Is economics really a dismal science for women?

Donna Ginther and Shulamit Kahn have just published a paper that tracks thousands of American academics from the time they first get their PhDs through to their tenure and promotion decisions. They conclude:

Economics is the one field where gender differences in tenure receipt seem to remain even after background and productivity controls are factored in and even for single childless women. 

Ginther and Kahn never use the word sexism. They only use the word discrimination to question its existence, saying their results suggest "women’s entry into tenure-track academia is dominated by choice rather than by any discrimination at hiring." They do find their results, "deeply troubling."

Noah Smith uses no such restraint. In his latest post, he takes Ginther and Kahn's cautious and nuanced results, and leaps to the conclusion that economics "seems to have a built-in bias that prevents women from advancing." 

Really?

I have never seen a woman denied tenure when a man with similar number and quality of publications was awarded it. I don't deny Ginther and Kahn's findings, but might there be a non-discriminatory explanation of the fact that a woman in economics with X number of publications is less likely to receive tenure than a man with X publications?

The limitations of Ginther and Kahn's data mean that they are not able to control for publication quality. One of the ways that economics differs from other disciplines is in its extremely hierarchical journal rankings: no number of blog posts, magazine articles or publications in unknown journals can ever compensate for the absence of a top publication.  Yet the number of top journals in economics is tiny relative to the number of people who would like to publish in them, hence top journal publication is a risky and competitive game. As Rachel Croson and Uri Gneezy describe here, women tend not to like or thrive in this kind of cut-throat competition. Suppose a typical women pursues a publication strategy that will lead to five publications in mid-ranked journals with a fair degree of certainty, whereas a typical man pursues a publication strategy that will lead either to five publications in top journals or no publications at all. The few men who are actually successful in getting published will have, on average, publications of higher quality than those of women. Hence they would, conditional on the number of accepted publications,  have a higher probability of achieving tenure than women. (Indeed, earlier work by Kahn found that men had, on average, higher quality publications than women.) 

It also appears that Ginther and Kahn are not able to control for employer quality  (see footnote 5 here). Suppose that, instead of there being bias against women in the tenure process, there is actually bias in favour of women in the hiring process. If universities engage in some kind of affirmative action then, all else being equal, women would end up being hired by higher quality institutions - and institutions with higher tenure standards - than comparable men. A woman with five publications might find herself at a university that demands seven publications, while her male counterpart is at a university than demands four. Hiring preferences for women would be expected to lead - given equal productivity and gender-neutral tenure standards - to a higher rate of tenure denial for women. I should note that this interpretation of the evidence is speculative - Ginther and Kahn also look at hiring, and find no evidence of discrimination in favour of women.

I've seen a number of negative tenure recommendations over the years. Most follow a familiar script. Someone is appointed young, fresh out of graduate school, with no time to gain experience with the publication process. They take on adminstrative duties, labouring under the misapprehension that being nice and helpful will get them tenure. They may have children while on the tenure track. They pursue bad publication strategies, for example, they sit on revise and resubmits. They generally have some bad luck - for example, a journal that dithers with their submission for years. And they typically lack strong and effective advocates, either within or outside their departments.

Noah Smith ends his article by saying: 

... it’s time for economics to acknowledge that it has a sexism problem and to fix it. The American Economic Association, and other powers that be within the profession, need to start working to make the field more welcoming to women.

It's not up to the "powers that be" to fix the problem. Yes, there are a few things that the American Economics Association could do. For example, I would like to see double-blind refereeing reintroduced into the AEA journals, and attention paid to the representation of women - and people from smaller universities, and other under-represented groups - on the program for the AEA meetings. Providing leadership and guidance on ways to make hotel room interviews more comfortable for interviewees would be a good idea.

Unfortunately, when the "powers that be" decide it's time to start working on gender problem, the solution generally involves getting women to sit on committees.  Not only does this take away from women's (professionally rewarding) research time, there is a distinct lack of evidence to suggest that, say, having a woman on a prize committee leads to a higher probability of said prize being awarded to a woman. Any proposed solution that adds to the typical woman's administrative workload will increase, not decrease, the gender gap in academe.

 "Sexism" is not the result of some high level conspiracy. It is the product of millions of every day actions by thousands of ordinary people.  Let's get back to tenure decisions. Tenure denials are never made arbitrarily.  If a man with 5 publications gets tenure while a woman with 5 publications does not, there must be a reason: either the man has higher quality publications, or higher impact publications, or more evidence of national or international reputation, or better letters of reference.

But a scholars's reputation and impact is determined by the decisions of others: who they choose to acknowledge, who they choose to network with. Every single active academic can, through the citation and other decisions they make every day, influence other academics' reputations - and thus the probability that they will receive tenure or get promoted.  

Who do you cite? If you're like most people, you're more likely to cite the seminal work of some well-known male academic than the work of a female scholar.  Certainly Noah Smith is - his plea for less sexism references seven men and five women. If women aren't cited, their papers will be seen as lower impact/lower quality publications.

Do you give women credit for their ideas? Just about every woman has had the experience of sitting in a committee, saying something, and having her contribution ignored. A man will then restate her point, and he is listened to, and receives credit for the idea. Here's an example: GInther and Kahn's paper concluded by arguing that "...the results indicate that professional development efforts such as the [American Economic Association's] Committee on the Status of Women in the Economic Profession’s CEMENT mentoring workshops remain necessary." Noah Smith ends his article by making a very similar point. Who is getting credit for the idea on social media? Noah. The point is: if women's contributions are appropriated, the  impact of women's work will be underestimated, and women will have a lower chance of progressing in academic careers.

