Yesterday afternoon, in our customary sybaritic manner, Penny and I trotted off to a public lecture at the University of New South Wales: Deborah Cameron on the Myth of Mars and Venus. Since I blogged about the book on Thursday, and the lecture covered the same material, I won’t say much about the lecture here, except that I was fascinated to observe the way DC compressed the substance of the book to fit a one-hour time slot and reshaped it to fit her mainly academic audience. On the one hand (sadly) she left out most of the more colourful examples; on the other, with the help of a handout, she gave us a map of modernist and postmodernist takes on gender and language and of current challenges to the latter. One of the challenges she’s all in favour of, and in some ways amounted to the point of her book: it’s all very well to discuss linguistic diversity, but you have to include the concept of power as well. The other, which didn’t feature in the book, is the challenge from the recent renewal of arguments that differences between women and men are biologically based. ‘It’s no good,’ she said, ’saying, “Oh not that old thing again. I thought we got rid of that in the 70s.” We have to engage with it. We may even learn something from it.’ In response to a question about the politics behind the resurgence of biological psychology, she was refreshingly blunt: “It’s the new academically respectable face of sexism.”

I was glad I’d read the book beforehand, because it equiped me to understand a lot of what got said during the Q& A at the end about gender as performance rather than something that simply exists in the real world. ‘I am completely free to decide how I speak, but I have no control over how I will be understood.’

There were 32 people there. I counted. About five men. Also sandwiches, red cordial, teabags and biscuits.

This morning, DC’s comments about the necessity of engaging seemed relevant to this spectacle:

It’s Saturday morning, when this locality comes alive because of the Orange Grove Markets across the street. A coffee shop is doing a roaring trade jus a couple of metres from where I was standing to take the photo. People are  everywhere, and in a buying mood. But even when the Feminist Bookshop opens at 10.30, two hours or so after serious activity starts, its shop front is hardly inviting. Even if the permanent bars on window aren’t as paranoid as they seem, surely the frosting can only be read as deliberate discouragement of casual shoppers. Of course, there’s no reason a feminist bookshop has to court customers. But wouldn’t an invitation to engagement be a better look?

Everybody loves a good smackdown, especially when it’s delivered judiciously, with careful marshalling of evidence and argument. The Myth of Mars and Venus is such a smackdown to the noxious theses of John (Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus) Gray and his ilk.

Deborah Cameron, currently visiting Australia and speaking at the Uni of NSW tomorrow afternoon, is a linguistics scholar (according to the jacket flap she is actually Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University, a title that might itself spawn a learned paper or two). And she casts an unfriendly eye on the agenda-driven cherrypicking, or worse inventing, of research results that lead to all those fabulous scenarios about women and men being hard-wired to use language differently, coming from different cultures, etc.

I recommend the book to anyone who has been made to feel not quite man enough, not quite woman enough, ot trapped in a role because of intransigent and immutable biological inheritance, to anyone who has run some of their writing through the gender genie and wondered what was wrong with them (rather than what was wrong with the GG, as Deborah Cameron points out would be a more sensible response). I also recommend it to anyone who wants to read fabulous snippets of research into the language of adolescents in US cities, in a traditional New Guinea village, in 19th century Japan.

That is to say, this is a debunking book of the best kind: it puts sound research in the place of shonky, restores one’s faith inhuman beings, and has fun on the way.

The book in brief:

The genius of the myth of Mars and Venus is to acknowledge eth problems and conflicts many people are now experiencing as a result of social change, while explaining those problems and conflicts in a way that implies they have nothing to do with social change. They are as old as humanity (quite literally in some versions of the myth) and their root cause is the irreducible natural difference between the sexes.  … The belief that [these problems] are timeless, natural and inevitable stops us thinking about what social arrangements might work better than our present ones in a society that can no longer be run on the old assumptions about what men and women can do.

“A bit like a piece of wood interviewing a tyre iron.”

Joe Hildebrand on Deborah Cameron’s interview with Angela Catterns.

