Fending off the genderistic nonsense about Janet Yellen.

"For years, the Federal Reserve has been led by men who had a scientistic view of monetary policy. These men – including Paul Volcker, Alan Greenspan, and Ben Bernanke... – viewed the job of running the country's economy as if they were dealing with chemical reactions or physics experiments," writes Kevin Roose, in a New York Magazine piece titled "Welcome to the Humanist Federal Reserve, Led By Janet Yellen."

[Janet Yellen] looks at the economy not just as a series of charts and figures, but as a moving, breathing organism, a collection of millions of people who are struggling to make their lives better today than they were yesterday.

Roose — who refrains from saying he attributes Yellen's difference to her gender difference — cites a Yellen speech at an AFL-CIO-sponsored conference that he says is "a remarkable look at the empathy she brings to policy-making." Empathy... visualizing the economy as a moving, breathing organism....

She... speaks about unemployment not just as an economic problem, but as a humanitarian crisis....

No matter what else it does, we know a Yellen-led Fed would use the tools of monetary policy to help millions of struggling Americans get back on their feet. And it's just one of the reasons I'm thrilled with the Yellen nomination.

This feels like gender-based claptrap to me, and I'm reeling in feelings from the furthest reaches of my female nervous system. Why wouldn't any bank official speaking at an AFL-CIO-sponsored conference include verbiage about the struggles of ordinary workers?

By the way, what is a "scientistic view"? Is it that way that men perceive? Wikipedia defines "scientism" as "a term used, often pejoratively, to refer to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview or most valuable part of human learning to the exclusion of other viewpoints."

Roose slathers Yellen in praise, but he's rolling out the usual stereotypes. Ironically, he's not female, and yet he's displaying some "woman's way of knowing" to arrive at a belief that Yellen will help people because she feels and cares. This reminds me of the murmurings about "empathy" and "heart" that burbled from Obama when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. She resisted the concept:

I can only explain what I think judges should do, which is judges can't rely on what's in their heart.... The job of a judge is to apply the law. And so it's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It's the law. The judge applies the law to the facts before that judge.

I'll bet Yellen fends off the genderistic nonsense in just about exactly the same way.