How do you word your letters of reference? Do you use the same adjectives to describe women and men? Or are women delightful, pleasant, conscientious and hard-working while men are strong, original, insightful and persistent?

Who do you invite to present at conferences or departmental seminars? If a man, do you turn down invitations to participate in conferences with all-male line-ups (see the gendered conference campaign)? Do you make it easy for female colleagues to come for a drink in the bar after a seminar by corralling them into the bar-going group? 

The economics profession is far from perfect. I personally don't find it any worse than the world of media (that the Globe and Mail paid Stephen Gordon more than me still burns), or the world of academic administration. But it could be better - and the power to change it lies within every one of us.

Comments

[Vladimir]

I don't know that this would help women any but there has been a movement in political science, specifically in international relations, to try and establish gender balance in citations. The argument is that a lot of citations currently involve recycling the same papers by the same people, usually male. Some scholars have now decided that they should look for current papers, more likely to be written by women, to cite. If nothing else this might help female faculty's Google Scholar rankings and it's not like people ignore rankings.

[Frances Woolley]

Vladimir - there's an interesting article here about the project within IR: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/01/closing-the-gender-citation-gap-introducing-rads/. These issues are certainly not unique to econ!

[Nick Rowe]

Good reasoned post. I am too angry at Noah re Robin Hanson to comment further.

[Livio Di Matteo]

Frances:
Thanks for letting me know the The Globe and Mail paid both you and Steve:)

[Noah Smith]

Hi, Frances! :-)

Thanks for reading my article. There are a number of points here, so I'll just respond piecemeal to some stuff...

I have never seen a woman denied tenure when a man with similar number and quality of publications was awarded it.

I'm glad you've never seen this...

The limitations of Ginther and Kahn's data mean that they are not able to control for publication quality. One of the ways that economics differs from other disciplines is in its extremely hierarchical journal rankings

True. This might account for the difference between econ and the other sciences that Ginther & Kahn study.

Are you sure other fields are substantially less hierarchical than econ?

Also: Why is econ so hierarchical? Isn't that the conscious decision of university committees?

It also appears that Ginther and Kahn are not able to control for employer quality

True, but as I saw it, the key result was not the absolute finding about promotion bias, but the relative finding - i.e., the fact that econ was such an outlier compared to other fields.

If econ has more affirmative action with respect to hiring female profs, that could explain the disparity, but do we really think it does?

I should note that this interpretation of the evidence is speculative - Ginther and Kahn also look at hiring, and find no evidence of discrimination in favour of women.

So you're speculating that there was evidence, that they didn't find? OK. But to me that seems more speculative than speculating about evidence that they didn't even look for...

To me it seems that the journal quality argument is much stronger than the hiring discrimination argument as an alternative interpretation of the results.

It's not up to the "powers that be" to fix the problem. Yes, there are a few things that the American Economics Association could do. For example, I would like to see double-blind refereeing reintroduced into the AEA journals, and attention paid to the representation of women - and people from smaller universities, and other under-represented groups - on the program for the AEA meetings. Providing leadership and guidance on ways to make hotel room interviews more comfortable for interviewees would be a good idea.

These sound like good ideas.

In general, I think it's important just to raise awareness. In other fields there seems (and this is based only on hearsay and personal observation!) to have been an awareness of gender disparities for many years - people think about gender disparities, and there is a common belief that they should be minimized to whatever degree possible without hurting the field. With econ I don't see any such public, common-knowledge awareness. I hear lots of people talk about sexism behind closed doors, but not in public, and there seems also to be a substantial chunk of people who just don't believe - or at least deny - that a problem exists at all. I think making it common knowledge that this is an important issue, with public statements, guidelines, or whatever, is probably as important as any substantive policy the AEA might implement. But that is just my guess.

Who is getting credit for the idea on social media? Noah. The point is: if women's contributions are appropriated, the impact of women's work will be underestimated

Well, I don't like that. I don't deserve any credit - I just reported what I read and heard. I wish Ginther et al. were getting all the credit here - I have no desire to "appropriate" their contributions.

But how could I bring that about? I didn't just cite their paper in my article - I devoted the bulk of the article to discussing it. Their paper was the impetus for my writing the article in the first place! What more would you have had me do in order to make sure that Ginther & Kahn received their well-deserved attention as the primary source?

The fact is, I had tweeted the Ginther & Kahn paper, and others, before, and emailed them to people besides. In no way am I trying to grab credit...

But it could be better - and the power to change it lies within every one of us.

I agree with all the suggestions and insights you write about sexism at the individual level, and I agree that this is where things really change. But I also think that leaders like the AEA can have a big impact through rhetoric and awareness, and I feel like far too many economists still don't realize that anyone expects them to change in the ways you recommend.

Cheers,
Noah

[Noah Smith]

Nick:

I am too angry at Noah re Robin Hanson to comment further.

Well, I am angry at you, so there.

[Frances Woolley]

Livio - You can infer that Y>X. You can't infer that X>0. The Globe generally pays me now (around $250 or so an article) but they didn't at first. In theory I'm writing for the Citizen now, because I like Kate Heartfield, but administration is killing in my brain.

