Academic

Comments You Are Most Likely to Hear From Feminist Law Professors

By Bridget Crawford

On the Freakonomics blog at the New York Times, Justin Wolfers reminded readers (here) of economist George Stigler?s suggestion that during presentations of a scholarly work, audience members would increase academic efficiency by shouting out a number that corresponded to their comment or objection, instead of wasting everyone’s time with the usual professorial puffery and wind-up to audience comments and questions.  In The Conference Handbook in the Journal of Political Economy (1977), Stigler assigned numbers to the most common objections, i.e., (1) ”Adam Smith said that;” (2) “there is an identification problem which is not dealt with adequately in the paper;” (3) “the model is incorrect.”  And so on.

Feminist Law Professors like efficiency, too, so here’s a working list of Comments You Are Most Likely To Hear From Feminist Law Professors, a tongue-in-cheek twist on Stigler’s guidance for economists.  The list is a work-in-progress.  Anyone giving a job talk or paper at a school known to have feminist law professors on the faculty (and check the blog roll — we don’t have a secret handshake) might want to consider these:

1.  There are no women in your study/paper/analysis.

2.  There are women in your study/paper/analysis, but women’s authentic voices have been silenced.

3.  Your recommendation, if implemented, would disparately impact women.

4.  Although your study/paper/analysis takes women into account, you assume that “women” is a monolithic category.

5.  Although your study/paper/analysis takes _________ [insert adjective] women into account, you assume that all _________ [insert same adjective] are the same.

6.  Your perspective is constrained by your position as a/an __________ [insert adjective] _________ [insert noun] and therefore your arguments/analyses/theories are incomplete or inaccurate.

7.  You seem to have ignored the feminist theory of _________ [insert noun], which would change your analysis.

8. You do not cite any female academics in your study.

9.  You cite __________ [name of female academic] in your study, but you make her into a cartoon-like figure without engaging seriously with her arguments.

10.  You misunderstand __________ [name of female academic]; she never said that.

11.  Your understanding of feminist theory is mired in a difference vs. dominance paradigm.

12.  Your faith in the state as an agent of justice appears misplaced.

13.  [UPDATE:] Why aren?t you calling on any of the women in the audience who have their hands raised?

Addenda and modifications to this list are welcome.  

-Bridget Crawford

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on October 09, 2008 (boomark / email).