’t get awarded followers by virtue of who you are or your publication rate. The scientists who build up strong following have worked hard to engage the public.

Since students are high adopters of social media, it makes sense that scientists use this as a medium of public engagement and education. One study shows that faculty members want to use social media more but they have concerns about privacy and they lack confidence/knowledge in technology.

Hall’s K-value plays into all the academic fears of new technologies without adding anything new, save for some sexism thrown in for good measure. He presents himself as a vanguard of pure scientific pursuit, evoking the name of women in STEM without putting his tirade in context to the real barriers women and younger academics face. He does nothing to address the benefits of social media, such as offering women, minorities and early career researchers a place to find a support network and an audience for their research. He fails to neglect to mention that many scientists are using social media to talk about science that mainstream popular media ignores.

Social media, it seems to Hall, just gets it all wrong. It lauds the wrong kind of scientists. So Hall has helpfully included his Twitter handle in his article, in case you want to follow a scientist he deems worthy of your attention.

Moving Forward

This blog post was first published on Google+, where you can also read a spirited discussion with other scientists from many fields. There, I noted that the full responsibility of Hall’s sexist and elitist “satire” does not fall solely on Hall, but also on the editors and publishers who allowed this piece through their hallowed peer-reviewed process. Someone suggested the editors should be fired. I answered the following: I agree there should be consequences and a sincere public statement of apology based on reflection. At the moment all we have to go on is silence from the publishers and denials of “I didn’t mean it like that” (Hall insists it was satire and therefore not meant to do harm). I don’t think anyone should be fired over this particular incident because we need a culture of reform in STEM. What would be useful is if everyone involved commits to in-depth gender and diversity training for starters. Not a one-day “sexual harassment is bad” performance, but an intensive and ongoing discussion of case studies on the nuances of inequality in STEM, as informed by social science.

Sexism came through in this example, but so did age discrimination. Hall’s article chastises the social media practices of early career researchers who lack power and who bear the brunt of funding and political pressures in STEM (insecure employment, lack of employment, having their interests not be supported by higher education, including outreach).

As such, it would also be helpful if the journal invited rebuttals on how and why social media strengthens STEM publishing and science communication, and what we can do to make this even better (recognition of this as science work for example). A statement on where the Journal stands on social media would also be useful. Similarly, encouraging gender discussion within the journal is also paramount. The editors would be wise to revise their publishing policies and to put together explicit guidelines to authors about the types of damaging and exclusionary attitudes that will not be tolerated, as well as clearly illustrating to the public how the publisher and editors will deal with similar issues in future. My colleagues and I outlined similar issues and recommendations on STEM Women.

As we’ve discussed on STEM Women, this sort of gender exclusion keeps happening in science publishing because not enough people in power are taking diversity seriously.

Learn More

Read more constructive discussion on the K-Index

• Buddhini’s wonderful analysis about why Hall misses the point about social media and the hard work outreach involves. Be sure to read the intelligent dialogue in the comments.
• Anthropologist Kate Clancy shows how Hall’s article is both sexist and demeaning to the social sciences.
• Astrophysicist Katie Mack leads an excellent cross-disciplinary discussion on Hall’s academic elitism on Twitter. I especially liked the response on applied science by Astrophysicist, Catherine Q (below).
• Red Ink uses wit to actually satirise Hall’s sexist logic.

@AstroKatie also again neglects the existence of a wide variety of "scientists" – industry, consultants, researchers, labs – no "k-index"—
Catherine Q. (@CatherineQ) July 31, 2014

While people rush to defend Taylor Swift’s racist appropriation of Black female bodies in her latest video, Shake it Off, because it’s presented as “fun,” it’s worth remembering that “satire” is no excuse for whitewashing of racism. First, satire requires cultural context to be clever; it matters who is delivering the joke to whom, when, and for what purpose. Second, racism is not simply about interpersonal insults. Racism describes a system of domination where White people benefit directly and indirectly from the status quo.

