# A feminist glaciology framework **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 9, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421 "2016-03-09T16:55:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/1 "2016-03-09T16:55:56Z")
On a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, and advancing human knowledge, it gives me great ironic pleasure to link to this [press release](http://around.uoregon.edu/content/glaciers-melt-more-voices-research-are-needed) which will lead you to the amazing work of Carey, Rushing, et. al. Reading it may lead to “…more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.” ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/2 "2016-03-09T17:01:07Z")
“The root of this paradigm comes from the era of Victorian Imperialism in which manly vigor and scientific discovery provided the dominant way of both understanding and dominating foreign spaces,” Rushing said. “This results in a total lack of consideration of alternative ways of understanding glacial ice, which is especially troubling in the current age of rapid melt.” Well there you go… ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/3 "2016-03-09T17:28:18Z")
If this is parody, it’s very good parody. It keeps one just on that edge of “they can’t possibly be serious - can they?” From the cite - > [@](#): > > That report linked flooding from a glacial lake with an increase of sexually transmitted infections in women. “I was fascinated by how two seemingly disparate issues could be so intimately linked through glacial ice,” Rushing said. “I wanted to know more about the relationship between women and ice, so we pursued the topic from climate-change vulnerability to knowledge.” Less frigidity leads to more STDs - makes sense to me. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/4 "2016-03-09T17:30:26Z")
If a glacier melts and floods your hut without your permission is that like climate change rape or something? ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/5 "2016-03-09T18:02:21Z")
Maybe when a glacier falls apart, there’s a piece of ice for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/6 "2016-03-09T18:37:13Z")
> [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > On a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, and advancing human knowledge, it gives me great ironic pleasure to link to this [press release](http://around.uoregon.edu/content/glaciers-melt-more-voices-research-are-needed) which will lead you to the amazing work of Carey, Rushing, et. al. Reading it may lead to “…more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.” It was published in a journal called **Progress in Human Geography**. The current issue also gives us: [Closing the loop or squaring the circle? Locating generative spaces for the circular economy](http://phg.sagepub.com/content/40/1/88.full) [From ‘energy geography’ to ‘energy geographies’: Perspectives on a fertile academic borderland](http://phg.sagepub.com/content/40/1/105.full) Previous issues give us: [Cultural geography III: Objects of culture and humanity, or, re-‘thinging’ the Anthropocene landscape](http://phg.sagepub.com/content/39/6/818.full) [Geographies of race and ethnicity 1: White supremacy vs white privilege in environmental racism research](http://phg.sagepub.com/content/39/6/809.full) [History and philosophy of geography II: The future history of the geographical propaedeutic?](http://phg.sagepub.com/content/39/4/486.full) I’m familiar with [hoax papers](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html) and [hoax abstracts](http://prospect.org/article/academic-drivel-report), where actual professors have written a bunch of pure nonsense and gotten it published in academic journals or at conferences. Is it possible that there could be an entire hoax journal? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/7 "2016-03-09T18:41:37Z")
“Fanny Bullock Workman”? ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/8 "2016-03-09T18:54:24Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I’m familiar with [hoax papers](http://www.physics.nyu.edu/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html) and [hoax abstracts](http://prospect.org/article/academic-drivel-report), where actual professors have written a bunch of pure nonsense and gotten it published in academic journals or at conferences. Is it possible that there could be an entire hoax journal? [The Journal of Irreproducible Results](http://www.jir.com/) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2016, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/9 "2016-03-09T18:54:44Z")
Seems to be a legit academic article, but I would lost my paycheck on that bar bet. It’s just such an Onionesque parody of the worst of academic nonsense. Serious (non-mocking) review of article [As glaciers melt, more voices in research are needed](http://around.uoregon.edu/content/glaciers-melt-more-voices-research-are-needed) > [@](#): > > When UO historian Mark Carey hired Jaclyn Rushing, an undergraduate student in the Robert D. Clark Honors College, to explore how nongovernmental organizations were addressing melting Himalayan glaciers, he got an unexpected return. > > Jaclyn RushingHer dive into the literature found that women’s voices are rarely heard in glacier-related research, a finding that triggered a larger project and led to a paper now online ahead of print by the journal Progress in Human Geography. > > “Jaclyn found a report that noted how women are more vulnerable to glacier changes and hazards than are men,” said Carey, associate dean of the Clark Honors