Swedish Gender Blindness
This morning, I listened to the head of the Swedish National Secretariat for Gender Science (as it is somewhat absurdly labelled in Sweden). The discussion concerned whether or not it is appropriate to use certain terms, such as Gender Power Order (könsmaktsordning, a Swedish term), in research reports and dissertations, without giving an explicit definition of what is referred to.
The reason for the discussion is that critics think that labelling structures as a priori constraints on human behavior, without giving them proper definition, risks creating a discipline where hypotheses cannot be falsified. If one explanation does not fit within the framework, then all you have to do is to tweak the use of a certain term, and voila! - The problem at hand can be explained within the agreed-upon framework.
An important concept in this body of theory is Gender Blindness. It refers to the tendency of individuals and institutions not to take gender into proper account when analysing and governing certain phenomena. Underlying gender structures can then determine behavior, but the official explanation for this behavior will be rationalized as something else. The purpose of Gender Science is then to uncover these hidden structures, to create Gender Awareness.
It is true that humans sometimes rationalize behavior, and that the real reasons for why certain things are done are not disclosed. But it is also true that it is impossible to judge what reasons are real, and what reasons are just rationalizations, within a structural or collectivist framework.
The reason for this is that a proper understanding of underlying reasons for behavior has to be grounded in a firm understanding of the individual psychology of the person performing this behavior. Structures do not act, they only constrain, and the reasons for rationalizations must then be sought in how individuals organize information and create knowledge of the world, given these constraints. A methodologically individualist approach can analyze why a goal-directed individual will act in a certain way, given both individual intention and structural constraints.
A structuralist, or collectivist, approach will never be able to understand why a certain individual will choose a certain explanatory model. This in turn implies that the models, or rationalizations of the researchers who use the structural model in understanding certain behavior, will be governing.
A structural approach will therefore always risk creating myopia, where the explanatory model used by a researcher will create non-model blindness. All aspects that do not fit into the model will be disregarded, and the a priori assumptions of the researcher on how to understand the world will determine the result of the analysis.
From this viewpoint, it becomes clear exactly how important stringent definitions are. If definitions are explicit, at least it is possible for an outsider to interpret analysis based on a certain explanatory model. Fuzzy definitions do not even allow for a critical analysis of the model used by the researcher, or a possibility of trying to uncover the rationalizations of the researcher him- or herself.
In Sweden, Gender Studies have a clear political usage as a replacement for older types of structural explanations, such as Marxism, for the ruling socialist elite. Therefore, political application, rather than academic stringency, is imperative for researchers to ensure continued state funding. With a clear understanding of how individual motives interact with structural constraints, it would be very appropriate to uncover the hidden mechanisms that create the current research within Gender Science. Sweden needs a cure for its current non-Gender Blindness.
The reason for the discussion is that critics think that labelling structures as a priori constraints on human behavior, without giving them proper definition, risks creating a discipline where hypotheses cannot be falsified. If one explanation does not fit within the framework, then all you have to do is to tweak the use of a certain term, and voila! - The problem at hand can be explained within the agreed-upon framework.
An important concept in this body of theory is Gender Blindness. It refers to the tendency of individuals and institutions not to take gender into proper account when analysing and governing certain phenomena. Underlying gender structures can then determine behavior, but the official explanation for this behavior will be rationalized as something else. The purpose of Gender Science is then to uncover these hidden structures, to create Gender Awareness.
It is true that humans sometimes rationalize behavior, and that the real reasons for why certain things are done are not disclosed. But it is also true that it is impossible to judge what reasons are real, and what reasons are just rationalizations, within a structural or collectivist framework.
The reason for this is that a proper understanding of underlying reasons for behavior has to be grounded in a firm understanding of the individual psychology of the person performing this behavior. Structures do not act, they only constrain, and the reasons for rationalizations must then be sought in how individuals organize information and create knowledge of the world, given these constraints. A methodologically individualist approach can analyze why a goal-directed individual will act in a certain way, given both individual intention and structural constraints.
A structuralist, or collectivist, approach will never be able to understand why a certain individual will choose a certain explanatory model. This in turn implies that the models, or rationalizations of the researchers who use the structural model in understanding certain behavior, will be governing.
A structural approach will therefore always risk creating myopia, where the explanatory model used by a researcher will create non-model blindness. All aspects that do not fit into the model will be disregarded, and the a priori assumptions of the researcher on how to understand the world will determine the result of the analysis.
From this viewpoint, it becomes clear exactly how important stringent definitions are. If definitions are explicit, at least it is possible for an outsider to interpret analysis based on a certain explanatory model. Fuzzy definitions do not even allow for a critical analysis of the model used by the researcher, or a possibility of trying to uncover the rationalizations of the researcher him- or herself.
In Sweden, Gender Studies have a clear political usage as a replacement for older types of structural explanations, such as Marxism, for the ruling socialist elite. Therefore, political application, rather than academic stringency, is imperative for researchers to ensure continued state funding. With a clear understanding of how individual motives interact with structural constraints, it would be very appropriate to uncover the hidden mechanisms that create the current research within Gender Science. Sweden needs a cure for its current non-Gender Blindness.
posted by Hugin at 23:05
<< Home