A new study has called for a concerted effort to cite academics of color and greater diversity to make from the hold of “white heteromasculism” on research. Geographers Carrie Mott (professor at Rutgers University) and Daniel Cockayne (professor at University of Waterloo in Ontario) has identified the reliance on research by white males as a “system of oppression” benefitting “white, male, able-bodied, economically privileged, heterosexual, and cisgendered.” Cisgendered refers people whose gender identity matches their birth sex.
The two academic insist in an article in the journal Gender, Place and Culture that “This important research has drawn direct attention to the continued underrepresentation and marginalization of women, people of color. … To cite narrowly, to only cite white men … or to only cite established scholars, does a disservice not only to researchers and writers who are othered by white heteromasculinism.”
The 22-page paper, “Citation matters: mobilizing the politics of citation toward a practice of ‘conscientious engagement,'” argues that the use of straight white males for support only perpetuates their views and excludes alternative views. They said that their study was motivated by “shared feelings of discomfort, frustration, and anger” over actions of fellow scholars and publication practices in a white male-dominated system of peer review.
Of course, the higher rate of citations of males may reflect the higher numbers of male academics. According to the American Association of Geographers, men make up 62 percent of its members. That is changing but could be a major contributors to the higher citation rate since there are twice as many of males publishing.
Mott identified herself as a “feminist political geographer,” who’s interested in “how resistance movements mobilize to fight against state-sponsored violence and marginalization.”
In fairness to Professors Mott and Cockayne, greater diversity in our faculties have led to valuable work challenging assumptions and perceptions in academic work. It is important to consider the ever-widening body of research in many fields to counter any bias in analysis.
At the risk of seeming self-serving as an academic who is “white, male, able-bodied, economically privileged, heterosexual, and cisgendered,” I find the publication by Mott and Cockayne to be deeply troubling and frankly anti-intellectual. I never consider (and often do not know the race or sexual orientation) of authors cited in my academic work. I am interested in their ideas and the depth of their analysis. That is the great pleasure of working in a field of intellectuals. We are thrilled by ideas, not identities. The article suggests that we should start to employ a type of selection process based on identity and race. That is precisely what so many fought against in academics as we broke down racial and gender barriers.
The suggestion that the value of academic work should now be measured in part by the identity or race or sexual orientation of the author is offensive to our intellectual mission and values. It shows how some academics are now introducing not just speech regulations but discriminatory practices into universities under the guise of diversity values. The touchstone of our academic life is the inherent worth of ideas in their own right. While we all strive for greater diversity of ideas and influences on our campuses, the citation of academic work must remain entirely based on the inherent quality of the underlying research and not the identity of the researcher.
What do you think?
I am always amazed at academics (I used the word loosely-maybe even figuratively in this case) who invent new words to describe well-worn phenomena and try to pass it off as new scholarship all the while drawing inflated salaries which are paid by students who learn little or nothing from them.
If the professor’s synopsis of the article is correct, the writers believe that reliance on published works should be based on something other than merit. More astounding is the fact that the authors appear to be geography professors. So, what they are saying is that if some non-heteromasculine, non-cisgendered geographer has written that Norway is somewhere in East Asia, that geographer should be cited for the proposition that Sweden which, after all, is adjacent to Norway is also in East Asia.
Somewhere in the Bible (Proverbs, I think) it says something like “build on sand and your house collapses, build on rock and you have something solid”. I’m sure the Bible says it better than that. The point is that by citing and thereby relying upon and asking others to rely upon information cited for reasons other than merit, the resulting argument is, almost by definition, meritless.
The assumption is that one’s race and sexual orientation somehow color the results of scientific research, and we should therefore assign less credence to research published by people of certain race or sexual orientation. It may well be possible to do statistically rigorous research to test the assumption and remove the emotional and qualitative foundation for it.
90 percent of state governors are male, 94% of Fortune 500 CEO’s are male, 80% of the U.S. Congress is male, 75% of state legislators are male. 22 states have never had a a female governor. The U.S. has never had a female president nor vice-president.
What are we readers to conclude from these figures? What were the same figures 10, 20 years ago? Is there a trend worth mentioning?
Linda, What is the reason for that? Woman make up more than half the voting population so there must be other reasons that the numbers look this way. Think of childbirth and the raising of children perhaps the most important job. That interferes with alternative pathways.
Take a system design engineer where changes in the field occur almost on a daily basis. What happens when a woman who wishes to be a mother leaves that job to bring up her children. Do you think ten years later most will have the requisite knowledge to continue where she left off? Of course not. That is why many smart women pick fields where the information is more generalized such as fields in the liberal arts. That changes the dynamics of who is doing what.
