In need of an academic citation
October 12, 2024 12:52 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for an academic citation, or the proper technical terminology (if it exists yet) from sociology or related discipline, for a particular category of microaggression or gender bias referred to in a Facebook post I saw recently as "Men Responding Negatively to Everything a Women Says". Slightly more details below the fold.
I recently saw a Facebook post about "Men Responding Negatively to Everything a Women Says" that describes multiple examples of the microaggression behavior where men will reflexively oppose a women's ideas or suggestions at first. They often come around after a little convincing or experience (or after another man suggests the same idea, a related but slightly different phenomenon), but having to constantly deal with that initial opposition ("no, that won't work", or "I don't want to try/won't like the thing you are recommending for me", or "well, I don't think that's exactly the right way of describing this", etc.) is tiring, and negatively impacts women in life and in the workplace. It seems to be in the general category of Competence Questioning Behaviors, but isn't mentioned specifically in that recent linked article. Can you help me find an academic citation about this phenomenon? Or suggest the right search term, if this behavior has been given a more specific name in sociology or other relevant discipline?
Based on everything I know, I'm sure this happens even more so to racialized minorities in their white collar workplaces, too. The relevant technical term or a citation from this context would also be helpful to me.
I recently saw a Facebook post about "Men Responding Negatively to Everything a Women Says" that describes multiple examples of the microaggression behavior where men will reflexively oppose a women's ideas or suggestions at first. They often come around after a little convincing or experience (or after another man suggests the same idea, a related but slightly different phenomenon), but having to constantly deal with that initial opposition ("no, that won't work", or "I don't want to try/won't like the thing you are recommending for me", or "well, I don't think that's exactly the right way of describing this", etc.) is tiring, and negatively impacts women in life and in the workplace. It seems to be in the general category of Competence Questioning Behaviors, but isn't mentioned specifically in that recent linked article. Can you help me find an academic citation about this phenomenon? Or suggest the right search term, if this behavior has been given a more specific name in sociology or other relevant discipline?
Based on everything I know, I'm sure this happens even more so to racialized minorities in their white collar workplaces, too. The relevant technical term or a citation from this context would also be helpful to me.
I don’t know a theoretical term for the specific form of negging that you’re referring to, although I absolutely recognise the behaviour. It falls into the (broad, non-specific) category of creating a form of “epistemic injustice”, which Miranda Fricker has articulated as a distinctive kind of harm that is done to someone in their capacity as a knower. Fricker’s germinal book on the subject has given rise to a lot of attention to the varieties of ways that specific groups of people can be subject to such epistemic harms, including the ways it intersects with race, class and gender.
A related but distinct concept, framed by Kate Mann, is that of “himpathy”, in which men give the benefit of the doubt to other men (or find ways to excuse or explain away their moral transgressions), while disbelieving reports made by other people against perpetrators. Mann has gone on to write more generally about entitlement, including the entitlement to believe / disbelieve various peoples’ testimony.
posted by Joeruckus at 3:03 PM on October 12 [5 favorites]
A related but distinct concept, framed by Kate Mann, is that of “himpathy”, in which men give the benefit of the doubt to other men (or find ways to excuse or explain away their moral transgressions), while disbelieving reports made by other people against perpetrators. Mann has gone on to write more generally about entitlement, including the entitlement to believe / disbelieve various peoples’ testimony.
posted by Joeruckus at 3:03 PM on October 12 [5 favorites]
Response by poster: The references on the article you linked, forthright, led to the concept of “selective incivility” which seems to capture some of what I’m looking for. And while the situation I’m looking for a reference in relation to doesn’t exactly fit with the examples given for epistemic injustice in anything I’ve found on the topic so far, the general description certainly applies. Thanks for that suggestion!
More ideas or research assistance are certainly welcome, but between those two terms and the initial article I started with, I think I have some reasonable language and supporting citations now to help me describe something I need to describe in a manner that will help forestall it getting dismissed as just an interpersonal tiff.
posted by eviemath at 9:46 PM on October 12
More ideas or research assistance are certainly welcome, but between those two terms and the initial article I started with, I think I have some reasonable language and supporting citations now to help me describe something I need to describe in a manner that will help forestall it getting dismissed as just an interpersonal tiff.
posted by eviemath at 9:46 PM on October 12
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posted by forthright at 1:29 PM on October 12 [1 favorite]