The problem with lived experience
The problem with lived experience is that it's often proffered as evidence as to why a certain thing is the way it is. Feminist circles often use this to push the narrative that "All men are trash". Page after page of how awful men have been are offfered and it shows a compelling picture.
The thing is that this "lived experience" is not really evidence of anything. We all know the odds of winning the UK national lottery are approximately 1 in 14 million. This is the equivalent of tossing a coin and getting heads 21 times in a row. It's extremely unlikely, yet there were 383 winners in 2024.
The majority of people will accept that winning the lottery is extremely unlikely. However if you are in a large enough population then there will likely be a few lottery winners there. "It's really unlikely you will win the lottery", "Well I did!", "Yes and so did I". It starts to feel that those incredibly long odds are actually more common than you would think.
The only way to get a firm handle on what is actually happening is:
- Collate data from as large a population as possible
- Have that peer reviewed by other scientists to ensure it is valid
- Analyse that data for trends.
By taking large enough trials of things, and it really doesn't have to be that large, incredible things can happen.
If you poll 100 random people, evidence shows that they know around 338 other people. If they also know another 338 people then you are actually polling closer to 11.4 Million people (100 * 338 * 338) as so if you accept "A friend of a friend said" then that 100 people ends up being around the same population as Paris. So vague, uncorroborated reddit / facebook posts, of "A friend of mine, said her friend found that" well that's a LOT of people you are forming chains of and a HUGE range of people. The maths makes it extremely likely that you know somebody, a friend of a friend, who won the lottery last year. There were one in There were 1 in 156,657 and you know, friends of friends, who were 11.4 so you actually have friends of friends there were 73 lottery winners close to you.
And so we see it withy feminists talking about "lived experience" and how awful men are. It's similar to the psychic telling you they have a message from beyond the grave. It's a bonkers, completely unscientific thing to claim, yet they can use the same tricks to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that something is real. Lived experience can even be 2nd hand "my friend said" or even feminists taking Tik Tok videos, of lived experience, as gospel truth and not actually click bait.
Whilst feminism really doesn't stand up to any form of scrutiny, from the myth of men doing less housework or the equally untrue epidemic of male on female violence feminist, those that want to believe, often point to their own lived experience. With that you can prove anything, if you have an agenda those times you are wronged will often come to the forefront. If you want to see that men are awful no doubt we'll have experiences of that. Me myself, can remember where men have acted poorly towads to me. Is it "All men" ? No, of course not. I also can remember when women behaved poorly. Do I decide that all women are awful ? No of course not, that's sexism (remember, that what Feminism is meant to be against). Fundamentally data analysis is just not taught on gender studies courses and that's why feminist theory is so unscientific and falls apart quickly when placed under the microscope.
At it's core calling on "lived experience", it's nothing more than misandry. Like the pyschic showing that there's spirits beyond the grave wanting to communicate, you can show that all men are awful with a bit of being economical with the truth and remembering some events more clearly than others.
Comparing women’s negative experiences with men to the odds of winning the lottery is incredibly inaccurate as well as a logical fallacy.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I am honestly a bit confused about which particular lived experience or topic this overall article is about? Violence against women? Harassment? Abusive relationships? etc.
In order to more accurately rebut your points, I’d be interested to know so that I am also able to post statistical research to prove my claims.
The phrases “being economical with the truth” and “remembering some events more clearly than others” appear to be claiming that you believe the majority of women who relay their experiences are not to be believed, is this a correct conclusion to draw?
And though you don’t believe in, let’s say the statistical accuracy of “lived experience” (I don’t agree but considering that is your stance), I would be curious to know if you have ever asked women family members if they have been in any past or present situations where they felt their safety was in danger, they were being harassed or followed, or were mistreated in relationships?
I must say, I find it extremely intriguing that in one breath you argue “not all men are bad” and therefore the claim “all men are awful” is, in your eyes, taking the rhetoric too far, while in the next (and previous) breath, you seem to argue “All women are liars or influenced by the crowd and therefore not to be believed.”
As a personal aside, though I understand it’s not one you will likely take seriously, the reality is that it’s enough men. It’s enough men to have significant and long-lasting affects, to impact women’s lives (yes, even frequently). It’s enough men that it is a real issue which matters.
Without going into too many specifics, I have two female family members who have been sexually assaulted, one of the two who experienced multiple physically abusive relationships, another who was in an emotionally abusive marriage for roughly 10-15 years before divorce, a very close friend who escaped a domestically violent relationship soon after the wedding because the groom did not escalate physically until after the wedding, a woman who I don’t know closely but who was assaulted while attending my private religious university and shared her experience as a way to process the incredible trauma it caused, another woman from my school who escaped a domestically violent marriage and paid thousands of dollars to attend a treatment center due to suicidal ideation, complex PTSD, etc. (the thoughts were exacerbated and PTSD caused by that relationship). I personally witnessed another student be sexually harassed in the library while I was sitting across from her but could not remember the appropriate response from the sexual harassment prevention training we all as students completed electronically and regretfully, did not step in because my mind blanked and I didn’t want to make things worse, Looking back, doing or saying anything would have probably sufficed but as a result of my own separate past experiences as well as knowing what men are capable of based on the aforementioned family members, I did not know how this particular man would react. I later learned another girl on my dormitory floor was also harassed by that very same man. His major, terrifyingly, was under ministry to become a Youth Pastor iirc, but either way it was in ministry, where he would have even more opportunity to prey on vulnerable and somewhat gullible as well as naive, women.
These are only a few of all the accounts.I can share but I will leave it at that for any other readers who come across this comment to read the other side of things.
I thnk you are missing the point 100% in the article. One person's experience is not typical and therefore we need to look at statistics to decide what is ACTUALLY hapening.
DeleteAgain, statistics on which subjects?
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