Taylor Swift has positioned herself publicly as a feminist, though her enactment of these ideals was already not without problems. This video shows she has little understanding of the history of feminism and the cultural struggles faced by women of colour. Not coincidentally, White feminism is still largely resistant to racial issues. As sociologist Jessie Daniels notes, it matters that White women are at the centre of both pop culture and the feminist movement:

White feminism, without attention to racial justice, makes an easy partnership with White supremacy.

From Miley Cyrus to Iggy Azalea who profit from brandishing certain aspects of Black culture, to Lily Allen who similarly used Black women in a video to critique White women pop stars, Swift has added her name to an ever-growing list of rich White women in pop music who use the exploitation of women of colour to make “feminist” statements. This stands in contrast, but along a similar continuum, of White pop stars such as Gwen Stefani, Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne who commodify the culture and sexuality of “Asian” women. Asian femininity is sexy in a “cute,” clean and submissive way; while Black and Brown women’s sexuality is dangerous, dirty and untamed. Either way, White women’s cultural appropriation of minority cultures conforms to familiar tropes where White champions dominate the uncivilised Other.

The fact that White celebrities do not set out to be “intentionally racist” is beside the point. Racism does not require your intent, as racial bias often goes unexamined. In fact, the way Whiteness works is to place White people at the centre of culture so that they are protected from the everyday consequences of race relations. (And no, there is no such thing as reverse racism.) Not recognising how racism works, such as failing to understand how and why cultural appropriation and stereotypes are damaging, is an outcome of White privilege.

That racialised fear of black female hyper-sexuality also transfers onto the sexualised white female body and the criminalized black male body. – Prof. Janell Hobson.

Appropriation of Twerking

At best, one might see White women’s version of twerking as a patriarchal bargain. It involves White women being complicit in the sexualisation of femininity, in a way that conforms to the male gaze, for commercial success. At its worst, the cultural appropriation of twerking is an exercise of White privilege.

Appropriation reduces Black women into an essentialist, racist and sexist image of Blackness as defined by White culture. The reason why it’s a problem is that these White women are able to co-opt certain aspects of Black culture, without any of the consequences. They profit from the “coolness” and imagined “street cred” of being The Other, safe in the knowledge that their Whiteness protects them from the racism, hyper sexism, social stigma and additional violence that women of colour live with.

Research shows that women of colour experience a higher rate and more aggressive forms of sexual harassment because of their perceived sexual availability. By presenting women of colour as little more than backdrop sex dolls, White women starlets like Swift remain at the centre of culture, while the women they use as props and parody remain on the outside.

Professor Janell Hobson argues that Taylor Swift is using narrow stereotypes of Black women in order to distance herself from promiscuity:

When Taylor Swift deliberately positions her awkwardly dancing body in “Shake It Off” as a way to defend her innocence against the constant slut-shaming she has experienced, she reifies her whiteness, her purity. Her rhythm-less dance moves distance her from the hyper-sexualized racial body in a way that positions her as somehow morally “safe” when compared to her white female counterparts Iggy Azalea and Miley Cyrus. She also trafficks in white female stereotypes when she positions herself as a failed cheerleader and ballerina, which would be cutesy if the recent commercial for Under Armour, featuring black ballerina Misty Copeland, didn’t remind me of Copeland’s embodied struggles for acceptance in the white elite world of ballet.

Twerking has a rich history. Its influences draw from West African cultures. It’s been shaped by colonialism, and later surfaces in places like New Orleans as both celebration and resistance. Notably, it is only one aspect of Black cultures that does not fully represent the diversity of all Black people in any given place. Yet with people of colour largely absent from mainstream pop culture, the conspicuous use of Black and Brown bodies to convey dangerous sexuality (via a satire of twerking) is both a compliance and reproduction of the status quo. This connection is driven home by the current police violence in Ferguson, USA.

Racist Violence

Beyond the travesty of justice that Michael Brown’s murder symbolises, the subsequent community protests in Ferguson show how the bodies of Black people are subjected to surveillance and violence in a way that White people do not experience. Violence in the media, even through the dehumanising of Black dancers in a seemingly silly pop video, is part of the same system of racism.

That is racism – the production of stereotypes, values and behaviours that feed into system of institutional discrimination. So, no, a pop video is not innocuous. It is both informed by, and sustains, racial hierarchies that position White people as morally, physically and socially superior to Others. And it matters that a wealthy White, young heterosexual woman who does not have to fear White authority, would hide behind satire and artistic license to re-enact racist fantasies.

