What’s in a question? The myth of objective science

There is this misconception that empirical research is by definition objective.  There are all these guidelines around sample selection and research design that are supposed to make the entire process purer than pure.  In the face of criticism you can hear the cries of “but I used a random sample, it CAN’T be biased” from miles away.

Coming, as I do,  from a background in psychology I see particular problems with the way so many psych researchers cling to the illusion of objectivity.  How on earth can we study the human mind objectively when we are using the mind to study itself.  There is a certain absurdity in the old behaviourist theory of the mind as “black box”.  Here we have highly intelligent human beings using their minds to declare that all human behaviour comes down to operational conditioning and the motivations and thoughts of the mind are irrelevant.

Did you hear that? That was the sound of me rolling my eyes.

Don’t get me wrong; I think there is real value in using quantitative, empirical methods as best we can in the study of psychology. I also believe that qualitative research is invaluable.  It’s kind of alarming that the notion of just asking someone about their experiences and motivations is considered by so many to be radical if not outright ludicrous.  I think that research in the health sciences could benefit a great deal from some qualitative, participatory action studies. How else do we get practitioners to see patients as whole human beings with agency and insight?

But this is not meant to be a post about the merits of quantitative and qualitative research.  There is a much deeper problem with the notion that empirical research is de facto objective. Even if you could assume impeccable methods and sampling you cannot remove the scientist from the cultural context in which they develop their research questions. There is nothing objective about how you choose what to research.

Questions, after all, are not simply questions. The do more than seek answers, the very nature of your questions reveals underlying biases and beliefs.  When you look at the macro level there are clear patterns in the kinds of questions that are getting asked.

The history of psychology is plagued by research on group differences. Specifically: racial differences in intelligence and sexual behaviours. What does it tell us about the psych community and society as a whole that people keep asking over and over again if white people are inherently smarter than black people?  We learn that our society is obsessed with race. We learn that we assume that there is some kind of fundamental biological difference between races. We learn that we view intelligence as a measure of worth.

This bias is not limited to social sciences. Just look at the medical research. It’s not just about what questions you ask, but what questions you don’t ask. How can we ever know about the impact of systemic oppression on the physical and mental health of trans people if no one is asking the question?

We can see that not only do research questions both reflect and reinforce existing cultural values, they also have very real outcomes on the lives of real people.  Not that long ago the Conservative government of Canada decided to make the long-form census optional. Up until then it had been mandatory, under threat of fine.  This may not sound that important at first but there are hundreds of organizations and even governmental departments that rely on that data to determine how to best assess the needs of their communities.  “When asked about its usefulness, Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan linked the long form census to virtually every spending and tax decision the province makes. The long form census contributes to decisions on everything from optimal traffic light timing to the number and location of publicly funded hospitals.”(therecord.com, see also canada.com )

Here’s another example. There has been a lot of research into the possibility of a “gay gene” or more broadly, are the queers born that way?  It’s easy to get mired down in this argument and it is assumed that all “the gays” are eager for scientific proof that their gayness was not a choice.  But many of us are suspicious of the question itself, and for more than one reason.

First, why is it so important for science to know why people are gay? What will be done with that information? If they knew what makes people gay would they try to find a way to prevent it? Would we be facing genocide by genetic manipulation?

Second, there is a subtle implication in all of this “born this way” posturing. It’s so often used as a defence against homophobia and discrimination that it begs the question: does that mean if it is a choice it’s okay to discriminate against us? Are we implicitly accepting that it would be better if everyone were straight when we cling to the notion of inherent gayness as our front line defence against hate? “Well I know that we seem contemptible but hey! We can’t do anything about it so you may as well accept us.” So in persistently asking what makes people gay or if it’s genetic we are also making some very clear statements about the desirability of gayness.

All of this is to say that the questions we ask, in life and in science are a fundamental barrier to real objectivity.  If, on the other hand, we acknowledge that these biases exist and stretch ourselves to ask the unasked questions we may at least be able to achieve something a little closer to fair, if not objective, scientific research.