[Frances Woolley]

Noah - thank you so much for taking the time to respond here - I appreciate it. Hope you're also getting time for research - I imagine you spotted the grim warning to you about a third of the way down?

In response to your specific comments:

Are you sure other fields are substantially less hierarchical than econ?

Also: Why is econ so hierarchical? Isn't that the conscious decision of university committees?

I live with someone in another discipline. It's a small sample but, yes, that discipline seems to be less hierarchical than econ. A few things that might make econ more heirarchial: longer papers means fewer slots in the top journals/longer papers mean fewer publications than in, say, psychology or the natural sciences so "quality" receives more weight/research grants are less important hence publications are more so/because econ for the most part has a single paradigm (as opposed to say poli sci which has multiple paradigms) most people agree which journals are "top"/the deductive nature of the discipline, which privileges theory.

In general, I think it's important just to raise awareness.

But does targeting people like Robin Hanson and Larry Summers actually help raise awareness? Larry Summers could have done more to promote women when he was in government and at Harvard, and I think Janet Yellen was a much better choice than him for the Fed job (more sensible), but Larry Summers was actually really encouraging and supportive when I came to him as a grad student with an idea - I seriously seriously regret not following through on his offer to meet with me and discuss it. The kind of people I have problems with are those who ignore female colleagues, who are bad supervisors to their female graduate students, who get all coy ("oh, I'm so helpless, I couldn't possibly do that") whenever administrative tasks are doled around, who don't invite women to present papers and share in the nice things in academic life, who grope women's knees in the bar, etc.

Well, I don't like that.

I can see why.

What more would you have had me do in order to make sure that Ginther & Kahn received their well-deserved attention as the primary source?

Lead with them, not Robin Hanson, and give them more credit in the conclusions. It would have been way less clickbaity that way, though.

So you're speculating that there was evidence, that they didn't find? OK

Here's a way that people have tested for discrimination against French Canadians in the National Hockey League: take all of the NHL players. Attempt to explain the number of goals they have scored using a standard set of controls (e.g. number of minutes of ice time, quality of the team they play with, etc) PLUS an indicator variable for French Canadian. If the coefficient on the indicator variable is significant and positive, then one would generally conclude that French Canadian players are superior performers. This is typically taken to be an indicator of discrimination *against* French Canadians in drafting - if all players had an equally good chance of being drafted, conditional on quality, then linguistic origin would not have any impact on on-ice performance.

By the same logic, differential performance of male/female academics can be used as a potential indicator of the presence/absence of discrimination in hiring.

[Noah Smith]

Frances -

Hope you're also getting time for research - I imagine you spotted the grim warning to you about a third of the way down?

Well, unfortunately, I wasted too much time blogging, and will now have to drop out of academia and start a hedge fund! If only I had more willpower... ;-)

But does targeting people like Robin Hanson and Larry Summers actually help raise awareness?

I didn't see it as targeting them; I saw it as using their quotes to illustrate the fact that econ culture is more tolerant of that sort of discourse.

I can see why.

...Because I am not an attention hog who wants to pretend he's more important than he really is?

That's what you were going to say, right? :D

Lead with them, not Robin Hanson, and give them more credit in the conclusions. It would have been way less clickbaity that way, though.

Yes. I initially had it the other way around. But I changed it at the last minute. I wanted to get people's attention, and evoke a visceral reaction - the same visceral reaction that I experience whenever I hear or see stuff like what Hanson wrote, which in econ has been a lot more frequently than I'd like.

The Ceci et al. paper (along with other papers that find the same thing) is the evidence that shows that the problem is real. But that's little help if people don't care about the problem in the first place. I wanted to make them care. So I led with the emotional hook.

I now realize that Robin Hanson is more popular than I knew among the blogging set, and singling out his quote for top billing has earned me the anger (hopefully not the enmity) of a number of people, including Nick. But had I known that from the start, I wouldn't have done a thing differently. If Robin is willing to write something on his blog, he must be OK with someone else quoting him on another blog. And if people are offended by the thing he wrote, it's not because I, Noah Smith, reached into my mind with my telepathy and made them be offended. It's because the thing he, Robin Hanson wrote, and posted in public, was a thing that was offensive to people. He bears all of the responsibility for that offense. And I'm not sorry in the slightest that I wrote what I wrote, which I believe to have been totally fair.

*pant, pant*

By the same logic, differential performance of male/female academics can be used as a potential indicator of the presence/absence of discrimination in hiring.

Maybe, or maybe the pool of female PhDs just isn't as good as the pool of male PhDs, or maybe there's also gender bias in publication, etc. etc...

[Ron Waller]

I think the reason why women are less likely to become economists and are less likely to advance is because of what Paul Krugman calls "The New Classical Clique":

"New classical macro was and still is many things – an ideological bludgeon against liberals, a showcase for fancy math, a haven for people who want some kind of intellectual purity in a messy world. But it’s also a self-promoting clique."

New classical ideology is founded on Homo economicus: a greedy, self-interested POS. Not only would the vast majority of people find this creature repugnant, woman would find it more so, attributing to it the moral sensibilities of a four-year-old.

So not only are few males going to mesh with this dismal theology, women are much more likely to find it disgusting.

The first step to getting more women interested in economics, and to make economics a science, is to change the institutions and change the way economics is taught.