“His legacy left to NSW and its people will be one of largesse, folly, incompetence, ineptitude and inefficiency and will be incontrovertibly recorded as the worst government in NSW history. He should be looking seriously at employment post politics and I strongly suggest he consider fruit growing or becoming an orchardist as he is surrounded by absolute lemons.”

David Ingram, letter to Daily Telegraph. One the other hand, while the state indulges in Iemma-bashing, Deborah Cameron did say,

“I am not sure we can blame Morris Iemma for a football result.”

(As quoted by Joe Hildebrand.)

In general though, it’s open season on Morris Minor, as Ken Robinson of Newcastle makes clear in a letter to the Telegraph on June 30:

“Morris, actions speak louder than words and, based on your track record, the sooner they kick you out the better we will all be. Your Government is a Disgrace!

You fooled us into belieivng that your mob deserved a second chance. Well, a leopard doesn’t change its spots, and once again the NSW ALP has proven to us all that you guys couldn’t even run a chook raffle if you tried. The sooner we vote you out the better.”

 

Mark, writing in the same edition, takes a more fatalist view:

“It isn’t hard to see that who ever is running this state is an idiot, but mark my wors he will win the next election because the same idiots that supported these idiots last time will do the same again.”

 

But is there any serious alternative? Robert doesn’t think so:

“Thanks for letting the public know what they were aware of for years Barry. You are an absolute expert in the bleeding obvious, now how about actually moving your party forward from behind the bench and introducing the shadow cabinet to the public?…Is there a point to the Opposition apart from colecting public monies for your salaries? Talk is cheap.”

Myth 1: women talk more than men Nonsense, says Cameron. In a popular self-help book, The Female Brain, the claim is made that women say 20,000 words a day and men only 7,000. This statistic has been widely reported in newspapers and journals but has since turned out to be erroneous and based on no real research. It has since been removed from the book.

In fact a number of studies have found that men speak more than women, although others found that women speak more than men. A recent study by the University of Arizona, on a group of undergraduates, found that both sexes spoke an equal number of words a day – 16,000.

Myth 2: men and women communicate differently More hogwash, says Cameron. Linguistic studies have shown that men and women share a 99.75% overlap in the way they communicate. If there are differences in the way the sexes communicate, they are infinitesimal.

The only real markers of difference between men and women are that women smile more and spell better, and it is, says Cameron, only a “moderate difference”.

Myth 3: men’s and women’s brains are hardwired differently when it comes to language This area, says Cameron, is more difficult. Brain scans show that, when men talk, they use almost exclusively the left-hand side of their brains, whereas women also use parts of the right side. But, according to Cameron, this has had no bearing on how we communicate.

The only proven effect of this neurological difference between the sexes, comes in the case of severe head injury. If men suffer an acute injury to the brain, they are more likely to lose their speech faculties than women, because other parts of the female brain are able to take over.

Myth 4: men interrupt more than women The evidence suggests women interrupt as much as men do. Cameron argues that some men, naturally, will interrupt more than others. The dangers of grouping men together is that the differences between men and women are so slight, whereas the differences between men and other men are more interesting.

When, and how people interrupt, argues Cameron, is much more about power and social relations than the genetic make-up of the sexes.

Från boken The Myth of Mars and Venus av Oxfordprofessorn Deborah Cameron.

För mer information – se tidigare inlägg.

Bilderna på böckernas framsidor är från Amazon.com

Jag hörde ett intressant inslag i P1:s OBS. Det var poeten Susanna Roxman som hade läst The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages? av språkvetaren och Oxfordprofessorn Deborah Cameron.

Deborah Cameron gör upp med John Grays bok Män är från Mars, kvinnor är från Venus - en bok som påstår att män och kvinnor skulle vara så oerhört olika och därför knappt kan förstå varandra. Den typen av böcker var mycket populära för 15-20 år sedan, populärvetenskapliga skrifter som ofta byggde på myter och fantasier.