College and a professor of history and environmental studies. “I had never researched these gendered vulnerabilities.” > > That report linked flooding from a glacial lake with an increase of sexually transmitted infections in women. “I was fascinated by how two seemingly disparate issues could be so intimately linked through glacial ice,” Rushing said. “I wanted to know more about the relationship between women and ice, so we pursued the topic from climate-change vulnerability to knowledge.” > > Expanding the investigation made sense, Carey said. “In disaster studies you always look at who is more vulnerable to hazards, and it’s usually the marginalized populations. It’s the poor groups, the underrepresented groups based on race and ethnicity, and gender has been discussed some in that.” > > For her Clark Honors College thesis, Rushing showed how men’s voices have dominated the research, with masculine-driven efforts overcoming environmental adversity driving the narrative in both published research and media coverage. > > After Rushing graduated and left for Oregon State University to pursue a graduate degree, Carey brought in M Jackson, a doctoral student in geography, and Alessandro Antonello, a postdoctoral research fellow in the honors college, to look deeper into the science of glacier studies and explore the gender issues. > > They found that glacier research has been intertwined with gender relations, masculine cultures of exploration, geopolitics, and individual and institutional power. That, in turn, led to glacier-related academic and governmental jobs being predominantly filled by men. > > “Melting glaciers are today considered a national security risk for numerous countries,” Carey said. “Power and colonialism have shaped the science.” > > That message is detailed extensively in the paper. > > “The root of this paradigm comes from the era of Victorian Imperialism in which manly vigor and scientific discovery provided the dominant way of both understanding and dominating foreign spaces,” Rushing said. “This results in a total lack of consideration of alternative ways of understanding glacial ice, which is especially troubling in the current age of rapid melt.” > > Women, however, have not been completely absent from glacial research. The paper cites the work of Fanny Bullock Workman, who studied glaciers in the Himalayas in the early 20th century, and Mary Morris Walcott, who photographed and measured glaciers in the Canadian Rockies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. More women entered the field by the 1970s, but they were viewed as outsiders. > > The long-running reliance on knowledge produced from the perspectives of natural science, the researchers concluded, have marginalized the voices of women and cultures around the world that have lived in the shadow of glaciers. > > “Men’s voices generally are more represented in government than are women’s voices,” Carey said. “Women might be less able to migrate out of a flood zone during a sudden glacier melt. In Peru, we know that men migrate to the cities for jobs, whereas women are more confined to their homes and child rearing.” Link directly to Journal Listing [http://phg.sagepub.com/reports/most-read](http://phg.sagepub.com/reports/most-read) ---
**Author:** ![Hooleehootoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eada6e/32.png) [@Hooleehootoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hooleehootoo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/10 "2016-03-18T19:15:10Z")
(I don’t think this topic will ever generate much if moved to GD or the Pit, so excuse a bit of arguing here rather than a new thread…) [Here](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/qa-author-feminist-geology-study-reflects-sudden-place)is a bit of Carey’s defense: > [@](#): > > The attention during the last week proves our point clearly: that glaciers are, in fact, highly politicized sites of contestation. Glaciers don’t have a gender. But the rhetoric about ice tells us a great deal about what people think of science and gender. Suppose I publish a paper the main thesis of which is that the study of glaciers should inform our thinking on the Second Amendment. Brouhaha results. Then I claim that “the rhetoric around ice tells us a great deal about what people think of science and the NRA”. No, it does not. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2016, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/11 "2016-03-18T20:39:05Z")
Without reading the article, I’ll opine that the authors could use to learn the maxim that correlation does not equal causation. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-feminist-glaciology-framework/748421/12 "2016-03-22T02:44:39Z")
> [@Hooleehootoo](#): > > (I don’t think this topic will ever generate much if moved to GD or the Pit, so excuse a bit of arguing here rather than a new thread…) > [Here](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/qa-author-feminist-geology-study-reflects-sudden-place)is a bit of Carey’s defense: > > Suppose I publish a paper the main thesis of which is that the study of glaciers should inform our thinking on the Second Amendment. Brouhaha results. Then I claim that “the rhetoric around ice tells us a great deal about what people think of science and the NRA”. No, it does not. Do you really not get it? He’s saying the fact that such a parody got such wide attention shows how we view these topics. This is just a bit of absurdity, yet people were arguing whether it was real and making real news articles about it. It’s a nice social experiment.