Instead of seeking out a new classical and Keynesian synthesis — which put in practice brought back boom-to-bust business cycles and economic collapse — the two disparate models should be separated and compete for the truth. Like in paleoanthropology: out-of-Africa vs. multiregional origins; and cosmology: big bang vs. steady state.

The reason economics failed to launch is because it's agenda-driven. Separate out the agendas, then it will become clearer which model works and which model doesn't.

[Nick Rowe]

Noah: Robin Hanson is not "popular" with me. I hardly ever read him. But you smeared him. How many people who read you will go back to what he said and why he said it?

'Hey girls, watch me smear the nerdy guy, who's mumbling something about men's rights, just to prove how hip I am, and that I totally get it!'

When you have been a father for 30 years, you may look at this differently. I would answer 'A' in Heartiste's poll. And anyone who accuses me of sexism for even daring to make the comparison, is, to put it politely, projecting.

[Nick Rowe]

Ron: just for once, I partly agree with you. But remember this: more women than men go to university. And a higher percentage of women complete their degrees. Should (e.g.) Social Work (which attracts far fewer boys than economics does girls) be asked to change its approach to attract more boys?

[Frances Woolley]

Ron: "I think the reason why women are less likely to become economists and are less likely to advance is because of what Paul Krugman calls "The New Classical Clique":"

That's a reason for women not to do macro (it's one reason I didn't). But there's more to econ than that.

Women start having problems at the hiring/tenure/promotion levels when the fields that are male dominated are seen as scarcer and more prestigious than the fields that are female dominated, because of our cultural tendency to place a higher valuation on male stuff than female stuff.

[reason]

I seem to remember, more to the point, that Friedman et al, argued basically, that in a competitive world discrimination can't exist (because it would imply a competitive disadvantage). Might this have something to do with it?

[Noah Smith]

But you smeared him.

Nope, no I didn't smear him. I pulled a quote that was NOT out of context, and represented exactly what he wanted to say. In fact, on Twitter the next day, he reacted by spending a long time riffing on the subject, and urging me to help him design a new, more scientific survey about cuckoldry versus rape.

Nothing I said about him or his post was misleading. I had two Bloomberg editors and a team of lawyers check the piece extremely carefully (including, obviously, reading Hanson's post), and they did not suggest one single change or correction to the Hanson-related part of my post.

I did NOT smear him. Or anyone.

How many people who read you will go back to what he said and why he said it?

Actually, quite a lot, if past experience is any guide. A large number of people have been talking to me about it on Twitter, sent there by the link in my post.

'Hey girls, watch me smear the nerdy guy, who's mumbling something about men's rights, just to prove how hip I am, and that I totally get it!'

This is such prattle, such vapid unthoughtful word-excrement, that I am tempted to reject market monetarism simply by association!

...Just kidding, I'm not going to reject market monetarism by association. But the above quote does show a deep and profound lack of understanding of my motives. ;-)

When you have been a father for 30 years, you may look at this differently.

Look at what differently? The substantive question that Hanson/Heartiste asked? I don't even care about that question. It's the posing of it in the first place that's offensive. And of course I can easily explain why. Want me to?

[Noah Smith]

That's a reason for women not to do macro (it's one reason I didn't). But there's more to econ than that.

Frances: Remember that I was in macro originally, in grad school. So my own personal observations and experiences were weighted heavily toward that.

I wanted to mention that in the post, but I had no evidence for it.

[W. Peden]

reason,

Not that discrimination CAN'T exist, but that it will always be borne as a cost by someone. That's not true e.g. if the discrimination is legally mandatory, as in South Africa under apartheid or in markets in the past where there were legal restrictions that discriminated against women. Then NOT discriminating is always a cost for someone.

[Frances Woolley]

reason - the argument is Becker's not Friedman's. It depends upon the form of discrimination - statistical discrimination, i.e. profiling, can persist in competition. Also competitive firms will discriminate if consumers are discriminating - e.g. if no one wants to be waited on by a white server at a sushi restaurant then sushi restaurants won't hire white servers.

[Frances Woolley]

Noah - Claudia Sahm gives a macro perspective here https://ello.co/claudiasahm/post/XGMhy3oKQBMa5JVudwP82A

[Noah Smith]

Frances - I agree with Claudia on all points.

[Phil Koop]

"You can infer that Y>X. You can't infer that X>0."

LOL! Now, where have we heard this before? Ah yes ...

`Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.'

`You mean you can't take less,' said the Hatter: `it's very easy to take more than nothing.'

[Jacques René Giguère]

Male and female fields? Certainly. Unlike physics where there are no male protons and female electrons.
Two of my sisters-in-law were in the same health science field as my brothers. Both extremely good, in as much I can judge (their tenure commitee did it for me, dear olds). In fact, by her undergrad days,in the 70's, one of them was judged 4th best in her field by her North american professional association (my brother was 3rd).
In my physics day, women were scarcer than men. But I never heard any professors or students voice derogatory comments and no female colleagues ever said anything. Physics is of course,ubernerd territory (Sheldon Cooper, our hero...) and maybe we can't see gender much. We had female professors, highly respected by students and seemingly so by their colleagues.

[Ron Waller]

"But remember this: more women than men go to university. And a higher percentage of women complete their degrees. Should (e.g.) Social Work (which attracts far fewer boys than economics does girls) be asked to change its approach to attract more boys?"