Learn More

• Why Race Matters
• Racism is Not an Attitude
• Racism is More Than “Getting Caught”
• White Privilege
• Why “Colour Blindness” Does Not Apply to Race
• Other Sociologist Resources on Racism in Pop Culture

Why Race Matters

Racism is Not an Attitude

Racism is More Than “Getting Caught”

White Privilege

Why “Colour Blindness” Does Not Apply to Race

Resources on Racism in Pop Culture

• Sexism and Racism in Film: Straight Outta Compton: Discussion of “colour coding” of Black women’s bodies in rap music
• Hollywood Racism
• Noble Savages and Magical Pixie Conquests: Colonial Fantasies in Film
• Images of Otherness and ‘Unintentional Racism’ in New Florence + The Machine Video

Over 1,400 sociologists have signed an open letter protesting police brutality in Ferguson, USA. The letter includes practical measures to address the killing of Michael Brown and mistreatment of protesters in Ferguson. Coordinated by Sociologists for Justice, the letter shows that systemic racism needs to be addressed as well as wider socio-economic and political issues to ensure effective change is enacted.

The book The New Jim Crow outlines how the criminal justice system in America is affected by systemic racism. Additionally, decades of sociological research shows that police officers’ decision-making is affected by racial stereotypes and that better training can address this bias (more links below). Effective change in community policing begins by understanding the effects of the victimisation of people of colour and by addressing the institutional practices that lead to excessive policing of people of colour.

Below are the suggestions outlined in the open letter, but I urge you to read the letter in full as it summarises sociological research on race bias in policing. You can also add your name to the open letter, as I have done.

We are troubled by the killing of Michael Brown. We are troubled by the excessive show of force and militarised response to protesters who rightfully seek justice and demand a change in the treatment of people of colour by law enforcement. – Sociologists for Justice.

Practical Measures to Address Justice in Ferguson

There are no short cuts to addressing systemic problems. However, as our nation again confronts the reality of race within the criminal justice system, we urge the following actions to facilitate an appropriate response to the death of Michael Brown, and to begin moving toward addressing the systemic racialised police practices that devalue and threaten Black lives.

1. Immediate assurance from law enforcement authorities in Missouri and the federal government that constitutional rights to peaceful assembly and freedom of the press will be protected.
2. A civil rights investigation into the incidents related to the death of Michael Brown and general police practices in Ferguson.
3. The establishment of an independent committee to study and analyse the failures of the policing efforts during the week following Michael Brown’s death.
4. Ferguson residents, including leaders of grassroots organizations, should be included on the committee throughout this process. The committee must provide a clear roadmap for resetting community-police relations in a way that grants oversight power to residents.
5. An independent comprehensive national study of the role of implicit bias and systemic racism in policing. Federal funding should be allocated to support police departments in implementing the recommendations from the study and ongoing monitoring and public reporting of key benchmarks (e.g., use of force, arrests by race) and improvements in police practices.
6. Legislation requiring the use of dash and body-worn cameras to record all police interactions. Data from these devices should be immediately stored in tamper-proof databases, and there should be clear procedures for public access to any such recordings.
7. Increased transparency of public law enforcement, including independent oversight agencies with guaranteed full access to law enforcement policies and on-the-ground operations; and more streamlined, transparent and efficient procedures for the processing of complaints and FOIA requests.
8. Federal legislation, currently being developed by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), to halt the transfer of military equipment to local police departments, and additional legislation to curtail the use of such equipment against domestic civilian populations.
9. Establishment of a ‘Ferguson Fund’ that will support long term strategies grounded in the principles of social justice, systems reform and racial equity to bring about substantial and sustained change in Ferguson and other communities facing similar challenges.
- Sociologists for Justice.

Add your name to the open letter.

Learn More

OpenAccess research on racial bias in policing:

• How racial stereotypes affect police shooting decisions
• How better training mediates this bias
• How policing stereotypes affects Black communities
• Reflections on Trayvon Martin & how social science interventions can help.

