Research Dismisses the Validity of Feminist Gender Studies
If you are a regular reader of Men’s News Daily, then you probably have a good grasp of the many different ways that contemporary feminism can be criticized. Feminism tends to:
- use incorrect facts (eg. factoids about domestic violence)
- ignore correct facts (eg. research about innate sex differences)
- present men as guilty and women as victims, no matter what the issue at hand is
- elaborate about every tiny problem that women have while ignoring crucial men’s issues
The list could be made much longer, but you get the drift. There are lots of different ways to demonstrate how feminism rests on incorrect assumptions and how it leads to misandry and a skewed perception of reality.
However, a few months ago, a came across a whole new way of “undressing” feminism, that I hadn’t seen before. This new kind of criticism towards feminism came from Swedish researcher Helen Lindberg, who earlier this year presented her doctoral thesis called Only Women Bleed?: A Critical Reassessment of Comprehensive Feminist Social Theory.
In her thesis she has evaluated four different feminist theories, with regard to internal coherence, and their usefulness as theories in a research context. The feminist theories evaluated are:
- Catharine M MackInnon’s Radical Feminism
- Anna G Jonasdottir’s Theory of Love Power
- Luce Irigaray’s Feminism of Sexual Difference
- Judith Butler’s Queer Feminism
Radical feminism and elements of queer feminism together constitute what could be called postmodern or contemporary feminism, which means that her results are extremely interesting for anyone who’s critical of how feminism is affecting society. Furthermore, women’s study and gender study departments in universities around the world have radical feminism as their theoretical foundation, meaning that Lindberg’s research could be extremely embarrassing for them if she really is able to demonstrate that the theories they are founded on lack internal coherence and are unsuitable to use for research purposes.
The purpose of her doctoral thesis can be understood from her abstract:
Is there a viable specifically feminist social theory that can serve as heuristic devise in our social research? This thesis is a critical reassessment of the ontological and normative assumptions of four social theories with specific and clear claims of being feminist. [...]
The feminist social theories are examined and critically discussed according to their internal coherence and their external relevance; which includes the normative political implications that can be inferred.
Since the English abstract is pretty short and conservative, I will translate parts of the Swedish abstract, so you can see just how severe her criticism is:
The thesis demonstrates that these four feminist theories about society each turn out to be unsatisfactory as tools in social science research, since they rest on strong ideological premises and demonstrate a lack of internal consistency. Even though the theories appear to be different, they display two common theoretical weaknesses where one follows logically from the other. First of all, they all use structuralistic and therefore deterministic assumptions about the relationship between the individual and society, which leaves little room for individual agency and thinking, which in turn leaves little room for developing and changing society. The theories therefore display a theoretical and empirical ignorance of the multidimensionality of society and variance at the individual level. Furthermore, the thesis discusses the political goals and action plans that can be derived from the theories’ ideological and theoretical content, and finds that where they aren’t Utopia-like, they are unilaterally reduced to a monolithic identity or are normatively underdeveloped and unclear. Finally, the relationship between science, politics and ideology is problematized in a general way, and feminism as science, politics and ideology in a specific way. To be able to conduct social science research about gender relations–the author claims–it isn’t useful to use the examined feminist theories, since they are too ideological and theoretically underdeveloped. They should instead be judged and valued the same way other normative and ideological theories are, such as Marxism, especially when it comes to their critical role in defining problems and acting as guides in political practice.
The short version of what she’s saying is that using feminist theory as the basis for conducting research, is about as useful as using Marxist theory to conduct research. She also nullifies the standard feminist reply to criticism (”what branch of feminism are you criticizing?”) by demonstrating that each of the four branches of feminist theory examined have the same theoretical weaknesses.
This confirms what I’ve long been suspecting: gender studies are not a scientific discipline, they are a method for applying a certain ideology onto whatever data you collect during your “research”. Still, gender study departments around the world are allowed to teach generation after generation of women that men are evil oppressors, while hiding behind a respectable academic façade that they certainly do not deserve. How long will this charade go on?
Pelle Billing is an M.D. who writes and lectures about men’s issues and gender liberation beyond feminism.
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October 3rd, 2009 at 8:15 am
Excellent.