The problem is that economic policy will determine the fate of civilization. So I believe we need a more balanced approach to economics.

There's a big difference in the way men and women typically see the world. Men are more competitive, women more cooperative. Men are more individualistic, women are more community-oriented.

So if the New Classical Clique cuts women out of the picture and we end up with an alpha male version of economics, this could lead to the destruction of civilization: income and wealth inequality smothering the economy and eviscerating democracy; free-market volatility producing economic chaos that spills over into the political realm; a free-trade regulatory race to the bottom causing intolerable global warming, wreaking all sorts of havoc.

So I think economics is a social science that would get a lot more accomplished if there were more prominent female economists than male. Now that would be some real womansplaining!

[Ron Waller]

"Women start having problems at the hiring/tenure/promotion levels when the fields that are male dominated are seen as scarcer and more prestigious than the fields that are female dominated, because of our cultural tendency to place a higher valuation on male stuff than female stuff."

Economics is a field that needs big government intervention in my opinion. Just like the economy, after 35 years of bad economic policy founded on twice-failed 19th-century ideology.

[Nick Rowe]

Ron: "The problem is that economic policy will determine the fate of civilization. So I believe we need a more balanced approach to economics."

Well, us economists like to think we are super-important, but maybe social workers are important too. After all, they get to decide if we keep our kids. And maybe we need a more balanced approach to social work too, so men's perspective is better represented.

"There's a big difference in the way men and women typically see the world. Men are more competitive, women more cooperative. Men are more individualistic, women are more community-oriented."

I think some feminists (used to?) say that what you said is "essentialist", sexist, and offensive. But I don't.

Noah: I am very pleased to hear that Robin Hanson refused to be humiliated or silenced, and stuck by his dissenting views. A lesser man, or one with more to fear from the mob, might not have done so. I pray that I will find the strength, if or when it happens to me.

[Bob Smith]

"So if the New Classical Clique cuts women out of the picture and we end up with an alpha male version of economics, this could lead to the destruction of civilization: income and wealth inequality smothering the economy and eviscerating democracy; free-market volatility producing economic chaos that spills over into the political realm; a free-trade regulatory race to the bottom causing intolerable global warming, wreaking all sorts of havoc."

Sounds like a fantastic Michael Bay movie to be made....

[Min]

Robin Hanson: "Biologically, cuckoldry is a bigger reproductive harm than rape,"

I quickly read the articles where he makes that claim. He offers no biological evidence, so I think that he is at least a little confused.

Noah Smith: "Hanson writes that “gentle, silent rape” of a woman by a man causes less harm than a wife cuckolding her husband"

Smith leaves out the "biologically" qualifier, which is perhaps understandable, given Hanson's confusion. However, without any qualifier it makes Hanson say something stronger than he intended.

But what about Hanson's "gentle, silent rape"? What he means is rape that is undetected by the victim. Undetected because the woman was drugged into unconsciousness and the rapist caused no physical injury. Such rapes do not always go undetected, OC, but let's humor Hanson and restrict our discussion to those that are.

OK, what is this "gentle" crap? Rape is not a gentle crime. Describing it in such terms indicates more than confusion. Hanson refers to societies in which, as seems reasonable to him, cuckoldry is or was punished more severely than rape. Those societies are patriarchal, and sexist from our point of view, as women are regarded as lesser beings than men. On the face of it, Hanson's characterization is sexist.

[Noah Smith]

Noah: I am very pleased to hear that Robin Hanson refused to be humiliated or silenced, and stuck by his dissenting views. A lesser man, or one with more to fear from the mob, might not have done so. I pray that I will find the strength, if or when it happens to me.

Nick, you do realize how pompous this sounds, don't you?

[Frances Woolley]

Noah, Nick - one reason econ is a dismal science for women that we haven't discussed yet: it gets so conflictual, and people argue, and it's really distressing.

If you guys keep on like this, I'm going to have to go wander around the sociology department and find someone to give me a hug.

[Stephen Gordon]

This is why I keep my head down in these types of discussions. The only contribution I can think of making is to try and not be a jerk in my dealings with my female colleagues and students.

[Ron Waller]

Economists say the darndest things:

"I [am puzzled] over why our law punishes rape far more than cuckoldry…[M]ost men would rather be raped than cuckolded…Imagine a woman was drugged into unconsciousness and then gently raped, so that she suffered no noticeable physical harm nor any memory of the event, and the rapist tried to keep the event secret…Now compare the two cases, cuckoldry and gentle silent rape." Robin Hanson

One has to wonder about the moral character of those who promote a morally-bankrupt economic system. What kind of people does it attract? What kind of culture does it instill in its students?

For far too long we have yielded our democratic authority to the preachers and practitioners of applied sociopathy.

According to James Burke, this is the one of the three social philosophies that emerged from Darwin's theory of evolution (social Darwinism): communism, Nazism and plutocracy (first advocated by William Sumner.) It is certainly as great a threat to personal freedom and the survival of civilization as the other two ever were.

It is not only the right but the responsibility of the people (aka "The Mob") to take action and overthrow these tyrants. The founding fathers of America anticipated a day when a ruling elite would undermine the rights and freedoms established under their constitution. That day has come. But it doesn't require guns. It requires civil organization, action and votes.