You may have heard that Megan Smith former Vice President of GoogleX is now the Chief Technology Officer for The White House. Smith has both a Bachelor and a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, she serves on the MIT Board, and she is also a successful entrepreneur. She has an outstanding commitment to gender diversity and she is one of the few big-name leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) who is visible in her work with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities. Smith was formerly the CEO of PlanetOut, an online LGBT organisation. Let’s take a look at Smith’s amazing credentials and her work on women in STEM and LGBTQ advocacy.

The diversity of all of the millions of us, the technical women, the computer science women, is broad. This industry and this planet needs us badly. – Megan Smith, Chief Technology Officer, USA

Tech Leadership

Smith joined Google in 2003 where she first ran Google’s philanthropic organisation, Google.org. Google notes that Smith “helped to add more engineering with Google Crisis Response, Google for Non-Profits, Earth Outreach/Engine.” Smith has been a champion of STEM women issues, including through the Women Techmakers initiative, which supports women through visibility, resources and community support.

More recently Smith oversaw Google’s “moonshot” projects, which encompasses cutting edge technology such as the acquisitions that would lead to Google Maps and Google Earth, as well as the development of self-driving cars in Google’s “secret” projects team, GoogleX. Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin wished Smith well in her new role, noting that “Megan has inspired so many people through her commitment to inclusion and innovation.”

Shaping the Future of Tech

Smith’s new role will be to provide technology advice to the American Government. She is the third-ever Chief Technology Officer, a position introduced by the Obama Administration. The White House statement announcing Smith’s appointment notes she’ll focus on issues such as “Internet policy, intellectual property policy, and the intersection of big data, technology, and privacy.” President Obama said of Smith’s appointment:

“Megan has spent her career leading talented teams and taking cutting-edge technology and innovation initiatives from concept to design to deployment. I am confident that in her new role as America’s Chief Technology Officer, she will put her long record of leadership and exceptional skills to work on behalf of the American people. I am grateful for her commitment to serve, and I look forward to working with her and with our new Deputy U.S. CTO, Alexander Macgillivray, in the weeks and months ahead.”

Gender Diversity

At the 2014 Women Techmakers Summit in May, Smith discussed women’s visibility in tech, MIT’s diversity program, connectivity for Africa and “heroic engineering.” She began by quoting: “The world needs women.” She later cites a New York Times article from 2010 which features Google’s Ngram Viewer program which analysed 500 billion words contained in books published between 1500 and 2008. In all that time, across various languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Russian), the word “women” rarely appears up until the 1970s, thanks to the advent of second-wave feminism. In the same talk, Smith notes, “In tech we still have to work on our visibility.”

In tech we still have to work on our visibility. – Megan Smith

Smith cites various women leaders who are not widely known, from the ENIAC women who helped create the modern computer; to Mae Jemison the first African-American woman in space; to Katherine Johnson another African-American woman who helped code some of NASA’s most important missions; to Joanna Hoffman and the three other women who helped created the first Mac computers for Apple. Smith notes that even within Google’s own projects, with something as (seemingly) innocuous like the Google Doodle, they did not feature a woman for the first seven years. Now through diversity training and other programs, Google features an even number of prominent women and male leaders. She says:

“The diversity of all of the millions of us, the technical women, the computer science women, is broad. This industry and this planet needs us badly. So bring what you want to do, what you want to discover, what you want to make, raise your voice and raise your visibility and find your “x” and find your team. And let’s network and make it happen.”

Sexual Inclusion

Lesbian and queer publication Autostraddle names Smith a “Lesbian Badass” and “the futuristic lesbian MacGuyver” given that she will now be charged with protecting “the Openness of the Internet” and bringing the American Government “into the 21st Century.” Autostraddle writes that Smith’s appointment is important both to gender diversity and inclusion of lesbian women in tech, given that most LGBTQ STEM events are largely directed by and geared towards gay men:

“one solution to bolstering the number of women in not just the tech field, but in STEM fields at large, is to provide visible examples to women. Specifically, to provide examples to middle school girls to get them interested in those topics that will lead them to a fulfilling STEM career…

Girls who are entering sixth grade now will grow up in a world where the person directing The United States technology policies and big decisions is a female person. That’s massive! And lesbians in the tech field have previously felt this weird sense of isolation… It’s just awesome to be able to point at a very visible, recognisable and powerful government position that is based on having a massive amount of technology knowledge and say “LOOK WE EXIST LOOK LOOK LOOK.”

