[recycled material - first appeared here]
Roughly twenty years after the birth of the term, I still don’t like homophobia. The word. But before arguing against the use of this term, let me emphasize that by taking a position against the word I am by no means taking a position in support of any or all behavior the term is used to categorize. The issue I address here is solely the perceived misuse of language.
Why quibble over “homophobia”? First, as popularly employed, homophobia implies a diagnosis, and supports a perspective, that rests upon a tenet of pop-psychology. The tenet asserts that behind all aggression, anger, and resistance, exists the true causal emotion — fear. But does fear underlie all aggression, all anger, all opposition?
As Andrew Ortony and Terence J. Turner, researchers specializing in the psychology of emotion, long ago outlined in the pages of Psychological Review, anger is a distinct emotion that has its developmental roots in the infant’s experience of frustration. The infantile experience of frustration, especially that of restraint, develops into the adult emotion of anger. Furthermore, the expression of anger emerges prior to that of fear. Hence anger does not develop out of fear.
What underlies adult anger?
In a 1993 edition of another psychological journal, Cognition and Emotion, renown authority on human emotion Nico Frijda wrote, “As for anger: The most elementary elicitors…are acute goal interference.”
For the above and other reasons, the fear-as-primary-motivator tenet of pop-psychology seems to me to be more than highly questionable. It is likely outright false.
Returning to the specific case of homophobia, opposition to the increasing presence and political clout of homosexuals cannot and should not be written off as a mere symptom of widespread phobia. It is more complicated than that.
If you think about it, the reasoning behind “homophobia,” “homophobic,” and “homophobe,” is almost absurd. With similarly applied reasoning, one could diagnose anti-abortion activists as choice-phobic, environmentalists as development-phobic, and republicans as tax-phobic. As an even more ridiculous example, I myself could be called “creamed-corn-phobic,” for I intensely dislike this canned vegetable and resolutely oppose its inclusion into my diet.
Why not diagnose as phobic all aversive and oppositional behavior? Because the underlying reasoning is defective, and because a term as serious as phobia should not be used to categorize a person or people with reckless abandon.
The second and perhaps primary reason why the popular use of homophobia concerns me is that behind this term lurks moral and political bullying. All too frequently individuals employ the term in an attempt to pathologize opposing perspectives. To force values. To close issues. By labeling and defining people as “homophobic” you easily discredit their concerns. Calling someone homophobic is equivalent to saying, “You are sick. Your feelings and beliefs have absolutely no place in this society.”
True, the “other side” is frequently guilty of the above, but does that justify it?
The questions of homosexual rights (the extension of civil rights to people with differing sexual orientations), and how and to what degree society should accept and accommodate homosexuality, are controversial and complex. Personally, I’m for homosexual rights such as the right to marry and adopt children. However, using words that discredit the holders of opposing opinions and values, and thus, indirectly, the opinions and values themselves, is a strong-arm political tactic–a tactic that undermines the effort to make our communities and nation more free-thinking.
Language is a powerful tool. Sure, it would be nice if we could classify all behavior and persons we didn’t like as pathological, hence undeserving a legitimate place in the world. But it just isn’t that simple. Furthermore, by doing so we undermine a better understanding.
When in my early 20s I knew a particularly hippy-ish guy who believed in ‘free love.’ Remember Bagwan Shree Rashneesh? This guy was a follower. In fact, he even changed his name to something Hindi-and-thus-enlightened-ish-sounding. This young man believed that marriage and monogamy were reflective of worldly attachment and neurosis, of the pathological need to ‘own’ someone.
Even back then, when in my more Buddhist days, I couldn’t fully embrace that idea. I knew that people are basically more animal than spiritual, no matter how hard we try to transcend the fact. And so I could see a benefit in limiting things like jealousy.
New research of the cultural-anthropology sort supports the idea that there may be benefits to the practice of monogamy — beyond limited the spread of STDs.
In cultures that permit men to take multiple wives, the intra-sexual competition that occurs causes greater levels of crime, violence, poverty and gender inequality than in societies that institutionalize and practice monogamous marriage.
Hmm. The skeptic in me wonders whether there could also be a downside to monogamy. Certainly becoming stuck in a coupling can be bad. Are there other drawbacks?
