"Statistics reveal that women are more emotional than men." Am I more emotional than him. Let me call up X and ask her. "X, do you think you are more emotional than Y (Y is a man. Obviously). Now X is listening and her mind races into the flashback mode. Instances of 1986 comes to her mind. She starts sniffing and the caller is kind of moved too. This is exactly what statistics and researches do to humans. The non-human world is blissfully unaware of any such researches and statistics and go on living life as its meant to be but we humans. Alas!!
How many times these studies move us into adaapting ourselves to think the way the studies point out. Even though sometimes, we might not be able to agree with it, we find it inadequete that we are not like that. The stronger of the species ofcourse sail through all this nonsense without as much as batting an eyelid but the most vulnerable ones. What to say of them.
Now coming back to the first analogy. Men can also be as emotional but then the studies are so popular that men tend to think that it is inappropriate to be emotional. These studies are like a double edged sword: Do they make the people believe that because of the studeis they are like that or do the studies prove that which has been quite prevalent.
The number games provided by these statistics are also quite fuzzy. The survey would have been actually conducted with a few samples of men and women but then when that is projected for the entire population, its just ridiculuous. All these statistical data, are they applicable to the tribal women/men, men/women who spend their lives in the pavements? Maybe No and might be Yes.
Probably the finale of this post would be this: Don't get carried away into moulding yourself into what the studies and statistics reveal. Use them to enhance your knowledge in a sociological way but not such that you go about ranting and raving about trivial studies that are conceived in air-conditioned labs and research rooms.
The tests themselves are most of the time designed in a way which make us answer what we want to be, rather than what we are. The sensitivity of the test to change in questions is never measured. So, there is always a doubt about how good these tests are. Many times I do not believe in these tests.
ReplyDeleteThe only one that I believe is the one which said that drinking alcohol in moderation is indeed beneficial for health
U drawing parallel to the tribal life is interesting. May be( as per the idea of tribal advocated to us) the tribal society like hunter gatherer or a peasant man might have been admired for his bravery and hard muscle power and not for being emotional. but these surveys are conducted not for such men and women who face real world but to the educated. that is why the question of thinking emotionally comes. now both men and women are just thinkers in an educated society and so the survey is to check whether women still act in an emotional way that is emotional thinking. if that is the case then the men are brutal in thinking? or what else is the opposite of emotional thinking. if that is the case the modern industry based society constructed by the Male men are the result of brutal thinking. in that case we can agree to eco feminists who say that we should reconstruct the world in a feminie way of thinking and that will be more ecofriendly. lets do away with brutal thinking and its results. so insted of a hard Dick let the men have a soft Dick. i think that is what a woman wants.
ReplyDeleteDesigning survey questions is tricky. In fact, ANY research methodology is. The researcher has to be open to varying opinions. The basic problem is between having a hypothesis and an opinion. In the former, you would collect data and THEN conclude whether the hypothesis was right or wrong. One the contrary, if you (already) have an opinion, then you would willy-nilly gather data in such a way that would only support your opinion.
ReplyDeleteIn the current case, for instance, the correct question to ask is - "Who is more likely to give an emotional response to a situation - a man or a woman?" Researchers would not ask such questions because there are high chances that the answer will be - depends on the situation! And then the researcher has no way of making sense of the answer....
The moment you ask it as - is a woman more emotional than a man - the question already puts a bias in the mind of the responder.
Vinay: Wise man!
ReplyDeleteSamuel: The research generalises and says: "All men" and that's why I raised the tribal question. Can brutal be the opposite of emotional? I doubt so. NO. I can't even agree with the Eco feminists who want a feminine order. Well, Samuel as long as blood flows in blue veins, one cannot choose 'soft dicks' as you have mentioned (as long as one isn't a nun or a lesbian). The question raised in this post is not about what women want; it is about the statistics and researches conducted which generalise the results by taking into consideration a minuscule sample of maybe 100 to 200 men/women.
Pushkaraj: As always your comments open the mind to further thinking.