So data and empirical evidence have a well-known hegemonic bias? Who knew! Thank god the author has a solution: give anecdotes and "fact-based" (note the use of sarcastic quotation marks) reports equal value. If history has taught us anything, it's that relying on rational, "fact based" thinking is anathema to the human condition.

I love this. I wish I had this a few weeks ago. One of the editorial writers for my school newspaper wrote a column in which he tried to make a joke about how "the military is like a woman, it says one thing and means another". I found this offensive and not particularily clever, especially considering the article was about the military and the military has a terrible record when it comes to supporting rape victims.

Which is what I told him. And I got the most defensive reply. The reply was FAR worse than that line. The author lectured to me about how his girlfriend had approved of the line, and really it was a cliche that woman don't say what they mean because it's true. He used half of the techniques outlined in this derailing for dummies. I just ignored him as a lost cause at that point. But I wish I could have just responded by sending him this link...

@dmd76 I also balked when I first read
"You're Arguing With Opinions Not Fact" and "Your Experience Is Not Representative Of Everyone". With access to the internet everyone has enormous resources of information at their disposal, so I found it difficult to see how supplying evidence to back up your point was some how exercising privilege at the expense of another. And for the record I still thin she overstates the case, even if she is employing humour to sharpen her point.

But there is a valid argument in there. I think how we understand and how well we use data is largely decided by our education. Those with less access to a good education (or at least good teachers that can make time for them) are going to be at a disadvantage. It is thereby that someone's personal experience that may be very insightful can be made to look foolish and irrelevant by somebody who can use rhetoric and language to make flimsy evidence to the contrary carry more weight than it should. Since the same person doesn't have those debate-type skills they can hardly call the nay-sayer out on their dubious but authoritative sounding counter argument.

"The process of valuing “fact” over “opinion” is one very much rooted in preserving privilege" Sounds like an over-blown claim, but we know that statistics and access to data often lie in the hands of those most interested in preserving the status quo. As do the skills for trumping one set of data with another or showing possible bias in findings that you don't like. As people with the privilege of education and critical faculties we have to be wary of all these factors and use our abilities to aid the voices of others, not crush them.

dmd76, scientific studies are intended as complete works for study and peer review, not as a tool for you to win arguments. Obviously, there's nothing inherently wrong with employing information from a study in a debate, but there are some things you should consider first.

First of all, is it even relevant? If the conversation centers around someone's personal experience, presenting a wide survey of people whose average experience differs may not even be pertinent to the conversation. For example, if someone says, "I am tired of my seeing my male coworkers get raises while I am repeatedly denied one," responding with, "I saw a study saying women don't perform on average as well as men, so I think that's justified" is fallacious because even if it were true (which I would be pretty damn skeptical of), it doesn't address the performance of the individual in question, who may be an outlier. It's a red herring.

Secondly, have you read the actual study and can you produce the results in enough detail to allow sufficient opportunity for debate? If all you have from the study is the conclusion paragraph or, even worse, the conclusion paragraph as filtered through a second or third-hand source with no background in the area, you have no idea whether the methodology was sound, whether the study contains mathematical errors or whether the writer has a strong bias.

Science works precisely because it's open to debate, but if you present only the results of a study as you see them, without enough information to allow the other party to make an informed judgement, you are misusing science. I see too many scientific studies presented as 'take it or leave it' ultimatums from mysterious authorities. There is a lot of bad work published and saying "I heard from a scientist that..." should carry no more weight in an argument than "I heard from a guy at the pub that..." Science is to be judged on arguments and methodology, not demagoguery.

Chris, wooseyleigh, I agree with both of you. Appeals to authority, misuse and misstatements of scientific results have no place in an honest debate. And I am sympathetic to the author's argument that marginalized people often have worse access to the education and tools that would allow them to make arguments based on empirical data and scientific studies. That said, this author is against privileging "data, statistics, research studies and empirical evidence" over "Lived Experience" and makes no distinction between honest and dishonest uses of data, statistics, etc., because "the very capacity to conduct studies, collect data and write detached “fact-based” reports on it, is an inherently privileged activity." This verges on a "the scientific method is anti-feminist"-type argument. I'm all for honest, fair dialog between the Privileged and the Marginalized; if we can do it without trashing the better principles of the Enlightenment, bully for us!

Two quick questions:

1)Isn't "shut up you're privileged" just as much as an impediment to reasonable discourse?

2) Judging from the tone of this piece, is it possible for a "marginalized person" to ever be wrong in an argument?

I am glad for pieces like this because I know I'm privileged and I forget that I often probably come right from that perspective regardless of whether I mean to.

But then I enjoy having it pointed out so I don't do it as often.

I'm bothered a little by the "False Consciousness" one. It's true that it's degrading to tell people that their opinions or decisions are not their own, and certainly I've gotten frustrated plenty with those who have told me that my political opinions are solely a result of my upbringing or my age (as though people can't question the beliefs they are raised with without changing them, or there aren't young conservatives & old liberals - but I digress).

But I think that dismissing entirely the idea that one's adult life, opinions, and decisions ARE impacted, in whatever way, by societal/familial conditioning is in many ways playing into the hands of those with privilege. For example, the right loves the idea of women "choosing" to give up careers for stay-at-home-motherhood, because it supports their idea that maybe that is the natural role of women, to be wives and mothers only. To ignore the idea that some women who "choose" that path may have been pressured into it by a society that demeans career mothers, or by an upbringing that taught them that working long hours while your young kid stays home with a nanny somehow "harms" the kid and makes you a bad parent, is to help the anti-feminist cause. Similarly, opponents of affirmative action (whether economic, race-based, sex-based, whatever) labor under the delusion that access to a good college or job is purely based on merit, ignoring that those from disadvantaged backgrounds may not have access to the same opportunities as those from privileged backgrounds. (And even when it comes to "merit" - good grades and high test scores can often be denied to smart kids when they come from a background that doesn't value education. Kids who live in poorer neighborhoods are less likely to have access to elite high schools with advanced courses that are becoming the pre-reqs to getting into some colleges.)

If you don't want to hear someone's opinion or educate them about an issue, why are you talking with them? Just to make yourself feel better? That's not anyone else's job, no matter what privilege you perceive them as having.

So, here's a qiestion. WHat do you do when you are faced with:

"Well I am X.X and X (marginalized type) So, so your expericance of X discrimination is not nearly as bad as mine though you maybe THis kind of marginalized."

what do you do about that?

An example: My male friend is disabeled, and was treated very poorly in the military even upto and includeing being raped in the military.

I was talking to my female friend about rape culture/slut shameing and discussing ways we might work against it.

He says: "well what about when men get raped? Isn't that just as bad?" and of course we both agreed it is, but he constantly disreguards my arguments and statements about rape and slut shameing because well men go through it. He simply will not accept men are not nearly as effectd by this as women are, though they are effected. Then it turns into him actually slut shameing!!!

It always forces me to angry standstill because I don't want to degrade -his- experiance as a victim, but want him to understand why rape culture is important to feminism and needs to be worked against.