The right to work (for a woman) should always have existed and we all recongize that society was somewhat unfair. But, the right to work should never have become the necessity to work and give up childbearing and childcare. That should be a choice for women and should be considered if and when they choose a partner to live with.
News flash: a mess of positions which require focused effort and competition to obtain are predominantly male. Why would you expect otherwise?
The prison population is predominantly male as well. So are special ed classrooms. If you’re not concerned about that but you’re making a fuss about the composition of other venues, you cannot be taken seriously.
Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts- article below is found on the internet:
I saw ’em play at frat parties and at roadhouse dives. We even had an album by these guys at one point and would play it whenever we needed to get an otherwise straight girl either in the mood for some licentiousness or grossed out. Both were amusing in their own way.
They were a bunch of black guys who came from North Carolina. They’d gotten together in Chapel Hill back in the mid-1950s. They became a staple on the frat circuit in the South in the 1960s and have been ever since, it seems.
They put out nine albums on the Jubilee label, but stopped recording in 1969. Apparently, the company declared bankruptcy in ’69, taking all the royalties with them. Clark and company were so soured on the record biz that they showed no interest in recording again.
I’ve had some of these songs stuck in my head for my whole life, and I haven’t heard them in so many years it would frighten you children here. The classics were along the lines of Roly Poly, my favorite, which had the chorus:
Roly Poly
Tickle my hole-y
Up my slimy slew.
Drag my balls
Across the halls.
I’m one of the sporting crew.
The chorus would come between each verse of women singing about how cavernous their birth canal was. Such as,
One old maid
She up and said,
“Mine’s as big as the moon.
A man fell in in January
And didn’t come out ’til June”
Aside from the misogynistic and decidedly unromantic notions of that delicate flower all us boys craved in the worst way, we did laugh our asses off at these guys. And just when you thought you knew them pretty well, they’d put on a smirk and shoot you the bird. It was just their nature.
They covered the infamous Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box, but this song was originally done by the Toppers. Much of their material wasn’t really what you’d call original, by most standards. The limericks, the bawdy jokes, the melodies . . . it was all recycled. But these guys put it all together with a style that hadn’t been seen before.
There was a portrayal of a band in Animal House which was based on Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts. Doug, himself, later told Penthouse in an interview that not being picked for Animal House was the biggest disappointment of his life. The part went instead to Otis Day and the Knights, with a brief cameo by a very young Robert Cray. “If the band they had in that film wasn’t modeled after us, I don’t know who it could have been,” he said with not just a little bitterness.
Without Doug Clark, there’d be no Luther Campbell. Whether this is a good thing or not is for you to judge. But I can tell you that some wild times were had in the basement of those frat houses back when Mary Jane was just another clueless Tri Delt, smack was what you’d do to your buddy later on when you both were trying to drag her up to the room, and the only meaning of ecstasy had to do with banging that box.
—
There was another verse of the song which this commenter recalls:
The second old maid, she up and said:
My holes big as the sea!
The ships come in, the ships go out..
It doesn’t bother me!
Oh, roly poly dick in my holey…
Jack, why do you like posting such irrelevant filth? Don’t you have a porn blog you could hang out at, instead of this one?
I think he is senile. Just ignore him. It may get to a point where he has to be blocked, however.
The authors of the book teach at Bent University in Bumpkin HIll, MA. They go to Mass in Mass. There is a song called Rolly Poley, Dick in My Holey, Up My Slimey Slew, which they sing together when they get together for same sex this and that.
I think they want bent, black, females to teach. After all. Those who can: do. Those who can’t: teach. Those who can’t teach: teach teachers. The next point will be that there are too many teachers spoiling the broth. Too many “professors”. People who “profess” think they know a lot and need to stand on a pedestal and preach. Their BS is no different than “the Word of God” spewed out by religious preachers. The article is a bit “Algore rhythmic”. No offense to Al Gore. That old dork is not a professor is he?
Maybe now, JT. . .now that this $hit is starting to hit home–where you and your career are personally impacted–just maybe you will start to speak out in a real and demonstrative manner against this insanity. So tired of you constantly defending and supporting these cretins, whose demands and dictates are dragging our society into some sort of a never ending cesspool, all under the guise of some mistaken interpretation of freedom of speech or some stilted version of equality. Now, however, that you and yours may be caught up in this madness, maybe now you begin to let your voice be heard in a real and demonstrative way. Like I said, maybe. I suspect that you will continue along the party line and not rattle the bars to the cage, all in an effort to go along, get along, figuring that by the time that these rules and regulations become a reality, you will be at home enjoying your grandkids and your pension.
Wow! Well said, Bam Bam.
