1. In general, the idea behind democracies is not that candidates get to determine what voters are allowed to care about in casting their ballots. It is beyond ridiculous for someone to announce their candidacy for a position in a professional organization and then say, "Respect for other people's opinions, in my mind, also includes not inquiring into these opinions and allowing such information to be volunteered (or not)."Sometimes I feel like the academic life is about dancing on a rug that has maybe ten square inches of carpet surrounded by yards of lunatic fringe.
2. If other constituencies within ASA wanted to mobilize and poll ASA candidates about issues of central concern to them, there is nothing stopping them from doing so. It's not SWS's fault that others lack their initiative.
3. It's weird to express dismay that SWS would send out a survey that focuses on the issues central to the mission of SWS.
4. Gender scholars are not some loony gang of gynoconformists. Each member of SWS has, in fact, her/his own mind. I would only have a problem with SWS providing information to members about candidates if that information was willfully misleading somehow. The SWS practice--presenting verbatim the responses provided by the candidates themselves--seems about as close to non-misleading-by-definition as one can get. If individual SWS members want to be single-issue "gender" voters--whatever exactly that might mean--this is their prerogative.
5. As a different example of single-issue voting, I want to announce that I will never myself vote for a candidate for ASA office who regards analogies to Nazi Germany as appropriate descriptions for ASA procedures or elections.
Update, next day: Drek offers his own take on the posts in question, which he follows by offering the opportunity for rebuttal. I will have to admit to uncertainty about how exactly one would go about rebutting a drinking game.
Update to update: According to my Bloglines feed, Deflem has updated his post a couple times after I wrote this, so it might be better/differently articulated than before.
12 comments:
The problem might be that way more people believe they are standing on the ten square inches of carpet than could actually fit on that carpet.
Sea monsters, tiny carpets! Oh man, get hold of your metaphoric self. The rain will go away soon and you can walk in the sun again (and soon it will be summer -- school's out!).
Here here, Jeremy! I couldn't agree with you more. Well, I'm not so sure on the Scylla and Charybdis title. And I'm still trying to figure out if "diss" is a clever play, or just an over-zealous ring finger. But other than that...
The diss was intentional, of course. It's a dissing post, after all. The only other diss pun I could come up with at the time involved something with Tardiss, and I just don't think enough people who read my blog are Doctor Who fans. So, I went with something from the Odissey.
I always thought the verb was "dis."
It can be spelled either way.
I like the bit in Deflem's post about how the nominations committee was forced to choose men in order to avoid gang-voting by SWS. I'm sure last year, when the slate was disproportionately women, he would have insisted that the nominations committee caved under the pressure of SWS influence. Also, for someone who is purportedly devoted to the scientific method, he doesn't seem to have much use for constructing plausible, consistent hypotheses, let alone gathering the necessary evidence to assess them.
I, too, hate how the entire pseudo-debate is so split into camps that you can't make a statement without campifying yourself.
It is a shame, because these are really important issues, and they should be discussed.
As ever, Deflem remains a celebrated...
Gives new meaning to "overreaching."
(Daaaaayyymn, tell me he ditn't just make fois gras outta freese's pieces? Ohhhhhh, yes he dit!)
"However, given SWS's gang-voting behavior, any balanced slate will favor female candidates. To deny this is to deny the outcome of last year's elections. That is evidence, n'est pas?"
The problem is that you haven't provided any evidence of "gang-voting" behavior. A gender-imbalanced outcome (given a balanced slate) certainly does not provide this evidence. If, for example, the female candidates were just better, stronger, faster, leaner, meaner, etc. than the male candidates, the observed outcome could have been achieved even in the absence of gender-based decisions on the part of the median voter.
As ever, deflem remains a celebrated...
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