Misogyny and the Continuity Crisis: Is Social Science Research Responsible?

This response to Berman, Rosenblatt, and Stahl's indictment of social science and its role in promoting misogyny in the US Jewish community is being written in the midst of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Covid-19 has already resulted in more than 180,000 deaths worldwide, and most of us are self-isolating to mitigate propagation of the virus.¹ Members of the Jewish community have not been spared the consequences of the pandemic, as it has disrupted not only our health, but also our personal, professional, and religious lives. For many, Passover was spent separated from loved ones, as the apex of the pandemic upended the family gatherings that normally pass on the formative story of Judaism to the next generation.

I situate my comments within the Covid-19 crisis because the underlying theme of the authors' critique is that the demographic study of Jewish continuity—essentially the study of families—is inherently misogynistic. Their thesis is that social scientists created "a continuity crisis paradigm" that acts to subjugate women's agency. By extension, the construct, adopted by Jewish communal leaders, helps to explain why exploitation and sexual harassment has been tolerated in the Jewish community.

Berman, Rosenblatt, and Stahl's provocative argument conflates a number of issues. One is the focus of the scholarship of Jewish life on families and, in particular, marriage. A second is the application of sociodemographic methods to the study of Jewish life. A third concerns the inferences and policy conclusions drawn from that research. The linkage between these elements is complex, far more so than the authors suggest. In particular, their assessment rests on a narrow perspective on the production of social scientific knowledge. As a postpositivist, who nevertheless values empirical research, my comments focus on a set of alternative explanations for the phenomena described by the authors.

Although I reject the authors' argument that a particular way of studying Jewish continuity promotes misogyny, I concur with their contention that individual behavior—in this case, sexual harassment—needs to be understood in a larger context. Attributing responsibility solely to individuals is a "fundamental attribution error"² and deflects attention from collective responsibility. If we are to redress gender-based harassment, we must understand the underlying attitudes and policies that promote or tolerate such behavior. As social scientists, we have an obligation to explore how and whether our discipline contributes to an inequitable environment,

Berman, Rosenblatt, and Stahl take issue with quantitative sociodemographic studies in particular and their role in promoting the perception of a continuity crisis. To place this work in context, the discussion below considers aspects of the authors' argument separately. In part, I assess the role of research in shaping discourse in the Jewish community. I suggest improvements in research design, analysis, and interpretation so that the diversity of the Jewish experience can be better understood.

IS MARRIAGE AND FAMILY RESEARCH INHERENTLY PROBLEMATIC?

Given Judaism's focus on childbearing and child-rearing, it is difficult to accept the premise that the social scientific study of marriage and family is not a legitimate focus of research on the Jewish community.³ To note the obvious, family issues frame Judaism's most sacred text. From the origin story of Adam and Eve, to the story of Abraham, Sarah and their progeny, to the journey of the tribes of Israel who fled from Egypt, the Biblical narrative features sibling rivalry, spousal jealousy, deceit, and a host of human failings. Intimate relationships are at the foreground of Jewish history and culture.

Demography is also part of the Jewish story. Censuses of the Jewish people occurred even as they wandered in the desert. Described in the kind of detail that would be worthy of a dissertator's methodology section, the census is a kind of stratified sample (by family) of the tribes. A longstanding focus of commentary has concerned who and what might have been missed in the accounting, but notably other debates have focused on the censuses' accuracy.⁴ Even today, when the Torah portion (B'midbar) describing the census is recited, we also read...