Accismus

I’ve linked to Language Log a few times now, and today’s post is an excellent example of why I like the site so much: in addition to linguistics, Mark Liberman frequently examines the inaccuracy of sweeping conclusions about inherent differences between the sexes drawn from misinterpretation of standard deviation in the research. His plea is always that the reading public at least attempt to understand how to interpret statistical findings, because it is not really that difficult to grasp, and our refusal to wade into it is what enables charlatans to widely publish stupid articles without challenge.

Well, I still refuse to try to grapple with the concepts, because I have such a deep aversion to thinking about anything to do with numbers (must be because I’m a girl), but I love his posts because he comes to the conclusions I’m inclined to believe, which is that most inherent gender difference claims are pretty much bullshit, or at least given way more significance than they actually warrant. Today, he looks some recent fanfare over single-sex education, the generalizations behind which piss me off mightily.

I will agree that girls typically get run over in classrooms, but that’s not going to change when everybody grows up. Women have to learn how to throw an elbow eventually, and it’s far, far better to get stepped on in high school where the stakes are low (and you have nothing else to do) than when you’re trying to actively compete in whatever field you’ve chosen. For example, I’m sure every, single woman has had the experience of half-muttering an idea or a joke and being ignored, only to have some dude sitting near her scream it out to general acclaim a few moments later. How much better to learn that in some high school group project setting than to learn it at a corporate strategy session or at the SNL writers’ table?

Besides, not getting into all of the many ways in which the excerpt taken from the NYT Mag. is ridiculous, there’s the basic objection that if even one girl likes snakes, she’s being massively cheated in the classroom situation described. That’s the whole reason we try not to generalize based on groups: because people are individuals. Even women.

For those interested (or for those who would ever like to make the huge mistake of starting up a conversation with me about how boys and girls are just different), here’s a LL post with links to all the posts they’ve done on this topic. (I particularly recommend David Brooks, cognitive neuroscientist.)

UPDATE: Oh, thank the Lord. I’ve been waiting for LL to write something about David Gelernter’s hysterical Weekly Standard article, because I couldn’t even think where to begin, other than ‘AAARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!’ Now that LL has written this, I will only add that if Gelernter truly believes the triumph(!) of feminism has wrecked the English language, he has been spending way too much time on the Yale campus and not nearly enough in the New York subway system.