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 am
@ Pelle Billing, Quote from you article
“However, a few months ago, a came across a whole new way of “undressing” feminism, that I hadn’t seen before. This new kind of criticism towards feminism came from Swedish researcher Helen Lindberg, who earlier this year presented her doctoral thesis called ”
While her doctoral thesis and criticism iis excellent example how feminist in the past have made supposed “studies”,setting up the goal first and then collecting anecdotal or unreliable data to prove the premise, how does it play in Fenno-Scandia media?
The old adage “If a tree falls in the forest and it’s not in 6 o’clock news, did it happen?”
Simply, does the study get kind of coverage in TV and printed press as to influence the public opinion?
October 3rd, 2009 at 10:36 am
Though not the topic of my thesis, I’ve long argued that when a group or groups of people always advocate the same solution to every problem regardless of whether that solution: 1) helps solve or alleviate the problem or 2) the problem and/or solution are logically supported by actual facts; then one can conclude with great certainty that the goal is not to solve the problem it is to get the solution implemented.
That is my “theory” or feminist dogma, that is not about equality or even helping women, it is about the power obtained through implementing the (so-called) solutions.
This is an excellent study on the validity of feminist theories which, in my opinion, are power grabs.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:04 am
Thank you, Pelle.
Amazing that so much effort had to go into demonstrating what has been obvious to any casual observer for decades.
I also wonder what impact this piece had in the Swedish feminist utopia?
Keep up the good, and interesting work!
October 3rd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
This is exactly the battle I’ve had for over 30 years with the University of Illinois-Chicago, Jane Addams Graduate School of Social Work. Every year I present to incoming students (98% female – no affirmative action for males) on what it means to be a social worker in 2009. And every year they have some hard core hostle feminists from the “Gender Studies” program present on the doctoral program in this bogus field. I ask one simple question to these feminists “How can you ever call a program gender anything when there is no representation by non feminised males? The 13th Admendment says feminists aren’t men masters, so how can you say anything about men. Aren’t be allowed to tell you who we are – what we stand for – how we feel?” There is total silence then the witch (nice term) always comes back with “You’re one of those men who hate women!” to which I say my usual:
1. Do you have a hearing disorder?
2. Do you have a neurological, psychiatric or medical disorder that prevents and/or limits your ability to process sensory information like most normal people do?
3. If the answer is no to the above, then either you are delusional or suffer from a thought disorder because nothing of the kind was said by me. I’ve heard the same crap for 30 years on the locked wards of psy units and prision medical units. That is what crazy people say to justify their violence.
Keep up the good work.
October 3rd, 2009 at 7:28 pm
I went to the linked article. It is only an abstract. Is the full article available somewhere?
October 5th, 2009 at 5:53 am
@John C. Reilly
> There is total silence then the witch (nice term) always comes
> back with “You’re one of those men who hate women!”
It helps to remember the functional definition of “misogynist”:
Any man who thinks women are rational, intelligent human beings and expects them to act that way.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:40 am
Great comments everyone.
Her thesis got some coverage in the media here in Sweden, but it’s still only one thesis, compared to the flood of feminist articles we have here.
The thesis is actually all in English, even though I translated a Swedish abstract. You can buy the thesis (printed) and have it shipped to you, write an email to cristina.helge/at/oru.se and tell her that you’d like to buy it. Unfortunately it’s not available as a PDF, I’ve asked the author herself. However, if you work in a university and are faced with these issues daily, then I’d say that it’s worth the hassle to order it and read it.
October 6th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
[...] make my point. My most trusted source of penis-sourced news, Men’s News Daily, tells me that research has dismissed the validity of feminist gender studies. [...]
October 7th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I made a comment at the above linked blog “Toxic Culture”. Let the debate begin. Assuming I’m not censored.
October 12th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
I wonder why none of the mainstream media is reporting on this research, maybe because it’s not politically correct and they would have a bunch of man-hating feminists knocking on their door.
It’s not surprising that the only ones to take any interest in this research is men’s organizations. Really, I think the site should be changed to EqualRightsDaily, but that would just be confusing.
This article should be linked in the mra principles and goals.