Our civilization does not have to be a dystopian shit hole. Any primitive feelings we have that reinforce this view are nonsense. We are not simple animals anymore. Our civilization is what we make it. The possibilities are endless. It's time to stop submitting to corrupt miscreants and make something of it.

The first step is relegating the last of the social Darwinists to the lunatic fringe -- where they unhappily languished during the successful Keynesian era. This time we must ensure we keep them there (and others of their kind.)

[Ron Waller]

"I think some feminists (used to?) say that what you said is "essentialist", sexist, and offensive."

In my opinion, people who say there are no differences between men and women perpetuate the status quo, which is patriarchy. The reason there is a glass ceiling is because of primitive corporate culture which has evolved to allow alpha males to thrive. Of course, this is the very same culture that allowed Masters of the Universe to play musical chairs with the global economy -- turning the financial system in to a boiler-room-like pump and dump fraud.

Like common culture has been reformed of racism and other obnoxious behaviors, corporate culture and the culture surrounding economic academia is something that has to be examined under a public microscope in order for society to take things to the next level. Like free-market ideology, the belief that letting the chips fall where they may produces the most just and effective outcome is clearly absurd.

[Frances Woolley]

Stephen, I'll come to Laval and get a hug from you instead ;)

[Nick Rowe]

Frances: OK. Just as well I refreshed the screen and saw your comment before responding to Noah. I will just respond politely to Min instead.

Min: Hanson was responding to the argument that cuckoldry is no harm, to a man who does not know his children are not his own. Would it be acceptable to say the same about rape? We know the answer to that question. So why is it acceptable in the case of cuckoldry?

Arguments like Hanson's are commonly used in discussions about ethics. If X is wrong, and Y is like X, then Y is wrong too. If discrimination against blacks is wrong, then discrimination against gays is wrong. Whether the person does or does not know about the discrimination. Is that an offensive comparison? Probably some people have said that it is offensive. My guess is that it was more commonly seen as an offensive comparison in the 1960's. But views change, and they change because people make arguments like Hanson's.

[Ron Waller]

"So why is it acceptable in the case of cuckoldry?"

Rape is an act of physical violence, regardless of the circumstances. Cuckoldry, on the other hand, is an act of deception.

Do free-market economics professors really want to start equating deception with physical violence? Should investment bankers that unload toxic assets onto unsuspecting "muppets" be jailed with the same sentence a rapist would get? Hanson would probably argue they shouldn't even be charged with fraud. That it's the investor's responsibility to know what he's getting himself into (caveat emptor.) Well there you go!

People have the right to blog outrageously offensive thought experiments (that one would be better off working out in private.) And people, equally, have the right to be outraged by them.

(This reminds me of a painfully unfunny take on Sheldon Cooper.)

[Min]

Nick Rowe: "Hanson was responding to the argument that cuckoldry is no harm, to a man who does not know his children are not his own. Would it be acceptable to say the same about rape? We know the answer to that question. So why is it acceptable in the case of cuckoldry?"

Nick, take another look at my note. I did not engage with Hanson's argument, allowing for the possibility that he came up with. The key is his characterization of such a rape as "gentle". That is a telling adjective. It is not simply descriptive or neutral, but indicates an underlying attitude. Now, I am not going to conclude from one datum anything about Hanson's personal feelings or beliefs. But his choice of words was sexist.

[Evan]

Min: My take was that Hanson's use of the term 'gentle' was to signify that there was no physical harm caused. It was a particularly poor choice of term, but if that was the intended meaning then I'm not sure it can be called sexist.

[Charlie]

I think we should all take a moment to recall that economics is called the "dismal science," because it could not be used as a justification for slavery. Hopefully, it continues to be dismal...

http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/why-economics-is-really-called-the-dismal-science/282454/

"But Carlyle labeled the science "dismal" when writing about slavery in the West Indies. White plantation owners, he said, ought to force black plantation workers to be their servants. Economics, somewhat inconveniently for Carlyle, didn't offer a hearty defense of slavery. Instead, the rules of supply and demand argued for "letting men alone" rather than thrashing them with whips for not being servile. Carlyle bashed political economy as "a dreary, desolate, and indeed quite abject and distressing [science]; what we might call ... the dismal science.”

Today, when we hear the term "the dismal science," it's typically in reference to economics' most depressing outcomes (e.g.: on globalization killing manufacturing jobs: "well, that's why they call it the dismal science," etc). In other words, we've tended to align ourselves with Carlyle to acknowledge that an inescapable element of economics is human misery.

But the right etymology turns that interpretation on its head. In fact, it aligns economics with morality, and against racism, rather than with misery, and against happiness. Carlyle couldn't find a justification for slavery in political economic thought, and he considered this fact to be "dismal." Students of economics should be proud: Their "science" was then (as it can be, today) a force for a more just and, crucially, less dismal world."

[Noah Smith]

Frances - OK, sorry, I will shush.

Anything to keep you out of the sociology department...

[Ron Waller]

"But the right etymology turns that interpretation on its head."

Actually globalization has brought back legalized child slave labor. So much for progress in your regressive ideology.

But that's what free trade is all about. Bypassing first-world regulations so businessmen and investors can make a quick dismal buck.

Of course its absurd to suggest new classical ideology remotely resembles a science. It's a self-serving doctrine cooked up by self-interested businessmen to leech wealth out of the economy at everyone else's expense.