När fonetikprofessorn Mark Liberman läste i The female brain av Louann Brizendine  att kvinnor använder 20.000 ord per dag – medan män endast använde 7000 ord per dag blev han misstänksam. Han spårade källan till en populärvetenskaplig bok – där författaren fritt uppfunnit siffran. Det fanns alltså ingen grund för påståendet.

Författaren – Louann Brizendine  bad om ursäkt – och sa att i nästa upplaga av boken skulle misstaget rättas till. Men det är så dags då. Myten sprider sig – och både journalister och populärvetenskapliga författare kan komma att hänvisa till den siffran.

Sanningen är snarare att skillnaden mellan män och kvinnors ordanvändande är nästan försumbar – män pratar något mer i vissa sammanhang och kvinnor något mer i andra. Men kvinnor tystnar av någon anledning när det finns män i rummet. Möjligen av hänsyn till personer som anser sig ha högre status, eller på grund av att kvinnor som pratar och avbryter män anses okvinnliga.

Deborah Cameron reagerade också på boktiteln If men could talk (av Alon Gratch). Om man skrivit en bok med titeln If women could think – så hade det blivit ramaskri.

The literature of Mars and Venus, in both the self-help and popular science genres, is remarkably patronising towards men. They come off as bullies, petulant toddlers; or Neanderthals sulking in their caves. One (male) contributor to this catalogue of stereotypes goes so far as to call his book If Men Could Talk. A book called If Women Could Think would be instantly denounced; why do men put up with books that put them on a par with Lassie or Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (“Hey, wait a minute – I think he’s trying to tell us something!”)?

Men frågan om kvinnor kunde tänka och om de verkligen är som andra människor (män) är inte en så gammal fråga. Den diskuteras fortfarande på vissa håll i världen. Liksom frågan om färgade människor verkligen tänker som blekare människor (den oseriöse Nobelpristagaren James D Watson har åsikter om både kvinnors intelligens, överviktigas intelligens och färgade människors intelligens).

Det finns också oseriösa forskare som påstår att kvinnor är bättre på att vårda – medan män är mer logiska.

Även i Sverige finns personer som inte gjort avkall på denna märkliga människosyn. Den mest omskrivna är kanske Annica Dahlström (Könet sitter i hjärnan).

Vad gäller kvinnor och män så är variationen mellan kvinnor större än mellan kvinnor och män – liksom variationerna i gruppen män. Men att skriva en bok som handlar om hur oerhört lika män och kvinnor är – det skulle inte vara lika säljande. Bokförlag och läsare vill ha populärvetenskapligt mumbojumbo – i stil med Annica Dahlströms och John Grays fantastiska fantasier.

“I’m afraid I think John Gray comes from Uranus,” säger Cameron “It’s pretty annoying that people like him have made millions peddling this nonsense.”

Denna film tillägnar jag Annica Dahlström och andra sexistiska biologister som tror att kvinnor är bättre vårdare, att män inte har känsel i fingertopparna och inte kan städa, som tror att barn som är på dagis blir knarkare, som tror att män inte kan prata – bara sitta i en grotta och mumla ohörbara fraser. Denna film tillägnar jag alla som tror att det som sägs i filmen är på fullt allvar och inte ens garvar åt den – eftersom den bara upprepar det som ni skrivit i era “forskningsrapporter”.

Åt oss andra säger jag: håll till godo och garva gott – det är inte mycket annat vi kan göra. Såna som de kommer tyvärr alltid att befolka vårt klot.

They will never go back to Uranus…

~o~

Utdrag ur Deborah Camerons bok The Myth of Mars and Venus - från tidningen Guardian Unlimited. Det är en ganska lång och mycket välskriven artikel. Rekommenderas.

Ur artikeln: Perhaps men have realised that a reputation for incompetence can sometimes work to your advantage. Like the idea that they are no good at housework, the idea that men are no good at talking serves to exempt them from doing something that many would rather leave to women anyway. (Though it is only some kinds of talking that men would rather leave to women: in many contexts men have no difficulty expressing themselves – indeed, they tend to dominate the conversation.)