Staking claims in all the corners

I love punk music.

There is an ongoing theme of isolation and justified outrage combined with crass, irreverent humour that appeals to pretty much every part of me.  Many bands have songs about personal experiences with mental illness or of being labelled as crazy (The Ramones, Suicidal Tendencies, DRI, L7 to name a few).  This music - along with other heavy, hard or weird music of the ‘80s and ‘90s - was my lifeline as I stumbled through adolescence. Today, it is still my go to music when I feel overcome by frustration, anger or stress.  There’s nothing quite so cathartic as belting out “You can’t bring me down” by Suicidal Tendencies.


But the problem is that punk music doesn’t love me.

When I was fourteen I remember watching a video of some live punk show in which the male lead singer pulled a woman onto the stage and punched her.

That was when I learned that my beloved punk scene was no safer for me as a woman than anywhere else.

The misogyny and homophobia, both overt and implied, is so rampant in punk music that I quickly grew weary of trying to find new bands.  These days at least I can search online for lyrics and get a sense of their overall vibe but in high school the best I could do was borrow tapes from friends and fervently read the liner notes.

Mostly I look for bands that don’t have more than one or two objectionable songs, for example Suicidal Tendencies is not bad but only if I don’t listen to this song. Occasionally I find a band that is persistently offensive but has one or two songs that standout; Dayglo Abortions has very little to recommend them lyrically (this, for instance) – sad because their sound is kickass – but I can’t get enough of rocking out to “Homophobic, sexist cokeheads”.  Often the best I can hope for is that they don’t make me want to punch them.


But every once in a while there’s some ray of light like Liza and Louise by NOFX. When I was sixteen and newly out I was hanging out in the skate shop, looking through the 45”s when I saw this.

Without hesitation I bought it and instantly fell in love. Who knew that a bunch of straight dudes could write a song about lesbians that was actually about lesbians and not some porn fantasy for the male gaze (or ear as it were).


My relationship to punk music is complicated to say the least.

And this brings me to something that many people I follow on Twitter have been discussing lately, namely that Chris Brown’s violence against Rihanna is being held up as evidence of the misogyny in rap culture.  This black rap artist is being held up as the poster boy for male violence while Charlie Sheen (to name only one example) manages to skate right past his history of abuse.  Even when you compare those two narratives there are telling differences in how people explain the two men’s behaviour. Charlie Sheen’s offensive behaviour was due to his addictions and mental health while Chris Brown’s is due to his involvement in hip -hop culture – a convenient shorthand for blackness.

I have heard many black feminists talk about their love of hip-hop and the ways in which it is complicated by the misogyny so often lamented by mainstream white feminists and pop culture commentators alike.

And this is where my love of punk and a black feminists’ love of hip hop meet and shake hands.

What is it about punk music and rap music that makes them so hostile towards women? Is it the male bravado? Is it the blackness? Is it the anarchy?

No, decidedly and absolutely not.

Because the misogyny and homophobia we find in these genres is not what sets them apart from mainstream culture, it is the thing that ties them to it.

There are many things that define what rap and punk are: they both arose out of a sense of disaffection and alienation from the larger culture, at their core they are both about speaking truth to power and refusing to be defined or confined by a classist, racist society.  The one thing about them that is not unique is the way in which they both often wind up reinforcing cultural hostilities against women, queers and other marginalized groups.  The problem isn’t that they’ve stepped too far out of the dominant culture but that they have not stepped far enough.

So yes I love punk music and I like a lot of rap music, what I don’t love is the fact that so many of its creators have utterly failed to see how their regurgitation of objectifying, hateful and outright violent attitudes towards women is aligning them with the very system against which they so passionately speak out.

So before you throw the baby out with the bath water, remember that there is no corner of our culture that isn’t home to someone spewing hateful bullshit.  And the best thing we can do is not to say “This corner sucks, I’m going back to the centre” but to stay put and point out just how naked that punk ass emperor is.

