In Conversation with Catherine Harnois, author of Feminist Measures in Survey Research

I spoke with Catherine about intersectional analysis, dynamic sociodemographics, self-rating, and so much more.

When I was a graduate student, I was studying mathematical statistics and was interested in ways to use my work as a feminist. I took several women’s studies research methods classes and asked a variety of professors how to use quantitative statistics from a feminist perspective. Without exception, I was told it wasn’t possible. That “regression was deductive” or “quantitative statistics turns everyone into one patriarchal average” etc. knew this wasn’t all there was and I kept looking. Then I found Dr. Harnois’ book “Feminist Measures in Survey Research” and it felt like an oasis in the desert. I was so happy to find someone interested in some of the same questions. I was thrilled to find someone who knew some answers. Over the years, I’ve purchased many copies of this book and refer many of my students and colleagues to it. Now we’ve made it the first choice of our We All Count Book Club and Catherine was kind enough to do a Q&A with us.

Heather: We really like your examples of multiplicative models as a way to do intersectional analysis. This works well for the large national surveys in your example. What about with smaller surveys? We run out of statistical…