[Ron Waller]

"It was a particularly poor choice of term"

It was a particularly poor choice of idea. Rape is rape. Doesn't matter if the woman is passed out drunk. Doesn't matter if you drug her and carefully rape her. It's an act of violence, pure and simple. Do economists and economic students live under a rock? Are they really this obtuse? No wonder their flaky ideas keep causing global economic meltdowns. Surprising it doesn't happen more often.

[Nick Rowe]

Min: I just Googled "gentle genocide". 3,800 hits. The third hit has a feminist anthropology professor using the term, in her title. (And I strongly recommend having a look at her article.)

[Gobanian]

This piece seems to rely very heavily on proof by assertion. "Tenure denials are never arbitrary." Really? If a man with 5 published articles and a woman is not, there must be a reason. Maybe. But why can't that reason be gender discrimination?
Once you assert an argument must be wrong because it must be wrong, you have won a very easy victory in your own mind but are not likely to change the minds of others.

[Frances Woolley]

Gobanian:

Tenure denials are almost invariably grieved (in unionized workplaces) or challenged in other ways (in non-unionized workplaces). It is highly risky for a university to deny someone with a strong record tenure - and especially to deny tenure to someone who could claim to be a member of a group that experiences discrimination.

Universities don't make tenure decisions arbitrarily because they don't want to get sued.

Now I do know of one case recently where a (male) economist was denied tenure despite having 6 publications, including one in a top journal. That's definitely a potential counter-example. It's also the case that his work has hardly any citations in google scholar, and the kind of work he did wasn't popular with some in his department. So there were definitely reasons for the tenure denial - admittedly not very good ones.

I agree with you about the possibility of gender discrimination in the publication process. Referees don't risk getting sued when they write a bad report; journals (generally) don't risk getting sued for rejecting papers. It's not costly (especially for a referee) to discriminate.

[Frances Woolley]

Noah ;)

Nick - there are also things that women can't say. I guess what really irked me more than anything else about Noah's post was that he could get up and say "there's sexism" and be the centre of a social media love-in, whereas if a woman said that she would be a shrill harridan.

[Robert]

International Association for Feminist Economics: http://www.iaffe.org/

[Nick Rowe]

Frances: OK.

Wonder if it's the same as a rich guy saying taxes should be raised, or a poor guy saying welfare should be cut?

(BTW, I have found this whole episode very distressing too. I much prefer getting into nerdy arguments about media of exchange vs media of account.)

[Min]

The Atlantic: "Economics, somewhat inconveniently for Carlyle, didn't offer a hearty defense of slavery."

Well, that was economics back then. Nowadays WalMart gets by with below slave wages, and some economists argue that even lower wages would be better.

[Min]

@ Nick Rowe

"The whole world is festering
With unhappy souls.
The French hate the Germans,
The Germans hate the Poles.
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch.
And I don't like anybody very much."

--- The Kingston Trio

[Stephen Gordon]

some economists argue that even lower wages would be better.

Really? Name three.

[W. Peden]

In general, may I say from an outsider's perspective that I'm impressed how well economists can discuss this issue, and maintain the use of the analytical tools (e.g. the idea of social phenomena that are not the product of anyone's direct intention) which are key to the discipline's brilliance.

I'd hypothesise that this might just be a function of Canadian manners and level-headedness, but that would be a stereotype, and these sorts of debates make one conscious of one's stereotyping!

[CM]

There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women, Frances.

Seriously: someone draws much-need social-media attention to the rampant sexism in our discipline, and it irks you?

And then to go on to lamely trivialize the issue, because preferences or something... But then "F*** You, I Got Mine," right?

@Nick Rowe: Your apologizing of Robin Hanson's sexism is quite sexist in itself. It's rather disappointing.

[Min]

@Nick Rowe

Your mention of "gentle genocide" reminded me of that song. I thought that quoting it might lighten the mood a bit. Guess not, eh? :(

[LInda Welling]

I have been watching the comments on this posting, and debating whether or not to add to them - and, if so, what to say. CM's comments sparked this attempt. I'm not sure how to date my life as an economist - probably my first attendance at the Canadian annual meetings in 1974 (gasp!). Since then I have completed my MA and my PhD at different schools, worked at the Bank of Canada, the Library of Parliament, and taught at 5 different universities. Like every other female economist I know, I`ve dealt with sexual harassment; luckily, I`ve had supporters along the way so it has never been severe. I've fought for tenure, as have several other female economists I know. Do I see "rampant sexism" within the discipline? N0: if it were there, it would be much easier to counter. Do I see Frances as an apologist? No: I completely agree with her that men and women with equal publication records would be treated equally at tenure (I think this is what she said). Are males and females equally supported in the pre-tenure period so that their records are equal at decision-time? I'm skeptical, but am not sure what to point to as the differences. And I believe things have improved dramatically over my career, starting from a fairly low point. But then: we now have seven full-time women in our department (out of..22?), and this seems like a high percentage to me, so we clearly have a ways to go. I think CWEN is a very useful group. I am pleased and impressed by the number of male colleagues I see now who are as vocal against blatant sexism as many women are, even though some others either don't see it, don`t see it as a problem, or still practice it. Like Frances, I find that I sometimes have little tolerance for the degree of combativeness I observe in many discussions between economists; although I have spent time with sociologists (to pick up on her example) I find myself returning to economists for what I find to be more explicitly logical arguments. But I walked out of a meeting in my department yesterday because I found the discussion becoming too heated for my taste (and the time I had).
This post is rambling, and I apologize for that.

