Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!zorch.SF-Bay.ORG From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: How to lie with statistics in one easy lesson (Re: What is Feminism?) Message-ID: <1990Aug14.094227.28145@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 14 Aug 90 09:42:27 GMT References: <9008132142.AA02798@houston.cs.columbia.edu> Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 57 Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Status: R travis@houston.cs.columbia.EDU (Travis Lee Winfrey) writes: >[...] For instance, you might take >a dim view of arguments that linked patriarchal structures to child >abuse, without knowing that over 90% of the incest cases reported to >the police and mental health professionals are in fact cases of >father-daughter incest, and most of them occur in stereotypically >patriarchal families. This datum does not indict that type of family >per se, but it is very disturbing, and it lends some weight in attacks >on inflexible patriarchal structures and gender roles. What a nearly perfect example of a statistic taken completely out of context to make a point it does not in fact support at all! First, consider "incest"; a less biased statistic would be "statutory rape", but "incest" pretty thoroughly narrows the focus away from the many other possible sources of children participating in unwilling sex to just the household adults or near adults. Second, consider "reported"; vaginal intercourse leaves much more compelling, easily noticed evidence than either anal or oral penetration, so this activity will be more "noticed", and thus more often reported about daughters. [Actually, anal penetration would leave just as compelling, easily noticed evidence - MHN] Third, consider "reported" again; societal values for a girl's first intercourse include such terminology as "deflowered", "violated", "devalued", and "spoiled", while a boy's first intercourse is more likely to be tagged "gaining experience", "sowing wild oats", or "marriage training". There is no compelling social call to report a boy's first sexual experience to the authorities, while we still try to protect our "weak, delicate girls" by doing so. Fourth, consider "patriarchal", the "traditional" family structure, a likely source of objection to incest on religious and other traditional grounds, as opposed to the "untraditional" family, which might well consider a little incest OK if it's kept in the family? Fifth, consider "patriarchial" again, the social structure where the lineage of children is assured by control of access of sperm to the mother-to-be's womb. In this "females as property" value system, reportage of property damage could be expected to be high, while the experienced male child (absent other abuse) is not necessarily "damaged property" in the view leading to the decision to make a report to the authorities. Sixth, if the topic is incest, I'm betting on grown siblings and cousins as the most frequent _participants_, infrequently if ever _reported_. Statistics are wonderful things, you can use them to prove whatever you want...to yourself. The wider audience is urged to take them with salt. Lots of salt. That 90% figure proves nothing about patriarchal families except that they report father-daughter incest a lot, a self-fulfilling prophesy. In responding, please answer what I wrote, not what your particular social agenda would like to have had me write. Kent, the man from xanth.