Do hormones drive women’s votes? Should women vote? Are women people? What will CNN ask next?

The November 2012 election is quickly approaching. Women make up 51% of the population, and as I explained in my previous post, women play an important role in both the undecided and swing vote.

So naturally, of course, CNN wonders…

What does science say about the fundamental biological integrity of a woman’s ability to vote?

To which the world responds, What the $#%! is wrong with you people?

Is this even a valid question? Are you anti-science or a hypocrite if you oppose this type of research?

While I generally support science for the sake of science, there are plenty examples of bad science, and of science that really isn’t science at all. Worse still, there’s a long history of pseudoscience used to perpetuate serious harm, like the scientific racism of the 19th century that used evolutionary concepts and methods from physical anthropology—measuring cranial capacity and facial features—to assert that blacks and people of color were inferior to white men and essentially a sub-human species.

Similar to the racist “science” conducted to justify the oppression and enslavement of blacks, pseudoscientific ideas about the status of women were used to fuel the opposition to women’s suffrage.

Society has evolved dramatically since then, but many archaic and determinist ideas about evolutionary biology still persist. These ideas, based on dubious speculation and pure conjecture, are used to inform entire fields of study, like evolutionary psychology and sociobiology.

Who are these researchers, and what are their research agendas?

Kristina Durante is an evolutionary psychology researcher and Professor of Marketing at the University of Texas, San Antonio. One of her major research interests concerns the evolutionary, hormonal drivers of female behavior. Recently, she conducted a study of the ovulatory effects on the female vote, operating under the premise that women are not inherently rational creatures and that behavior is driven by biologically determined, physiological mechanisms.

According to Durante, women feel sexier when they’re ovulating, which means that they are biologically compelled to want to sleep with lots and lots of men. According to her very scientific concept of ovulation-induced sexiness as a driver of political orientation, Durante deduced that single women are more likely to vote for Obama so that they can have abortions and consume mass amounts of birth control and defile the institution of marriage by supporting The Gays. Similarly, women in relationships are compelled to vote for Romney as an attempt to overcompensate for their biologically determined, monthly calling to cheat on their partners by being wildly promiscuous and sleeping with anything that walks. Oh, and apparently ovulation guides religious views, too. (My suggestion for #WhatWillCNNAskNext: If politics and religion are out of the question, can women think for themselves at all?)

Durante came to these conclusions by conducting an internet survey.

Let me repeat.

An internet survey.

On a non-randomized, non-representative, small sample size of women. SCIENCE!!!!!

The study has yet to be released, but the world caught wind of it when Elizabeth Landau at CNN got a sneak-peek of the research and blogged, “Do hormones drive women’s votes?” The post was quickly taken down after readers began flooding the site with negative feedback.

Here’s an excerpt:

The researchers found that during the fertile time of the month, when levels of the hormone estrogen are high, single women appeared more likely to vote for Obama and committed women appeared more likely to vote for Romney, by a margin of at least 20%, Durante said. This seems to be the driver behind the researchers’ overall observation that single women were inclined toward Obama and committed women leaned toward Romney.

Here’s how Durante explains this: When women are ovulating, they “feel sexier,” and therefore lean more toward liberal attitudes on abortion and marriage equality. Married women have the same hormones firing, but tend to take the opposite viewpoint on these issues, she said.

“I think they’re overcompensating for the increase of the hormones motivating them to have sex with other men,” Durante said. It’s a way of convincing themselves that they’re not the type to give in to such sexual urges, she said.

I do not support scientific censorship, but Landau should have had the foresight and the basic competency to better evaluate the claims, methodology, and underlying assumptions of the research.

The field of evolutionary psychology (EP) is fairly controversial, and many (most) of its findings are not universally accepted as a legitimate “science.” It is impossible to discuss findings from this field without this disclaimer. Not all science is created equal. On this level, Landau certainly failed in her duties as a reporter.

If a coloring book of dancing unicorns is slapped onto your desk with a sticky note attached that says, “SCIENCE,” should you automatically approach it as such and regard it neutrally? Where is the integrity of scientific reporting?

Here’s what went down in the comment section before CNN got all hormonal and decided to shut the whole thing down. I think CNN should have had the gall to stick by their reporting and defend Landau’s article, and allow commenters the unlimited opportunity to criticize this pseudo-scientific horse shit parading as legitimate research.

Some highlights…

The outcry pours in. The author gets a bit defensive…

…assumes women don’t know how to read the news; informs them of the error of their ways.

Mitt Romney is feeling a bit vindicated.

Todd Akin already knows about these things, from doctors and scientists.

Susan B. Anthony wants a do-over, takes back everything she said.

The internet reminds women of their place.

You call this shit science? Readers continue to weigh in.

I concur, Leni, I concur.

Since my female brain is overtaken by emotion at this point, let me conclude by taking advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to quote liberally from Billy Madison.

And, the official Science Undone reaction:

To Elizabeth Landau, CNN author, and Kristina Durante, study author…

What you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Yours
Science

I’ll be putting my “academic hat” on in another post and will further address the problems with the scientific reporting, the study itself, and the questionable field of evolutionary psychology out of which this “research” was created.

Reference: Study looks at voting and hormones