I made a mistake trying to defend postcolonial theory here, it's just not my area of expertise. Whether it's valid or not, I can't defend it well. But we do seem to be on the same page that it's falsifiable.
However, I do have a substantial beef with your beefs with feminism.
That's merely an empirical observation.
Come on... Things falling to the ground is an empirical observation, gravity is the theory.
That's a normative statement about what should be
No, it's a prediction. If the gender representation gap spontaneously solved itself without any evident adoption of feminist attitudes that would be a strike against feminism as a theory.
Can you be a bit more precise about these relationships? Also, does the feminist theory predict or does it say that's what it sees?
Predicts; It observed it then it continued to be true so it's not overfitting
Off the top of my head I'd say I have at least two issues with feminism. The first is that it loves to tell other people what they should think, feel, and value. Science is not normative and feminism is -- that makes it closer to preaching than to science.
It has a normative and an empirical element. An organization like GiveWell empirically assesses charities then makes normative recommendations based on a particular version of utilitarianism. Feminism assesses institutions and makes recommendations.
The second is that I am not sure why feminism (as an academic discipline) exists. I understand that historically there was the movement of "these not-quite-yet-dead white men in the social studies departments don't understand us and don't do things we find important, so fuck'em -- we'll set up our own department". That's fine, but first that's not true any more, and second, that's an office-politics argument for the administrative structure of a university, not reason for a whole new science to come into existence. What exactly is feminism doing that's not covered by sociology + political studies + cultural studies?
Most of what feminism does in influence other fields. Gender studies departments exist some places and not other, but it's influence is pervasive in academia. I think this is a misinformed criticism.
In another post you called feminism "a project dedicated to changing certain policies and cultural attitudes". I like this definition, it makes a lot of sense to me.
However the implication is that feminism is neither a science nor even a field of study. Recall that the original question was feminism (gender studies) in academia. You said
Postcolonial theory and gender theory make a hell-of-a-lot of sense. They're crowning accomplishments of their fields, or define fields.
I'm fine with treating feminism as a socio-cultural movement based on a c...
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