Unless you have been in a coma or just arrived from off-world, you have probably heard about #shirtgate/#shirtstorm. If not, take a minute to search on those hash tags to come up to speed.
During the ensuing flood of posts, tweets, etc., I happened to stumble upon To the science guys who want to understand #shirtstorm by Janet D. Stemwedel.
It is impressive because despite the inability of men and women to fully appreciate the rhetoric of the other gender, Stemwedel finds a third rhetoric, that of science, in which to conduct her argument.
Not that the rhetoric of science is a perfect fit for either gender but it is a rhetoric in which both genders share some assumptions and methods of reasoning. Those partially shared assumptions and methods make Stemwedel’s argument effective.
Take her comments on data gathering (formatted on her blog as tweets):
…
So, first big point: women’s accounts of their own experiences are better data than your preexisting hunches about their experiences.Another thing you science guys know: sometimes we observe unexpected outcomes. We don’t say, That SHOULDN’T happen! but, WHY did it happen?
Imagine, for sake of arg, that women’s rxn to @mggtTaylor’s porny shirt was a TOTAL surprise. Do you claim that rxn shouldn’t hv happened?
Or, do you think like a scientist & try to understand WHY it happened? Do you stay stuck in your hunches or get some relevant data?
Do you recognize that women’s experiences in & with science (plus larger society) may make effect of porny shirt on #Rosetta publicity…
…on those women different than effect of porny shirt was on y’all science guys? Or that women KNOW how they feel about it better than you?
Science guys telling women “You shouldn’t be mad about porny shirt on #Rosetta video because…” is modeling bad scientific method!
…
Finding a common rhetoric is at the core of creating sustainable mappings between differing semantics. Stemwedel illustrates the potential for such a rhetoric even in a highly charged situation.
PS: You need to read Stemwedel’s post in the original.