This is very true. In a new article published on Nature.com, my colleagues Dr Buddhini Samarasinghi, Professor Rajini Rao and I show how the myth that girls can’t do STEM goes back to socialisation, rather than having some innate basis. When children first start Prep they have little preconceived ideas about science, but by Grade 2, they have learned the stereotype that scientists are White men in lab coats. Through parental and teacher bias, the media, and other life experiences, girls can be discouraged from STEM. Addressing stereotypes about gender, sexuality and race can undo this damage. We note that role models, especially in classrooms and in university, can make positive change, alongside more inclusive policies and other intervention programs.

Smith’s appointment is a significant event, as girls can look to a prominent woman who will shape technological advancements in one of the world’s most technologically advanced nations. Young lesbian women can now also look to a leader who can bring sexual diversity into the spotlight, and hopefully start new conversations about the diverse career pathways available to girls and women from different walks of life.

Read about other trailblazing women in tech further below.

Learn More

• Watch Smith at Startup Grind 2014
• Read a profile of Smith on the Washington Post
• In her Women Techmakers talk, Smith cites the Declaration of Sentiment which was the first women-led conference on women’s rights in the USA held in 1848.  Here is the 68 women and 32 men who signed it
• Learn more about some of the women Smith mentions and others on our STEM Women website. Start with our #StemHeroines posts on our Google+ page, which features women STEM pioneers (some of the posts I wrote are included below). Otherwise check out our Hangout on Air interviews with contemporary women in STEM.

Other Amazing Women in Tech

Some of my posts for STEM Women on historical figures you should get to know!

You may have read in late September that the ratio of women receiving Royal Society funding has “plummeted from one in three in 2010 to one in 20 this year.”  While the Society also awards the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowships to early career women researchers, this award exists to boost women’s participation in science, not to augment or mask the issues in the Society’s mainstream Fellowship program.

The Royal Society was silent for a couple of days after its list of fellows list was made public, despite a large outcry by the scientific community on social media and opinion columns in the media. The Society President, Sir Paul Nurse, finally announced an investigation a couple of days after the fact. The question is: why did the Society wait until it was made public to assess their program?

I want to stress that while I’m using the Royal Academy’s Fellowship outcomes as a case study, the issue I am illustrating is the reactionary treatment of gender bias in all fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The point here is to tease out institutional patterns and to make the case that institutional approaches are needed to address gender inequality. While this point may seem obvious, the fact is that inequality in science, as with other spheres of social life, is still treated as a surprise. This is because, on the whole, organisations (and society in general) remains reactionary to addressing gender inequality. Diversity is an afterthought, when it should be a proactive and ongoing project at the organisational and societal levels.

This is the first in a series of articles I’m writing on why the scientific community, inclusive of various disciplines, needs to re-examine its position on the problem of inequality in STEM. The picture I am building up is one of methodological rigour and interdisciplinary collaboration in order to better work towards gender inclusion.

Science Fellowships and Institutional Bias in STEM

Royal Society Fellowships

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge has made great contributions to gender equality in science, having hosted two annual Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, which encourage scientists to write Wikipedia entries about women scientists. This project has been adopted by other universities and science organisations such as the Australian Academy of Science’s Wikibomb. Yet when it comes to other organisational practices, there’s a long way to go.

No women have served as president for the Royal Society and only five percent of fellows at the beginning of the year are women. These facts feed into a broader problem of everyday sexism, where interpersonal and organisational practices validate broader gender inequalities at the societal level.

It’s great to host activities to promote gender diversity, but if an organisation’s structure and policies don’t actively reflect gender diversity, organisational commitment to gender equality has limited practical impact. Organisations like the Royal Society need to lead by example. Gender equality is obviously important given examples such as the Wiki hackathons and special awards such as the Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship, but conflicting patterns within the Royal Academy reflect a broader problem in STEM.