P1 OBS – lyssna på inlägget som sändes den 26 oktober. Ligger ute i 30 dagar.

Forskare ifrågasätter Annica Dahlströms bok Könet sitter i hjärnan 

Ur kritiken: Enligt Dahlström gör mäns begränsade synfält att de inte kan uppfatta barn eller dammråttor. Vore det så förstår inte vi varför de tillåts vara piloter, taxichaufförer eller flygledare.

Annica Dahlström svarar på forskarnas kritik

Ur försvaret: Glöm inte att vi har en hjärna som formats under miljontals år av evolutionära tryck, där omhändertagandet av avkomman spelat den mest avgörande rollen. Det är därför vi i dag fortfarande har två typer av beteenden och två typer av hjärnor, som genererar dessa beteenden. Därför lever vi i dag!

Malin Ullgren kritiserar populärvetenskapen och Annica Dahlström (och vissa journalister)

Ur Malins Ullgrens kritik: Arbetsplats efter arbetsplats har i snart två decennier utsatt sina anställda för heldagsattacker av vetenskaplig grumlighet. Och så lite igenkänningshumor på det, så att reptilhjärnan och de nedärvda stenåldersprylarna ska gå in i hjärtat på publiken.

The myth of Mars and Venus finns på bokus för 159:- och på adlibris för 166:-.

Om Deborah Cameron

Om Susanna Roxman

Times online om boken av Susannah Herbert

Ur Susannah Herberts artikel: No wonder we like to think our problems can be blamed on a failure of interplanetary communication. It’s easier than admitting we’re all earthlings, and we haven’t a clue.

Times online om boken (samma dag) av Ed Caesar

Cameron is not simply irritated that the Mars and Venus books have filled too many Christmas stockings. Her fervour on this issue runs deeper. There is, she thinks, something regressive, deeply conservative, in this outlook because what it seems to be saying is that we can’t change.

Janet Shibley Hydes rapport (pdf) om olikheter/likheter mellan könen. Där likheterna visat sig vara större än olikheterna. Cameron stöder sig delvis på denna rapport i sin bok.

La femminista Dale Spender a proposito dell’idea diffusa, ed errata, che le donne parlino più degli uomini.

La frase è citata da Deborah Cameron, una linguista dell’Università di Oxford, nel suo ultimo libro “The Myth of Mars and Venus“, che sarà in libreria domani. Ho letto la frase nel primo di tre estratti in corso di pubblicazione sul Guardian (oggi è uscito il secondo).

Nel libro, la Cameron punta a smontare il mito che ci siano differenze linguistiche profonde fra donne e uomini. Secondo la Cameron, questo mito comprende almeno cinque teorie.

(1) Quella che le donne abbiano più bisogno di comunicare degli uomini (e che quindi parlino di più).

(2) Quella che le abilità linguistiche delle donne siano superiori (hanno “la chiacchiera”).

(3) Quella che gli uomini usino il linguaggio per scopi pratici, mentre le donne lo usino per entrare in relazione con gli altri (gli uomini parlano di cose, le donne esprimono emozioni).

(4) Quella che gli uomini usino un linguaggio aggressivo, mentre le donne vogliano stabilire armonia e cooperazione (parole di odio vs. parole di pace).

(5) Quella che queste differenze sfocino nell’incomunicabilità fra i sessi (la celebre teoria di Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus).

Con me la Cameron sfonda una porta aperta (sono convinto che le differenze fra donne e uomini – linguistiche e non – siano piccole), ma alcune di queste teorie sono vangelo anche per molte persone colte. Prevedo che “The Myth of Mars and Venus” accenderà polemiche o sarà del tutto ignorato. A giudicare dai due estratti, è un libro leggibile, vivace, ben documentato ma rigoroso, quindi propendo per la seconda ipotesi.

Dell’idea che le donne parlino più degli uomini mi ero già occupato a luglio.

Aggiornamento (4 ottobre): è uscito il terzo estratto.