Scientific Fact Cannot Inoculate Us Against The Need For Community
By Emily Hill
The Disneyland measles outbreak in December and the cases of measles that have been popping up all over America and Canada in the last couple of months have received much media attention. The outbreaks have been blamed on “anti-vaxxers”—those who choose not to have their children vaccinated for fear of the adverse effects of the MMR vaccine. The figure of the anti-vaxxer has generated speculation at both local and national levels as to why anyone would choose to believe anecdotal evidence about the alleged connection between vaccines and autism, against the factual evidence of science.
I am not an anti-vaxxer. If I had children, I would have them vaccinated because I see the benefits of vaccines as by far outweighing the risks. I am, however, troubled by the unacknowledged gender bias that defines the media portrayal of the anti-vaxxer vs. pro-vaxxer debate, which is often framed as the ludicrous personal experience of mothers vs. the indisputable truth of science. As a feminist autobiography scholar, I had hoped that we were beyond the point of completely dismissing female voices by presenting them as hysterical, mad, or stupid in comparison to the reasoned and measured voice of patriarchal authority.
In a radio interview on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s show “The Current” on February 6th, former anti-vaxxer turned pro-vaxxer, Maranda Dynda, summarized the dichotomy of the female voice vs. the voice of reason in her closing remarks about what advice she’d give to people considering not vaccinating their children, stating “people need to be more open minded to other sources, other than just mommy blogs and groups; they really need to look at the science of things…” While I agree that it is important to listen to the valuable insights of the scientific community when it comes to vaccines, I am troubled by the way that “science” is positioned as the antidote to the female anti-vaxxer’s experience, which is infantilized as belonging to “mommies” and their blogs.
In our globalized, post-modern world, where many traditional, cultural, and community knowledges have been relativized, if not utterly dissolved, “science” has become one certainty to which we cling. And in the case of the measles vaccine, I agree that we should be embracing this life-saving medical advancement. However, presenting anti-vaxxers with scientific fact as an antidote to their lived experience only serves to further ostracize women whose beliefs have been shaped by the exclusion and oppression that they’ve experienced. As Theresa MacPhail, a medical anthropologist, points out in a recent blog post on the Huffington Post website, “facts alone are almost never effective in changing people’s beliefs and behaviors.” She further explains that, in order to shift the rising tide of the anti-vaccination movement, we need to shift “our basic approach to the problem” by recognizing that the “decision not to vaccinate is not based on facts or information alone, but relies upon emotional, cultural, and social components.”
Listening to the CBC radio interview with Maranda Dynda a few weeks ago, I realized that there is also a spiritual component to the anti-vaccination movement that is not being captured in its negative media portrayal. In recounting how she originally became a part of the movement, Dynda described being welcomed into the community “very quickly,” where she became friends with “other mothers” and “like-minded people” through the common goal of claiming a collective space for themselves and their cause on the internet. Dynda’s experience parallels the experience of another mother I know from my own circle of friends, who, amid the daily stress of being the sole caregiver for her autistic son on a low-income budget, has found a community in the anti-vaccination movement. The anti-vaxxers not only validate her experience but their battle against vaccines also provides her with a sense of purpose and a means of rebellion against the difficult conditions of her life.
While it is often the growing number of white, affluent, and well-educated anti-vaxxers who occupy the media spotlight, there are other women, such as my friend, whose opposition to vaccines is partially a reaction to the patriarchal power structures imbedded in a social system that repeatedly fails to provide her with adequate support. Instead of asking, “Why won’t these crazy mommies yield to the authority of science?”, I think we need to be asking, “What is the anti-vaccine movement providing these women that they are not getting in larger society?” The “mommy blogs and groups” that are so easily dismissed as anti-scientific by pro-vaxxers fulfill an important spiritual function in the lives of many women, both inside and outside of the anti-vaxxer community, by providing a space of support, belonging, and resistance. Perhaps we need to start thinking about how we can create these types of spaces for women, especially those who feel that their lived experience is being dismissed or ignored, in a healthy, supportive and safe way in our own communities. A first step would be to start seeing the anti-vaccination movement as the symptom of a larger social longing for connection and collective resistance that cannot be cultivated through scientific fact alone.
Emily Hill is a feminist autobiography scholar, a theologian of the everyday, a youth group leader, an amateur gardener, and an enthusiastic dog lover. Having recently defended her thesis, “Women, Work, and God: The Incarnational Politics and Autobiographical Praxis of Victorian Labouring Women,” Emily is a newly minted PhD in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada). She has spoken at multiple conferences on themes related to women, autobiography, and faith, and is currently working on publishing parts of her dissertation.
Rubbish.
If i, as an Autistic woman, can manage not to feel threatened by science then you can do it too.