I love my punk, and no amount of hostility from the macho men involved will keep me from it.


Women who rock, 10 essential punk songs
http://punksexism.wordpress.com/
Violence and Punk  Musichttp

And this is why I talk about race

Wow, there’s a lot of shit pissing me off on the web this week. Never mind the natural disasters and the loss of a great Canadian political leader (we will carry on the fight Jack).  I’ve got so many posts rattling around in my head that I feel stumped as to which one to write today. I guess I’ll go with what’s making my head explode at this very moment.

So, as you may or may not have noticed there has been a lot of discussion about race on the web lately. Or maybe that’s just in my twitter feed.  In any case, between Mochamomma and The Good Men Project I’ve been spending a lot time reading (and a little time writing) about race. 

Last week I wrote this post about some of my experiences and thoughts on racism and I got an amazing response (much thanks to Mochamomma, The Bloggess, Schmutzie and Rage Against the Minivan for all of the retweets and links).  But the conversation is far from over and I felt the need to write a follow up. Then this morning I read Damon Young’s piece on The Good Men Project about the reaction he got to a previous post entitled “Eating While Black”. 

My favourite one was the commenter who said that “blacks are jerks, that’s all.”

And you wonder why we’re still talking about race and racism.

And now I’d like to share a quote from the body of Damon’s most recent piece:

And, the reluctance to freely share, to have open and honest discussions about anything race-related, to "air our dirty laundry in public" is basically just us not wanting to provide any opportunity for “White America” to gather more evidence to support their latent belief that we’re just not supposed to be here.

This is why it’s so vital that white people call out racism when we see it.

~ ~ ~

Too often when we’re in public spaces the onus is put upon racialized* people to speak up when something, shall we say questionable, is said.  I distinctly remember being in a classroom with only one black student when some discussion around race came up and all heads turned to her. I’ve since become familiar with this experience as the only out queer person in a room.  Whenever something that could conceivably be perceived as homophobic was said all eyes would turn to me.

This, my friends, is bullshit.

Let me start with the most obvious thing.  If you know enough to expect me to take issue then you know that perhaps something should be said. Instead of looking to the black kid or the queer kid or the kid in a wheelchair, why not just speak up your damn self?

Conversely, when someone who doesn’t fit the identity in question speaks up it creates confusion and often results in a different kind of resentment.

Let me share a friend’s story with you.

A good friend of mine was briefly enrolled at a local queer alternative school. He was glad to be free from the homophobia of his old school but frustrated with the other kinds of intolerance and ignorance he was hearing from his peers.  When he called someone out on their racism/biphobia/sexism they would invariably say, “What do you care? You’re not black/bi/female.”

And therein lies the problem. What do I care? I care that people are daily living with systemic and interpersonal bias and outright hatred.  I care that we live in a world that is inherently more dangerous for racialized people. I care that the voices of millions of people are silenced because they “just can’t get over it already”.

I don’t believe in a world where we only fight for causes that have obvious direct effects on our own lives. I don’t believe that there is anyone who isn’t adversely affected by the inequities in our system.

I do believe that a good life includes making choices based on who you want to be, not how you can benefit.  I do believe that if we all open our eyes to the humanity of one another we will see how ludicrous it is to ask the question, “What do you care?”

Few people enjoy conflict. It’s scary to call someone out on their shit.  Me, I hate it.  People who know me may think I love it because I just keep on doing it.  What they don’t know is that every time I do my hands start shaking and I have to fight to keep the tears at bay.  I hate doing it and I hate the way it makes me feel but I do it.  And speaking as someone who sees it from both sides let me tell you, it’s infinitely easier to speak up when you are not the target of the other persons vitriol.

It continually astounds me how patently unfair it is to expect the object of derision to be the one to speak up.

Let’s look at the risks involved.