And hopefully,
Professor @BretWeinstein will hear you loud and clear, also. 👈 😎
Bam, your post reminds me of an article I read many years ago. The author tracked Supreme Court and Appellate Court affirmative actions decisions, and found a distinct but perhaps not surprising pattern. The justices were quite easily persuaded that there should be affirmative action in blue-collar jobs. Thus quotas were easily established for police officers, firefighters, power plant workers, garbagemen, and so forth. But when it came to professional school admissions, it was hey, not so fast….The justices consciously or subconsciously had reservations about handing out admissions on the basis of race to professional schools and elite colleges, where, of course, their own kids, grandkids and the offspring of their social peers would be competing for admission. So yes, when the discrimination hits close to home, it’s time for additional scrutiny…..
Exactly.
Gender, Place, and Culture is a soi-disant ‘feminist’ journal of geography. If someone calls herself a ‘feminist’ scholar, that’s generally a red flag indicating that her research programme is spurious and she’s got issues. Such people should not be hired. Geography has been vulnerable to Marxists and SJWs in part because it never developed a proper disciplinary self-understanding delineating a territory and sticking to that territory.
Some geography departments are groping toward a serious self-understanding. Academic administrators can help the process along by forcing a reconstitution of extant departments, sending certain faculty members elsewhere. The ‘social theorists’ should be dumped into the sociology department; sociology faculties are commonly hopeless, so that maneuver would only make them marginally worse and save serious departments from infection by those creatures. You could send the natural scientists to the geology faculty or the biology faculty (with a selection given joint appointments in the geography department). A great deal of ‘economic geography’ is actually business history or (truth be told) business journalism. The history department or the business school is the place for them. (They generally lack the skill set to practice ‘economic history’, which requires and economists’ background).
DSS – I think they should all should all be sent to the lawn maintenance department.
Why would you send a serious student of urban life like Brian Berry or Truman Hartshorn to the groundskeeper’s crew?
DSS, you don’t think FL Olmstead ever trimmed a bush or two?
Frederick Law Olmstead was a park planner, not an academic geographer.
DSS – because I don’t think you can be a ‘serious’ student of urban life. Have you seen what ‘serious’ students of urban life have done to our major cities?
DSS – because I don’t think you can be a ‘serious’ student of urban life.
OK, you’ve elected to be willfully stupid.
Have you seen what ‘serious’ students of urban life have done to our major cities?
No, but I have seen what real-estate developers, architects, highway engineers, traffic engineers, planners, and otiose police departments have done. Urban geography is an academic subdiscipline, not a practical one. The work of the academician is to understand cities as points and cities as areas, not to build office towers and malls.
I wonder how much diversity they are really after in their Liberal environs. Will they call for a concerted effort to have greater diversity of thought with the addition of libertarian and conservative academics to their ranks of tenured professors?
No.
Correct; that’s why Jonathan Haidt started the Heterodox Academy.
At age 64 I thought I had heard every looney argument possible. I guess not. BTW I am a “cisgendered” female. I apologize for that.
You can redeem yourself a little by speaking less and allowing transwomen of color to speak instead.
So, by their own admission, we aren’t all human, huh? I think it’s twisted to the point of being ludicrous. I have never heard such fascist drivel in America in my entire life. If this is ‘intellectualism’, I think our young people are better off being Plebes.
Hey, Nick Kristoff has a great book out co-written with his wife Sheryl WuDunn called “Half the Sky”, Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide.
Too bad he’s a white hetromasculine male.
Kinda spoils the whole thing for me.
No need to read anything that some white guy writes, especially how to help women.
Next non white author please.
And it’s possible that she wrote the book and his name was added so it could get published and reviewed. Her other choice would have been to use her initial instead of her first name and no picture on the cover. Don’t know if that’s the case here but it’s been done before.
So a woman with 3 degrees and a fine business career needs her husband’s celebrity?
I’m sure her head would explode if she read your comment.
Well, I can’t really analyze the substance of their argument without knowing the “backstory” of the authors in detail: Please provide me with their birth genders, their identities, their racial composition, the racial composition of their ancestors, the incidents of gender-based, or race-based discrimination they may have suffered, and their innermost feelings of “otherness,” so I can determine how my subconscious is succumbing to “heteromasculinism.” Oh, and I need their tax returns to determine possible “privilege” status. SMH!
I can. Fascist drivel is fascist drivel. There is nothing confusing about their statements in that regard.
Daniel Cockayne’s profile is here:
https://geography.as.uky.edu/user/3896
Again, that’s a nonsense list of subjects.
Carrie Mott’s is here:
https://geography.as.uky.edu/users/cymo222
Another nonsense list.
