I am definitely glad that the issues that we are dealing with now are more subtle than the issues of 50 years ago. Yet, I sometimes feel like we are failing to properly frame the real issues that still face women.

I think that the way this post juxtaposes the successes of the past with the remaining problems we face is a good start. I feel like women would not want to distance themselves from the term if they understood that feminism is still working to promote safety, options, and equality for women.

So if we could devise a way to accurately survey people's deepest and truest feelings, then we'd realize that we haven't even come as far as those numbers make it seem. Probably true.

There actually are some pretty good way to measure people's gut-level responses. The idea is to ask folks to make really fast, snap decisions about what matches with what (e.g., women with careers, men with fmaily, vice versa).

Handily, there are demos of one of these kinds of measurement (implicit association tests) online. If you are interested, you can see for yourself what your own gut responses are at: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ .

The "Gender-Career" test looks at how strongly people associate gender with family vs. careers. I just took it and got to see a graph of the results of ~ 83K folks who took it before me. It looks like Ann's hunch is spot-on.

"So if we could devise a way to accurately survey people's deepest and truest feelings, then we'd realize that we haven't even come as far as those numbers make it seem. Probably true."

Actually I'm going to say "probably *not* true." And that's because for every weakness on the progressive side ("well, maybe *some* women *should* be in the kitchen...") there's going to be at least as much weakness on the other as well (if nothing else see all the millions who say "I'm not a feminist but..." That plus millions more who think stuff like women should still "put out" but should also receive equal compensation and promotion., etc.) My point being not that everything's hunky dory (see Giants Stadium) but that it's not productive to assume all hidden indicators would be bad.

Anyway, the point being that *at worst* the hidden indicators offset each other which means you're looking at pretty good news. And even with only 57% belief about women in leadership (which, I suspect, would go higher with just a little probing) that's more than enough of a majority to stop pleading for the minority to consider all the evidence and start bluntly asking if they have any other personal problems with the 21st Century they want to share.

figleaf

“Now that many of the laws have improved, it can be harder to find concrete demands to make.” --I know exactly what you mean. But I was thinking about it bit more, and you know what? I think there are “concrete demands” to make. The problem is they are smaller but they are just as important to the bigger picture. For example, with reproductive rights…yes we have legal access to abortion. But right now anti-choicers are gradually chipping away at that freedom with waiting-periods and parental notification and what have you. We are defending concrete things, rather than demanding. It’s like the feminism of the past was on the offensive. Now with regard to certain issues, we have to learn to protect some of those rights now that we have them. And that’s on top of solving all those “smaller” issues that we need to be on the offensive. I do think framing can have a lot to do with it. There is definitely lots of work to be done!

The offensive/defensive action point is important, Karina. I think we're more likely to get further if we're on the offensive. But it's also tough when, for example on the choice issue, you have an ultraconservative president and an onslaught of state-level legislation trying to restrict abortion access. Makes it tough to spend time and resources on more proactive measures (say, legislation guaranteeing contraception access) when we're constantly working to keep from backsliding.

Actually, I found this graph to be the most interesting/disturbing:

For most of history, men were more likely to give 1-3 answers. Only during part of the 80s and since 2000 have women answered higher in that range than men. And only two studies in a row doesn't make it possible to determine for sure whether or not the positive trend will continue.

The part of this survey I'd really like to see is the contrapositive:

* Should men play an equal role to women in the home?

* Should men take pride in housecleaning?

* Should men be encouraged to stay home as full-time homemakers?

Caring for a home -- and in particular, raising young children -- is a challenging, time-consuming responsibility. In my experience children do benefit from a full-time parent. I weep for the economic realities which force both partners (where there are two, regardless of gender) to join the workforce even if one would rather stay home. I agree that the time for gender-bias is outmoded (my wife out-earns me, and deserves to), but I think that feminists sometimes overlook the blue side of the gender bias, that men are generally not encouraged and almost invariably not well prepared for household responsibilities.

There will always be men and women that naively believe workplace discrimination is a thing of the pass. Those people can be reached. Others with prejudicial biases are a loss cause. Educating people on discrimination helps makes bigots a smaller fringe. A utopian society is what we should strive for. Unfortunately, it isn't likely to happen in our lifetime.

So if we could devise a way to accurately survey people's deepest and truest feelings, then we'd realize that we haven't even come as far as those numbers make it seem. Probably true.

Definitely true. As peepers noted above, there are tests that can measure unconscious bias - the kind that people would squelch in order to deliver the "politically correct" response. As a firey and devout feminist, I was very surprised to find that I had a tendency to associate women with family and men with careers when taking the test.

These implicit attitudes are so important because they're what actually influence the day-to-day decisions and behaviors that can result in discrimination. Given the change in the judicial system's understanding of discrimination -- requiring intentional, blatant discrimination instead of "disparate impact" or pattern and practice discrimination -- it's getting harder and harder to address these attitudes.

This is especially pernicious because surveys like this will never reflect those attitudes, and give policy makers and the general public the incorrect idea that the majority of people support equality. This makes it easier for people to say that feminism no longer is needed and to dismiss those who complain of discrimination as hysterical or overly sensitive.

Because I'm in a negative mood (I had to remake my pie crust, so I'm all bitter):

There's a difference between thinking that there is a "right" answer, and thinking that that answer is correct. You might think that something is a cultural value, but not agree with it. So, that means nothing.

Also, I don't think that there's anything wrong with wanting your wife to stay home and take care of the kids. The implication of that line of thought is that there is something wrong with wanting to be/being a housewife. The problem is thinking that wives as a rule -should- do that and that you (as a husband) have the right to force -yours- to do so. Its the implicit value judgment that's an issue.

dondo posted:

"The part of this survey I'd really like to see is the contrapositive:

* Should men play an equal role to women in the home?

* Should men take pride in housecleaning?

* Should men be encouraged to stay home as full-time homemakers?"

Good point, dondo. We should ask those three questions. But then, the MRAs would be swarming all over us like wasps demanding that questions such as "Should it be a criminal offense to hit your husband or boyfriend?" and the like be asked.

Again, good question, dondo. It is very uncomforable for men to be househusbands, because of the negative stereotype of the word alone. Househusbands are potrayed in the media as being whipped/dominated/henpecked by his girlfriend/wife and are often put down as a sissy. These stereotypes really bother me.

I'm still a little unsure about the quick association tests as a means of measuring what people think ought to be the case. People's associations may just capture what they think is the case.

A better way to measure it is to use the effect that the experimental philosophy people ran across. If you describe a situation in which one party while aiming for something else causes a side-effect, and you ask them whether or not that person is responsible for the side effect, you find that people's answer depends on whether or not they view the side effect as positive or negative.

That is, if Bob's company took an action whose goal was to make money, but as a side effect of the action, it hurt the environment, if you asked people whether or not Bob's company was responsible for this damage to the environment, people will say yes. But if Bob's company took an action whose goal was to make money, but as a side effect of the action, it helped the environment, if you asked people whether or not Bob's company was responsible for this helping of the environment, most people will say no.

Parties are considered to be responsible for positive unintended consequences of their actions, but they are considered responsible for negative unintended consequences. This effect can be used to set up hypothetical scenarios and ask questions about them in order to find out which things the answerer considers positive and which negative.

Keith