As a white woman calling someone out on their racism the worst I’m likely to get (in most situations) is some foul language thrown my way. I’ll get called a slut, a bitch, a dyke – honest to God I once got called a squirrel (wtf?).  As a woman if I call someone out on their misogyny I know that there is a real physical danger.  I also know that my words will not be heard because I’m “just some whiny feminazi” and that any bystanders will be more likely to perceive me the same way.

Several years ago I was on a bus platform along with my mother and a diverse assortment of about fifty other people.  Along came two white guys talking loudly about “those damn niggers”.  I promptly shouted back, “Keep your racism to yourselves!” At which point they started calling me a whole range of sexist – and often nonsensical – epithets (see squirrel reference above).  Later when I was telling someone about it they asked, “Why bother, it’s not like you’re going to change their minds.” And they were right, me calling them out in public is not going change their beliefs.

But that’s not the point.

While I may not be able to change their minds, if enough people actually call them out when they so publicly share those opinions, they may decide that they're better off keeping it to themselves.  And this matters, because every time someone is allowed to pronounce these hateful attitudes unchecked they take over the public space and render it toxic and unsafe for the people against whom they are railing.  Which brings me to my second point. I needed all of the bystanders and witnesses on that platform to hear the racism being squashed. 

It is the responsibility of those who hold privilege, be it white, male, straight or cis to not be bystanders.  When you don’t speak up you are complicit in creating that toxic environment.

It is a delicate balance. On one hand it is incumbent upon us to speak up, on the other hand we cannot, and should never try to, speak on behalf of someone else.  To do so is paternalistic and condescending. We can, however speak in support of others. 

When I speak about race and racism, I am not speaking on behalf of people of colour, I am speaking for my own values. 

I am nobody’s saviour but my own, but I will stand by your side in the fight, because, to quote Emma Lazarus “Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

image source: http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/niem/FirstTheyCameForImages.htm

*After last week's post a good friend informed me that many people are now using the term "racialized" rather than "people of colour". This reflects the social context rather than focusing on the notion of colour. I will be trying to mostly use this term but may occasionally say POC for the flow of the writing.

A note regarding comments: Trolls and disrespectful comments will be deleted. I will not let my blog become a playground for bullies.

Let’s talk about race

This is going to be a long, and sometimes hard, one. I’ve been reading a lot of blog posts about race and racism lately, all of them great and all of them by women of colour. In particular I’ve been reading Mochamomma’s blog in which she’s discussed the unicorn cake debacle, and the “ask a black girl” phenomenon.

One of the things that has come up again and again is how rare it is for white women to blog about race and racism.

So...here I go.

Race and racism have been at the front of my mind for most of my life. As a white girl who grew up in rural Ontario the only people of colour I knew as a child were the Japanese boy in my class and the Trinidadian fruit pickers who worked on a nearby farm.

But, I also grew up with a Quaker hippie mom (of the social justice and political action variety rather than the pot smoking free love variety). I had a strong awareness of the existence of racial bigotry but had yet to witness it.

All of that changed when I was thirteen and spending my summers in St. Catharines with my best friend.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about whether or not I would tell the whole truth here. I realize that I am opening myself up to some serious judgment and anger. All I can say is, I was thirteen and I only had one friend so where she went, I went.

This is what you need to know about St. Catharines in the 80’s and 90’s: It was a breeding ground for neo-nazi skinheads. The teenagers were all neatly divided into their little boxes, especially the freaks. You had boneheads (distinct from the anti-racist skinheads), mods, hippies and punks. I was none of the above but I was definitely a freak. I also had no idea how to meet new people on my own. My best friend, however was a striking mod chick much admired by many . When she started dating a nazi punk I wound up spending a lot of time around him and his friends. I hated it but I didn’t know how to avoid it without alienating someone who meant so much to me (to her credit, the boyfriend in question gave up his Nazi ways in the time they were together).

For the most part I left the room any time they started talking their bullshit. Occasionally I took them to task only to be dazzled by the bizarre twists of “logic” they offered in defence of their views.

