The Top 10 Not-List for Feminist Science

Sari van Anders

December 11, 2013

[Image of a cartoon star with the following text: "top ten"]

made this. Like from scratch. You can probably tell I do a lot of graphic design. For example, see how these colors clash with the list number color? Not just anyone could do that.

If you’re like me, then this is grading grading crunch crunch time. Therefore, who has time to write some long snarky blog post? Who has time to read it? Ergo, my Top 10 Not-List for Feminist Science. It’s not long, but it’s definitely snarky. Here you go!

1. Don’t make a top 10 list. They just limit people’s imaginations and give them something else to worry about… like whether they’re doing this right on top of all the other things they have to worry about. Hmmm. I think I broke the first rule of the Top 10 Not-List, which is to not give people something to worry about; now all the Top 10 list creators reading this are like: Oy Vey with the guilt! See how the top 10 list worry/guilt works?!

2. Who even gets to make the top 10 list? It suggests one authority bequeathed to others. Who does the bequeathing? Who gets to be the bequeathed? I mean, I like bequeathing as much as the next person, but I think it tastes better with a side of ‘long lost relative’ and ‘huge unexpected inheritance.’

3. Why 10? Would a Top 11 list be too much and a Top 9 list too little? 10 seems suspiciously convenient. Like your p = .049999 convenient. Is someone fudging the data for top 10 lists?

4. DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!

5. Top 10 lists suggest that you can rank ideas and concepts. Sounds monetizable! But intellectual or generative? Not sure.

6. Look, who doesn’t secretly want to play Benevolent Dictator of Small Nation? But want is not equal to do. I mean, I want to have a milkshake faucet in my kitchen, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Actually, that is obviously a really good idea, so that was a bad example.

7. People who are taught to feel guilty about their choices and hand others authority for their own decisions (cough cough women cough cough minoritized men cough cough) would be particularly concerning targets of top 10 lists. And these lists always seem to be about self-improvement or fitting in or avoiding learning by experience. Hey, self-improvement – sounds good! But why are some of us always craft projects for someone else?

8. I’m unsure, yet, if the irony of making an anti-top 10 list is really working. That doesn’t seem to support the Top 10 format, DOES IT!?

9. Feminist science is a do-thing. That doesn’t mean there can’t be guidance, or discussion, or debate, or engagement. But how do you get to engage with a Top 10 list? What is there to do with it? Anyway, I’m really liking that neologism ‘do-thing’ as I tend to enjoy words I’ve just made up (they’re so fresh! and made-up!).

[Diagram of a faucet]

This is a milkshake faucet.     (Not really.) (As in, not at all.)