We love that paragraph on objectivity and meritocracy. It resonates with our experiences of meritocracy myth objectivity in STEM, big tech, Silicon Valley, open source, and rationalist communities. We bought a copy of Donna Haraway’s “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective” to get “a conquering gaze from nowhere” and “represent while escaping representation” in context.

I would insist on the embodied nature of all vision and so reclaim the sensory system that has been used to signify a leap out of the marked body and into a conquering gaze from nowhere. This is the gaze that mythically inscribes all the marked bodies, that makes the un-marked category claim the power to see and not be seen, to represent while escaping representation.

Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective on JSTOR

That requires some unpacking, but really gets to the heart of it. The “power to see and not be seen” comes up in journalism regarding any reporter reporting on their own community. It comes up in autism research regarding autistic autism researchers and in conversations between autistic parents and parents of autistics.

The poster detailed my MSc paper which found that a large proportion of the variance of poor mental health and well-being could be explained by exposure to minority stress, and parts of my first study of my Ph.D.—a qualitative investigation into autistic community connectedness. A conference delegate asked, “why did you do this research?.” I disclosed being autistic, and pointed to the clear need for the research and the delegate’s response was “oh… are your supervisors? I just worry that you might be biased in, like… you know… this research?.” In that moment I recalled reading all the accounts that I detailed above—all these “objective” accounts of my sub-humanness. I asked the delegate what they meant, and they explained further that they are not necessarily sure that an autistic person would be best placed to talk about autism, but that it should be fine as long as I have non-autistic research supervisors checking over my work, to make sure that I am being “fair,” and “equal” in my representation of autistic people. I was discounted again.

Frontiers | Academic, Activist, or Advocate? Angry, Entangled, and Emerging: A Critical Reflection on Autism Knowledge Production

Haraway’s “marked bodies” reminds us of “spoiled identities” and the masking required to fit into “cultural systems that prioritize people who have, or to a lesser extent closely emulate, these traits.”

With a pathologized status comes the experience of stigma, dehumanization, and marginalization. Stigma refers to the possession of an attribute that marks persons as disgraced or ‘‘discreditable,’’ marking their identity as ‘‘spoiled.’’ Stigmatized persons may attempt to conceal these spoiled aspects of their identity from others, attempting to ‘‘pass’’ as normal. Investigation of ‘‘passing’’ and ‘‘concealment’’ has been explored in depth in other stigmatized populations; however, the application of stigma in autism research is a relatively new endeavor. Stigma impacts both on how an individual is viewed and treated by others and how that treatment is internalized and interacts with one’s identity.

A Conceptual Analysis of Autistic Masking: Understanding the Narrative of Stigma and the Illusion of Choice

Those “who can not or will not perform these identities” are marginalized, and those who can are exhausted. Those who attempt to advocate for themselves are discredited by the conquering gaze.

Meritocracy is a myth.

Masking for a false meritocracy is exhausting.

The “objectivity as neutral” conceit of the “conquering gaze from nowhere” leads to discrediting marginalized people and, in turn, to some “bloody regressive politics”, as we saw with New Atheism.

From my perspective, though, the deepest of the rifts was the emerging anti-feminist wing and the active neglect of social justice issues.

I realized it’s destination was where it is now: a shambles of alt-right memes and dishonest hucksters mangling science to promote racism, sexism, and bloody regressive politics.

The train wreck that was the New Atheism

When you measure include the measurer.

Aiming at objectivity, they feel bound to avoid any selective point of view; but since this is impossible, they usually adopt points of view without being aware of them. This must defeat their efforts to be objective, for one cannot possibly be critical of one’s own point of view, and conscious of its limitations, without being aware of it.

The way out of this dilemma, of course, is to be clear about the necessity of adopting a point of view; to state this point of view plainly, and always to remain conscious that it is one among many, and that even if it should amount to a theory, it may not be testable.

Karl Popper, Poverty of Historicism | Open Library

Get a Dose of Social Science

Throughout history, scientific research has been defined in ways which further the agenda of ableist, white supremacist power systems. At the same time, traditional notions of what constitutes scientific research has been reified by policymakers and scholars in education, who equate “science” with clinical methods and hard-numbers data. Using the framework of DisCrit, we provided a brief critical analysis of the use of science by dominant groups to label minorities as “others” throughout U.S. history. This scientific research is strongly linked to education policy, which inexorably functions to separate white, non-dis/abled students from students who are constructed as deficient and/or dis/abled because of the articulation of their linguistic, cultural, and racial identities. The pervasive acceptance of the dis/abling scientific studies was (and is) largely due to what counts as scientific research, and what does not. The authors identified some of the current notions of what is considered “evidence” in research and education policy; despite progressive trends in modern medical research, traditional clinical and/or quantitative studies continue to serve as the “gold star” in education research and testing. Although scholars claim quantitative research is more objective and reliable, there are many opportunities for human error and subjectivity at the design and procedural level of research, which trouble these assertions of a fixed truth. In quantifying and parsing elements of the human experience, this type of research results in a loss of multidimensionality. In reality, this kind of research only serves to uphold the values of white supremacy and ableism.

Disrupting Dis/abilization: A Critical Exploration of Research Methods to Combat White Supremacy and Ableism in Education

In my title, I ask “academic, activist, or advocate?”—and my answer is that I am all three. You cannot belong to a community that suffers from violence, marginalization, and suicide and not be. In my introduction I tell readers all the different types of autistic people I have been in the eyes of the clinicians and professionals who deemed my future limited or limitless because whenever an autistic person tells you anything about what it means to be autistic that is not just a list of impairments or limitations, we are told that we must have the “easy” autism. I laid this out so transparently to challenge the idea that just because we (autistic people) have fought to be included in autism research does not mean that you can picture where we have been (including how we experienced our own autism growing up). To conclude: I will not leave my values at the door of the academy—I refuse. I refuse to abandon my community and to engage in the complicit silence. Instead, I offer up transparency, openness, a constantly reflection, and learning. Instead, I make space for growth, action, and strive toward a social change for autistic people. It seems there is nothing more radical than that.

Frontiers | Academic, Activist, or Advocate? Angry, Entangled, and Emerging: A Critical Reflection on Autism Knowledge Production | Psychology

Soft domination, hold me
Rule me captive, drain me empty
And I need you to know me
So no one else owns me

Tell me you'll lift me up
Tell me you'll take me out of this place
Tell me you'll lift me up
Tell me you'll take me out of this place

--Soft Domination by Screaming Females

Further reading,