Eventually I was able to make other friends and stop spending time in the company of boneheads. But, honestly, I can’t say I regret that time because it taught me something about hate and hate groups that I don’t think I would have otherwise understood. Sometimes it’s good to spend some time behind enemy lines.

One thing I learned from that experience was that these people are people, they’re not monsters. Making them monsters makes it too easy to distance our selves and society from their beliefs and their actions. When we recognize that they are people we have to also examine how they came to be that way, because they sure as hell didn’t just spring from the head of Ernst Zundel like Athena from Zeus.

When I was sixteen I left home and moved to St. Catharines to finish high school. There were still plenty of boneheads but my new friends were very vocal anti-racists who had had the shit kicked out of them more than once by boneheads. I saw how ineffective it was to piss them off and I felt the fear of being chased by them. I even had them move in next door to me. After that my best friend (a different one by this time) who was Filipino refused to come to my apartment, and who can blame her? If that’s what they do to white people, what might the do to her? I had to call the cops one night because one them was pounding on my door screaming “Fucking faggot!!” at my friend who was visiting.

Most people’s experience of racism is not so dramatic. It’s the systemic racism of the criminal justice system or the unfair hiring practices of a workplace. It’s the subtle shifts in attitude when a person of colour walks into the room. It’s the throw away comments that people don’t think twice about. It’s the luxury of “not seeing race” because you can’t “see” your whiteness. It’s the wilful blindness of white people when they talk about how inspiring and heart-warming the latest edition of the white saviour trope was.

I still come to tears when I remember how volatile it was back then. How much a fabric of our daily lives it was that one of us could get beaten down at any time. I was there when my friend was attacked by five guys in steel toe boots and I was there to watch him get twisted into his own brand of hate, indiscriminately accusing people of being nazis, and even terrorizing their families.

I learned what unfettered hate looks like. And I understood that this was a natural consequence of the much subtler and more pernicious kind of racism that was a part of the very fabric of our culture. And aren’t those radical neo-nazis a perfect distraction from the much more insidious racism that affects people of colour on a daily basis?

You know what? I can identify a nazi skinhead in my sleep. I know how to tell a nazi punk from the rest of ‘em, no problem. You know what that means? It means I know where I fucking stand. It means that when I see those white laces and the iron cross on your jacket I know not to make eye contact and steer clear.

But when my coiffed middle class (white) boss at my minimum wage job starts talking about “chinamen” that’s a hole other bag of shit. That’s a blind side from someone in a position of authority and I am left speechless, because I need this job.

And when my university professor says “us” in reference to white people and “them” in reference to any people of colour – even when there are people of colour in the class – he is not only contributing to the othering of POC, he is effectively erasing those who are in the room.

One of my favourite profs in University was Andrew Winston whose research focuses on the role that social science and science have played in perpetuating racial stereotypes and racist policies (that’s a simplification but you get the gist). In intro psych we were assigned a book called “The Race Gallery” by Marek Kohn which outlined the history and the flawed science of race based research, particularly in the area of racial classification and intelligence. My take away from that book was that race is a social construct rather than a biological fact. However, and this is the important part, just because something is a social construct doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Race is real because it affects the identities and realities of everyone. Not just people of colour, everyone. Whiteness is not a blank slate, it is not the de facto absence of racial identity any more than maleness is the de facto absence of gender. The issue, for any thinking white person, is how do you inhabit and experience your whiteness? What does it mean to you to hold a racial identity that comes with so much privilege? What can you do to recognize your privilege and address it in a meaningful way? And if you answer that question with anything that sounds like, “Well I’m X so I’m oppressed too” you’re missing the point. Identity is a complicated and ever shifting thing. If you engage in the “more oppressed than thou” game everyone loses. The point is to think consciously and openly about what kind of privilege you benefit from and what that means.