Statistical Trends

As Zoology Professor Ben Sheldon noted on Twitter, having compiled data for the first two graphs below, the Royal Society did not respond to his public requests for a breakdown of Fellowship applicants. Sheldon’s graphs clearly show a worrying trend where less women are progressing through the Fellowship process (graphs via Katie Mac).

Some researchers defended the statistical trend arguing that the 2014 data are an anomaly. For example Chemistry PhD student Rebecca Murphy argues that the number of women fellows “has remained broadly stable over the last five years.” Physics Professor and Royal Society council member Athene Donald similarly argues, “as previous years’ data show, I don’t think the Royal Society can be said to be permanently showing deep prejudice towards women applicants.”

Swedish Professor of Mathematics David Sumpter, however, argued that the statistical trend was indeed worrying, and that “gender bias in academia can easily be created even when each career stage appears to be fair according to a statistical test.” He takes a long-term view of academic careers, focusing on different stages of recruitment using a binomial distribution (probability of success over a sequence of events). He shows that doing a statistical test of overall trends can obscure the statistical inequalities at each stage of academic application process. He writes:

“Doing a statistical test at one stage might show that that particular stage was fair, but it is more or less meaningless when done isolation. [Royal Society's Edward] Hinds admits this at the end of his article, but does not spell out that each stage can appear ‘fair’ while producing an unfair outcome….

And that brings me to the Royal Society’s appointment of 2 out of 43 research fellows. Given the 21% female applicants each year, this was obviously statistically significant and I believe a poor decision. As Richard Mann argues in his blog post it might be reasonably considered as a statistical blip. Ben Sheldon provided statistics over the last 6 years giving the proportion of female appointments as 24%, 30%, 17.5%, 19.4%, 17.1% and 4.7%. The average is 18.78%, which given 21% female applicants gives a P value of about 0.4. Not biased against women, but hardly evidence that the Royal Society is helping women at this critical time in their career. More worrying is if we only take the last four years. Now the average is 14.68%. And the P value for this? About 0.2. Just around the level we might expect in my model for an institution trying to balance itself above statistical significance. While I am sure the Royal Society take this issue extremely seriously, I am afraid that these types of statistics do not look good.” [My emphasis]

So, to reiterate: taking the raw numbers, fluctuations this year may not look so bad if we compare them over a short period. Yet if we take a longitudinal approach, and examine inequality in stages, rather than simply from one year to the next, then gender bias becomes even more pronounced. What explains this? To get to the answer, we need to take into consideration various complex and interlocking institutional processes.

Institutional Bias

Girls in STEM. Photo by Argonne National Laboratory.

Elsewhere, I have made the point that competition for Fellowships mask institutional barriers that women face along way. This includes career and training opportunities that are not easily accessible to women due to life circumstance (such as family responsibilities), as well as other experiences of discrimination along a woman’s educational path. There are general issues that affect all women broadly, such as the effect of stereotypes and sexual harassment. There are even more issues that affect minority women specifically, such as sexism coupled with racism and homophobia.

The Royal Society would have known the winners well ahead of the announcement. It’s a competitive process but it is not a lucky draw. There are standard procedures and several steps that participants undertake. Why is the Society not monitoring its own procedures to ensure gender participation is more equitable at every stage of the process? As I will show, this means not only monitoring the Fellows’ application progression, but what it is doing to ensure that enough women are receiving adequate support leading up to the application.

The Society has publicly stated that they are disappointed by the 2014 figures as if they came as a surprise. This should not be the case. Like many gender issues in science, organisations do not critically examine their practices unless the public complains loudly enough. This is simply not good enough. Gender and equity issues require ongoing evaluation and commitment, and not simply reactions set against scandal.

Gender diversity cannot be taken for granted. In science, we continue to hold onto the myth of meritocracy. Some of the discussion on social media reflects this: perhaps not enough women applied; maybe the quality of women applicants was simply not high calibre this year; maybe women should be more proactive (read: “aggressive”) in pursuing a Fellowship. This is yet another example of the onus being placed on women to monitor their own progress. These types of arguments fail to see how women are being asked to participate in a structure that is biased against them at every stage of their education and career progression.

