While researching whether women are more emotional or rational than men, I came across this “feminist” study which concerns me. If this is how “science” is now being carried out, we are doomed to lose science. The study can be found here:

https://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article/5/1/54/113043/Rationality-is-Gendered

And it is a key example of how such radical feminist science is conducted. 

The study shows that men and women associate rationality and emotionality with the respective genders. As the summary of the study puts it: "The concept reason is semantically associated with the concept male.” This is what the study has “proven”. Not that men are more rational, and women are more emotional, simply that the participants thought that was the case.

First, we must realize how post-modern this study is. Post-modernist theory largely concerns itself with the use of language. How we use language, it is argued, shows how we think. Post-modern theory is so myopic, that it will investigate how a word is used, but never reach the concept behind the word. In other words, rather than discussing concepts, we now discuss words. No period of reason has ever been so obsessed with the use of language, to the point that using the language becomes meaningless.

Post-modernism by itself is bad enough, but when it shares the bed with Radical Feminism, it gets even worse. I have written previously on the Feminist Theory of Language (https://www.reddit.com/r/IAMALiberalFeminist/comments/becw1a/postmodern_theory_of_language/), and how Radical Feminists seek to change our very words, as a method of activism. If Feminists can change our words, they believe, they can change the way we see the world.

So it must be acknowledged that this study is also political. In as much as it talks about the inequality of women and men, it seeks political activism as a cure. It seeks to change the way men and women think about themselves. As written in the general discussion, apparently this study “raises interesting future questions, such as whether exposure to female role-models in STEM disciplines … might prevent gendered associations from forming as powerfully or otherwise mitigate their effects.” So the prescription has been generated. At least according to the authors of this study, women should be artificially propped up in the STEM fields, so that we might overcome our stereotypical thinking patterns.

Never mind that women might be less rational than men. This study does not seek to investigate the reality of the world, rather it investigates our word usage. It does not investigate any link between men and rationality, or women and their emotionality. The study does not make any claim that men or women are more or less rational than the other. Apparently such a study would be impossible, according to the study authors, who, “would argue that assessing the accuracy of such stereotypes is difficult absent much more precise operationalizations of what it means to be ‘more rational’ or ‘more emotional’.” So instead of studying the really interesting question here, they begin questioning the definitions of the very words this study is based on. They may have as well asked “What is a woman?” or “What is a man?” Certainly those definitions would have to be nailed down before we could even begin to asses which sex might be more rationally minded.

Instead, the study assumes that any differences are purely socially constructed. As is written in the very first line of the study: “From the first moments of life children are bombarded with rich cues that pervasively convey gender roles and stereotypes. From the color of congratulations cards and nursery walls to the toys, names, and clothing they are exposed to”. It further concludes, in a true testament to the circular nature of this whole argument, that societal constructions exist because of the semantic associations found in this study! As it is written in the general discussion: “accurate gender differences … would not really tell us whether such differences are inherent to men and women versus are themselves the product of socialization efforts driven by the very same semantic associations”. Incredibly, social constructionist theory is both the starting assumption, and the conclusion of the whole piece of work.

It assumes that men and women are equally rational, or that any differences were the result of their upbringing, and the inherent bias of their parents and society towards the sexes.

It assumes that perceiving the differences between male and female rationality is a flaw showing systemic societal bias and implicit sexism, even though every study participant displayed this bias.

It assumes that the beliefs that were held by the study participants, are themselves responsible for the future social construction of the sexes; that these ideas hold women back, that these “stereotypes”, though false, are somehow responsible for the way every person in the US views the opposite sex.

This study only seeks to show that its participants believe that men are more rational, and that women are more emotional, but that is obvious. Everything else is taken within the radical feminist framework, which says that men and women are the same, that we are totally socially constructed by a system which oppresses women, and that acknowledging any difference between the sexes is itself sexist.

This study can neither be feminist, nor scientific.

Not feminist because it does not promote a scientific understanding of women, and not scientific, because it works within an easily disprovable feminist framework, taking as a baseline that which it assumes to be true.

We must advocate for women as they exist, not as we hope them to be. We must only accept as scientific that which seeks to understand the world as it is, not as it is described. A true feminist science would do both of these.

But we must first drop the Radical Feminist Framework within which this study and many like it have been conducted. We need a Renaissance of Reason. We need a return to Science. Liberal Feminism must want to achieve that.