Holy smokes, Batman! And by smokes I mean “Lucky Strikes.” Check out this heading and subhead to a research finding:
Lifestyles of the old and healthy defy expectations -
Einstein researchers find centenarians just as likely as the rest of population to smoke, drink and pack on pounds. [source]
Damn. That doesn’t fit in with our mantra of “you are what you eat” and “you are what you smoke and drink, or don’t.”
By the way, the Einstein researchers aren’t necessarily brilliant. Rather they are affiliated with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University.
Okay, this was one study. And the data isn’t fantastic. But in some regards, it’s not bad either. The researchers interviewed nearly 500 Ashkenazi Jews, living independently and more than 95 years old, about their health and lifestyle. Ashkenazi Jews were chosen as the subject pool both due to their alleged longevity and their relative genetic uniformity. They then compared this to previous information gathered from roughly three thousand cohorts. In brief, this what they found:
Overall, people with exceptional longevity did not have healthier habits than the comparison group in terms of BMI, smoking, physical activity, or diet.
What? Really? Okay, so maybe those really long-lived individuals benefit from good genes. Yet lifestyle might matter more for those with so-so genes. Might.
As regular readers of this blog are aware, while I believe that there are significant average differences in male and female traits, those differences tend to get blown out of proportion. Furthermore, average differences don’t apply all that well to individuals. For example, there are many women on the leading edge of the bell-curve of one trait or another that are actually stronger in the allegedly ‘manly’ trait than the average man. Etc.
Yesterday some new research caught my eye that seems to challenge my “Yah, we’re definitely different, but more similar than different, and only relatively different” position.
Lead researcher Marco Del Giudice of the University of Turin concludes from the study that, “the true extent of sex differences in human personality has [therefore] been consistently underestimated.” [source]
What data was the opinion based upon? Good question.
The researchers used personality measurements from more than 10,000 people, approximately half men and half women. The personality test included 15 personality scales, including such traits as warmth, sensitivity, and perfectionism.
Of course, these larger differences could be largely cultural. I first assumed that the subjects were Italian, and further assumed that Italian culture may have more distinct gender roles and expectations than American. But the subjects were U.S. citizens.
Interesting. At this moment, I don’t know what to think. Besides, “I need to read the entire study.”
Is Wikipedia biased? A “gap” in male-female contribution and editing behavior at Wikipedia has been highlighted by researchers from the University of Minnesota. But is a gap always the result of bias?
Here’s the relevant information:
University of Minnesota researchers reveal Wikipedia gender biases
In their research paper, “WP:Clubhouse? An Exploration of Wikipedia’s Gender Imbalance,” the researchers from the University of Minnesota’s GroupLens Research Lab present a scientific exploration of gender imbalance in the English Wikipedia’s population of editors. Using self-reported gender information from more than 110,000 editors over a period of time from 2005 to January 2011, the researchers explored three broad areas related to the gender gap.
First, they looked at the nature of the imbalance itself. Their research showed that only 16 percent of new editors joining Wikipedia during 2009 identified themselves as female, and those females made only 9 percent of the edits by the editors who joined in 2009. To make matters worse, female editors are more likely to stop editing and leave Wikipedia when their edits are reverted as newcomers. [italic and bold mine]
Hmm. A few questions. First, is Wikipedia really a clubhouse? No, this word choice isn’t a huge deal, but if the authors title their paper that way I kinda wonder about their own biases. A clubhouse is something you join and generally does have membership and can be exclusive. Wikipedia strikes me as far more democratic. Socially ‘organic,’ even. A better question might be, “Do the males who contribute to Wikipedia bring a clubhouse-like attitude to it more than the females do?”
Secondly, is a gender imbalance always bad? No. There is certainly one in body-building behavior (more men) as there is one in studying foreign languages (more women). Do these differences qualify as imbalances that need to be balanced? I don’t think so.
Lastly, and reflecting the core of my concern, the “to make matters worse” wording implies a problem. Importantly, it seems the problem resides in the outside world. Ah yes, it is always the world that causes a person to behave as he or she does. Because we all know that there is nothing in the person him or herself at all. No, we are all merely empty vessels blown about by the social and cultural winds.
Not.
Of course, if biased behavior on the part of Wikipedia were documented, constituting a social wind strong enough to impede the progress of women wanting to contribute — that would be another issue.
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