We want enthusiastic consent!

Both Halse & Honey (Unraveling Ethics: Illuminating the Moral Dilemmas of Research Ethics) and Kirsch (Friendship, Friendliness, and Feminist Fieldwork) mentioned changing the way we think of informed consent. H & H used "ongoing consensual decision-making" (2152) while Kirsch used "confirming consent" (2168). I have never thought about this aspect of the ethics review board (etc.) part of research, and had just marveled about how it was a good idea to get informed consent to begin with, but I really like this framing of the issue of consent. Right now I am reading all about sexuality and such (see previous post), and when discussing rape culture consent comes up fairly often. The issues revolve around, well, if she doesn't say no, that must mean yes, or, she said yes at the beginning, so that means she meant yes to everything that is to follow (no backsies). And it can be sort of infuriating when you hear these sorts of arguments about why it definitely was not rape, and so, why not use this framework with research? It makes such good sense now!

We should be looking for enthusiastic "yeses" all the time. How unfair is it to say to a research participant, well, I know you don't want me to publish that really intimate thing you said, but you already said yes before saying it, so...no backsies! I suppose, these are the joys of feminist research, since you can use your judgment (and feelings) in the end to empathize with your participant instead of being research focused (must get the scoop!). It is really, very smart of these researchers to introduce this new version of informed consent, because in the end, it winds up being a comprehensive informed consent, where one is informed of everything that they agreed to, and what their role is, was, and will be.

As far as Kirsch's take-away message, it reminded me a lot of what we have discussed in class, how we have to give ourselves a break, we cannot be perfect and ethically congruent with everything we do or should believe in all the time. I feel, that as women, we feel compelled to build and frame these research related relationships as friendships, to make ourselves feel better, but then when we fall through on what a friend should be or do, we give ourselves a hard time. We need to give ourselves a break! We do not have to be friends nor carry the guilt of trying to be a "real" friend. And, it is not our job to make all of our research participants (or students!) like us. As a woman, I feel challenged all the time to give myself a break when it comes to trying to consider everyone's feelings and being friendly (so as not be construed as a "bitch"). Time to start taking that break.