[Frances Woolley]

CM: "Seriously: someone draws much-need social-media attention to the rampant sexism in our discipline, and it irks you?"

CM, Noah offers up as an example of sexism some loony that hardly anyone takes seriously. A typical male economist reading Noah's post could say "I'm not that kind of a loony, I think that kind of stuff is terrible" and then go on with life as usual - citing great male economists in their papers, inviting prominent male economists to be keynote speakers, seeing female-dominated fields of economics as "softer" and "less rigorous" than more male fields.

Noah's proposed solution - that the AEA *do something* - was tried by John Kenneth Galbraith when he was president of the AEA many decades ago. The AEA did do something - formed CSWEP - and it's made a difference. But there are very serious limits on what professional associations can achieve.

Is a flawed diagnosis and a pretty inadequate solution better than nothing? I'm not convinced.

[Frances Woolley]

Linda, thank you for this, you're my feminist inner voice - when I write something I always think "what would Linda say?" I wasn't at all sure you were going to like this one!

[Nick Rowe]

Min: it did lighten my mood a little. Thanks!

CM: I am trying hard, and failing, to contain my anger at those who would silence and dismiss the concerns of men. Somewhere reading this is a man who has learned that the son or daughter he loved and cherished and supported is not his own, and that their whole relationship is built on a lie. And that if he says anything about how much this hurts he will be shamed and ridiculed. And that some people have the nerve to say that it is offensive even to compare this to rape. And you have the bloody nerve to say that I am sexist? And that Frances is sexist! Go to hell.

[Linda Welling]

@Nick: with all due respect to your feelings, and that of others (men and women), I find the attention paid to Hanson's blog post a bit of a "crosstown bus" in this thread. I too find his choice of words inappropriate (yes, I read his post); I have many other examples I could bring up that I also find inappropriate - but I believe that is beside the point. How are we to deal with the sexism that still exists in the discipline?

[Frances Woolley]

I agree with Linda, I'm going to close the comments shortly because I don't think this is helpful.

Before I do...

CM (and anyone else): Suppose I was president of the Canadian Economics Association - which means I organize the program for the annual conference one year, and have considerable say in the direction of the organization for four years. What three things would you have me do? Be specific, give details and names. So not "invite a prominent female economist to give the Purvis lecture". Saying that is just cheap talk. *Who* should I invite? To do what? No cheap talk about mentoring, either - give me suggestions on how to reach the groups that really struggle in the job market, i.e. minority women and men, and people who don't come from the kind of social class that allows them to be perfectly comfortable ordering dinner in a fancy restaurant.

I'd like to avoid that special place you have in mind for me.

[Linda Welling]

Are there explicit criteria for the Purvis lecture -field, etc? How about Nicole Fortin?

[Frances Woolley]

One last comment to everyone who believes, like Noah, that the sciences, or anything else, is a "feminist nirvana" compared to economics: I would seriously suggest that you get out a little more.

I've spent the last year and five months (not that anyone's counting) as an academic administrator, doing Nick's old job as Associate Dean. For me, personally, this world filled with female competition, where how you dress matters, where people communicate with subtle hints rather than directly and openly, where people assume you're an administrator therefore at their beck and call - well, economics is looking more like a feminist nirvana every day.

The world contains deep, ingrained and systemic gender biases. Economics is part of the world, not something unique and different.

[Frances Woolley]

Nicole would be good. I don't know if she's done it already. I was thinking of Siwan Anderson.

[Linda Welling]

"The world contains deep, ingrained and systemic gender biases. Economics is part of the world, not something unique and different." Yes.
Siwan Anderson would be good, too.

[Linda Welling]

I need to go back to making up exams! But...Frances, you asked for ideas: perhaps a fund to help junior scholars buy citations? See http://www.thefacultylounge.org/2014/11/selling-the-starred-footnote.html (I can't see how to set the link.) This is tagged as satire, by the way.

[Jacques René Giguère]

One problem with Hanson was that his post should have been in a philosophy or ethics exam. My colleagues here agree that it would have been a maybe controversila but excellent question for this term finals in"Ethics and society." But it did not belong inan economics blog...

[Linda Welling]

Another suggestion - from astronomy(?):

link

[edited to add the link - SG]

[Frances Woolley]

Linda - see here for how to insert hyperlinks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XodRIfnMq5o. I'll put it in if I have time.

[CM]

Frances,

I'm glad I got to reply before you closed the comments section. I agree this is getting too emotional for everyone involved.

All I can say is, I really hope at some point you take a wholehearted, hard second look at your reading of Ginther and Kahn. Publically at least, you mischaracterized the substantive findings of their work and the preponderance of evidence with red herrings ("they never used the word sexism"), pick-and-choose and so forth. And that's OK I guess for a silly Internet shouting match, but I really hope you do not end up with the wrong prior about their work and its significance. Equity aside, the fact is there is a puzzle going on of persistent, unaccounted gender differences in econ that do not appear in other fields (including other social sciences). This is important.

As of policy solutions, who really knows. I guess it's hard when we can't even agree on whether gender parity should be a goal in the first place. Maybe that could be a start. All I know is, causal inference aside, since the time CSWEP was formed, other disciplines have progressed much further than econ towards gender parity. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from them.