Talking about race is hard, for everybody. But the difference is that white folk have the luxury, or shall we say privilege, of not thinking or talking about it. If you, as a white person, don’t notice that everyone in the room/film/book is white it’s not because you’re so progressive that you’re colour blind, it’s because you’re simply blind to the ways in which people of colour are simultaneously erased and problematically defined by those representations. If everyone in the room is white, why is that? How does that change the nature of the discussion? How does that affect the way people behave to one another? All too often an all or mostly white space is seen as a safe space to say ignorant or flat out hateful things.

So this is me, talking about race in the only way that I can, through the lens of my experience. I actually like talking about race and racism, just as I like talking about gender and sexism and homophobia and every other element of the kyriarchy (still getting used to that word). I most like talking about race with people of colour because talking about it with a bunch of white people is like talking in a vacuum and frankly, I’m more afraid of hearing some racist crap come out of another white persons mouth than I am of being called out by a black friend.






Update: I've since written a follow up post on why it matters that white people talk about racism.

It gets better, but is that the point?

Lately it feels like every day on Facebook there’s a new post about a queer (or presumed queer) teen killing themselves as a result of homophobic bullying. My reaction to this has not been the predictable shock or sadness. Not because I don’t care and not because this isn’t appalling and tragic. No, the reality is that there is nothing about this that surprises me. This is not new. Queer teens have always had a significantly higher rate of suicide. Queer teens have always faced merciless bullying. Even teens who are not queer face homophobic bullying if they are deemed somehow unacceptable by their peers. The only thing I see here that is new is that the media is actually talking about it.

In response to these tragic stories Dan Savage has started a YouTube campaign aimed at giving queer teens some hope. Hundreds of people have posted videos to the “It Gets Better” campaign including the likes of Ann Hathaway and Kathy Griffin. I admire the intent behind this and I believe that it will provide some glimmer of light for some teens but I guess I’m also a little cynical. I imagine myself at 15 struggling to muddle on through the fog of my depression and I know what I would have been thinking watching all these videos telling me it would get better. I would have thought, “You don’t know me, you don’t know my life. Just because it got better for you that has nothing to do with me.”

And this is really what it comes down to. What is the line that divides the bullied kids who do try or succeed at killing themselves from those who don’t? The most likely answer is that those who take their own lives are suffering from depression. And the mind under the influence of depression has its own dark logic. Man, when I was in a depression I could ‘reason’ away anyone’s message of hope or sound advice. If someone said, “You’re a wonderful person, so intelligent and compassionate” I would just tell myself that they didn’t really know me and I wasn’t who they thought I was. If someone said, “I promise it will get better, this is just high school” I would just tell myself that it was a meaningless platitude and they didn’t understand just how bad it was. But beyond all of that there is the simple fact that at that moment when you’re standing on the edge of that cliff, it doesn’t matter if it will be better in five or even two years. What matters is that it’s unbearable right now and you can’t imagine how to live with this pain until that magic grown-up time when “it get’s better.”

When I tried to kill myself it wasn’t when I was in the thick of being bullied. It wasn’t when I couldn’t bear to face another day of school. No, when I reached my breaking point with the bullying I talked to my parents and we found a way for me to move away and go to another school. The suicide attempt came several months after I’d escaped that hellhole. It came when I realized that while I’d left the circumstances behind, all of the incumbent misery was still right there with me. The bullies may have been removed but the depression remained. When I realized that leaving the bullies behind was not enough, that was when I truly despaired.

So yes, give your message of hope. But lets talk about what’s really killing these kids. Homophobia and bullying are the circumstances that absolutely need to be changed but if you don’t address the depression in a way that’s more meaningful than simply pulling out a prescription pad, those kids who are at most risk will remain at risk.

I don’t have any answers, at least none that don’t require some massive cultural and policy shifts. All I can say is that the one and only thing that stopped me from trying again was that after my first attempt I finally understood what it would do to my friends and family.

To my mother, my sister and everyone else who was there for me, I am deeply sorry. And for all of your love and acceptance, thank you.