Science is not an even playing field. It never has been. The obstacles that women and minorities face are there not because they aren’t working hard enough, but because systems perpetuate inequality. Like the broader “leaky pipeline” problem, Fellowships need to be reviewed actively and routinely, not after the fact, but as an ongoing process. Policies may be inclusive on paper, but not in practice, especially if problems are not being actively monitored, evaluated and acted upon.

Male postgraduate students easily navigate academic bureaucracies with stronger support by their supervisors relative to women. Selection panels have been shown to be biased against women scientists even when they have the same qualifications and experience as men, and even when they put in the same number of work hours as men. Married academic men with children rise up quickly through academic ranks while their women counterparts are left behind. Even the public profile of White male scientists is more valued than women and minorities. These trends are not unrelated and they collude to prevent from women being treated as equal candidates in Fellowships and in the job market more broadly.

At every step of the way, before applicants have even started to look for Fellowships, women are already disadvantaged. Organisations need to own the responsibility of inequity. It’s not just one oversight one year; it’s a series of decisions that encourage men while obstructing women’s participation. The Royal Society is only one example where one “anomaly” actually reinforces a system of inequality. Training, education, policy and institutional reform are needed not just to lift numbers next year, but to put women on a stronger path of lifelong career success.

Moving Forward

I have a backlog of blog articles, so you’re going to read two from me over the next couple of days on this same issue and more in coming weeks. In part, I am motivated by moving beyond the cyclical arguments the sciences engage in when it comes to gender inequality. It seems that when we make some progress in one area, we take another step back elsewhere. This year alone, one science publication caused an uproar with sexist imagery, only to be followed by similar events not once but twice a few months later (with transphobia additionally thrown in the third instance). Important online discussions addressing sexual harassment have led to positive offline, cross-disciplinary engagement (such as with the study led by Professor Kate Clancy). Yet in between, high-profile science elders have engaged in incendiary sexist attacks on women, while ongoing issues in tech single women out for abuse.

From humanities to life sciences; from social to computer science; from pure to applied fields; gender inequalities are not easily overcome with a tunnel vision view. That is, we need to have a better grasp on why data collection on gender dynamics matter. We need to commit to working together, across disciplines, to address inequality. Above all else, we need to move away from individual-level explanations.

By thinking individual women can simply beef up their Fellowship applications, we miss the bigger picture – that is, how institutional processes affect different groups of women at different stages. We need to better understand the hurdles that stand in women’s way before they even consider applying for Fellowships (for example), and what happens to women at different points in their careers which make success so much harder.

It’s not just a numbers game – as Sumpter shows with the Royal Society, data can obscure patterns if we are not looking deeply enough. Even then, the data can tell you the outcome – it can show, yet again, that inequality exists, but statistical analyses alone cannot tell you why. As I will show in my next post, the way in which we collect, analyse and interpret data on gender dynamics in STEM needs to change.

We are all, in every science and tech field, complicit in gender inequality as long as we continue to allow the conversation to be shifted away to red herrings. The fact that gender inequality exists in STEM is a fact. What it means in different disciplines, and how to address the nuances of inequality is where we now need to focus our attention by also taking into consideration race, sexuality, class, disability and other socio-economic measures (this is the theory of intersectionality - more on this at a later time).

We are beyond the point of looking to individual women to raise their voices louder for help, because blaming women for inequality is a tactic that does not work. Whether its woeful outcomes in Fellowships, or pay discrepancies amongst faculty, or representation at conferences, or publications, or some other measure – these are all symptoms of institutional damage. We need to look to the causes and own them as a collective problem that requires collective effort. Enough with ducking our heads in the sand and hoping no one notices inequality. Enough with the surprise and the reactionary promise to do better next time. A stronger appraisal of longitudinal trends of inequality and long-term, proactive measures are the remedy. Let’s clean up this sick system in STEM, instead of making excuses for it.

References & Credits

• Royal Society Fellows for 2014
• Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship winners
• Image 1 : Ben Sheldon compiled data on Royal Society (@Ben_Sheldon_EGI)
• Image 2 on application process Sheldon (via Mack)
• Image 3 University Research Fellowships by Royal Society