Amity ShlaesCompte certifié

you'd be wrong, and you'd be operating--maybe even advocating--based on the wrong premises. /4

That brings us to Wu's study. She finds that when EJMR posters use certain words that are objectifying and sexist, they tend to be used to describe women rather than men. Further, the words that are most uniquely about women are mostly sexist and objectifying. /5

This is a problem! But it's not evidence of widespread use of sexist objectifying words about women on EJMR. And it's certainly not evidence of widespread bias against women in economics. As it happens, I think there *is* a lot of bias against women in economics, /6

But the Wu study says nothing about that. It says that when posters say things that are disproportionately used in regard to women, those things are often bad. That's consistent with widespread bias, but it's also consistent with the following scenario. /7

Imagine that 999 EJMR posters talk about men and women in the same way. The 1000th is a sexist pig. An analysis would find that the words most uniquely applied to women are sexist. I don't mean to assert that only 0.1% of EJMR posters are sexist. But the Wu study doesn't /8

tell us whether many or few posters are sexist pigs. Therefore, it doesn't tell us anything about how rampant sexism is in economics. /9

Why does this matter? Why am I ranting while cuddling with my daughter in front of Barbie (sigh, I know...)? When I proudly would declare myself a feminist? Because this is a great example of how virtue signaling is clouding our policy and intellectual debates. /10

If you think that the problem behind gender gaps in pay, occupational segregation, etc. is due to rampant discrimination, you'll advocate one set of solutions, but if the issues are more complicated, you might advocate a different set. Getting the diagnosis right matters. /11