Jack of all trades, master of none
Send in rookie officer Mohamed Noor to enforce these academic regulations.
I am going to assume that the authors of the article are not cis gendered, white or heteromasculine. Don’t you just hate when your work doesn’t get cite by anyone. It really sucks to be you.
Daniel Cockayne’s work is cut-rate qualitative sociology. His focus is people working in the tech sector in the Bay Area and his idiom is Marxist. Toss him into the sociology faculty and forget about him. He has nothing to contribute anywhere else. Carrie Mott’s pretty much the same sort, but with a more ‘feminist’ tinge. As they reside in geography faculties, there are some tropes they add to their papers about ‘geographies’ and ‘contested spaces’. These people are professional leftists and useless to any serious student of society.
You can dismiss them, but the problem is the victim hood is being taught in the public schools and Universities.
“I never consider (and often do not know the race or sexual orientation) of authors cited in my academic work.”
“While we all strive for greater diversity of ideas and influences on our campuses, the citation of academic work must remain entirely based on the inherent quality of the underlying research and not the identity of the researcher.”
This explains clearly the issue at hand. Because you never consider….doesn’t mean the work is not biased. One researches both consciously and subconsciously. Research is often preconceived to a degree, both by the researcher as well as the researcher who supplied the info.
These two guys seem to have a valid argument which perhaps seems to have gone too far. However, it is necessary to exaggerate to gain attention. History has shown that history is biased as it is written and recorded by the status quo, the victors, etc. The reality and what contributes to our social evolution is often much found in the history that doesn’t make it to the forefront.
Not too long ago, smoking was healthy, females, logic dictated, couldn’t vote, slavery was god’s will, and ethnic and religious differences were often equated into justifying the superiority of one race over another.
It is not hard to find proof to back up one’s opinions. Today’s beliefs by almost half of Americans are predicated on exaggerations, lies, and anger. Research is always available to back up just about any opinion.
“These two guys”??? Better read the piece again.
Ya see how easy it is to be male biased.
These two GUYS?
Don’t you get it Issac?
Your white heteromasculine privildge is showing.
good
I hardly know where to start! The idea that the gender, race, sexual orientation, presumed privilege or any other demographic identifier is more important than the quality of the research is so intellectually bankrupt that it might have been written by a fourth grader. I guess the authors never heard of Madame Curie? What did Martin Luther King, Jr say – “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Doesn’t what these two are suggesting fly in the face of that “dream”? And we wonder why things are going so wrong on many of our college campuses.
“othered by white heteromasculinism”
Don’t you just hate when that happens?
Does anyone have a quick estimate for how many transgendered, published academic geographers there are out there?
Does anyone care.
No. 😉
That woukd be an interesting statistic. I’m a feminist but think this whole issue as presented is as ridiculous and inane as any I”ve heard. Aren’t there more important things to concern oneself with?
Yes! Seriously “othered” are those who are unjustly in prison because of mandatory minimums. We’re also at an illegal war that has NO congressional approval. Yes…
As a second wave feminist, I appreciate the country that was founded by these cisgendered, white, males. I can drive and wear whatever I want. I can go to school where ever I want. Let’s focus on real injustices, please.
At the time the country was founded females could not drive, wear whatever, go to school, vote, own property unless as a widow, and may have been forced to procreate children to be sold. It was people like Mott and Cockayne that made your privileges possible.
At the time the country was founded females could not drive,
Automobiles were not invented until 1892, bettykath. No one was ‘driving’ in 1607.
It’s not entirely true that women could not vote. If they were property owners I believe they voted in at least some of the colonies and I think that New Jersey more by accident due to the Revolution didn’t exclude women from the vote until the early 1800’s
If one observes how home owner associations function they will note that most of the times it is one vote per house and that in a way parallels the voting habits in much of early America.
Of course we all know women’s rights were abridged in early America, but what I don’t understand is why the left while marching for freedom follow people like the misogynist Linda Sarsour who would place women in a second class position or others that pledge violence and call for blowing up the White House. It appears the left only supports individual freedoms to obtain their goal of socialism where the state becomes God.
If women were allowed to vote from the outset, why was the 19th amendment
falsely and fraudulently ratified?
The American Founders knew that the “poor” would sell their votes.
The American Founders knew that women had an essential natural function.
The American birthrate is in a “death spiral.”
In 100 years, there won’t be an American left in America.
Without babies, there are no people.
Without people, the vote is moot.
“If women were allowed to vote from the outset, why was the 19th amendment”
Read what I said again.
“It was people like Mott and Cockayne that made your privileges possible.”
__________________________________________________________
I wholeheartedly agree with this brilliant observation.
Nut jobs one and all.
The inmates have taken over the asylum.