"Sociology is concerned with facts..."
Nov. 1st, 2005 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
awmperry...or so I'm told.
Bollocks.
Had a lecture yesterday, jam-packed with factual errors, linguistic errors, bad statistics...
For instance, did you know that widows used to be called "spinsters"? No, neither did I. Funny, that, here I was thinking a spinster was an unmarried woman as opposed to one who had been married but whose husband had popped his clogs. Not that misinterpreting "spinster" in sociological data as "widow" could possibly skew the data, oh no....
And would this data be at all useful?
1970s:
less than 10% of men of working age were economically inactive
40% of married women were economically inactive
1979:
1.4 million men economically inactive
5.6 million women economically inactive
1997:
2.8 million men economically inactive
4.6 million women economically inactive
No, I didn't think so. The actual population isn't given in the last two examples, so they can't be compared to each other, and neither can be compared to the first because of the different criteria. So the whole thing's bollocks.
Or how about these definitions:
Sex:
biological differences between male and female bodies
Gender:
socially constructed categories of masculine and feminine and the socially imposed
attributes and behaviours that are assigned to them’
Could that be any more smug and verbose?
Or how about a newspaper cutting with certain bits underlined? She can't just trust the students to spot the things she wants us to spot, she underlines them and then asks us if anything stands out. And she takes
Latest statistics show that nearly half of all rape victims have been drinking heavily before they are attacked.
to mean that the writer's trying to blame the women rather than the rapist. Am I the only one who, instead, reads it as "being drunk is stupid because it makes you easier to rape"?
Why did I get into this bloody stupid non-subject?
Oh, and I'm starving. Got a blood test later today, so I haven't been allowed to eat since dinner on Sunday. Must... have... food....
Bollocks.
Had a lecture yesterday, jam-packed with factual errors, linguistic errors, bad statistics...
For instance, did you know that widows used to be called "spinsters"? No, neither did I. Funny, that, here I was thinking a spinster was an unmarried woman as opposed to one who had been married but whose husband had popped his clogs. Not that misinterpreting "spinster" in sociological data as "widow" could possibly skew the data, oh no....
And would this data be at all useful?
1970s:
less than 10% of men of working age were economically inactive
40% of married women were economically inactive
1979:
1.4 million men economically inactive
5.6 million women economically inactive
1997:
2.8 million men economically inactive
4.6 million women economically inactive
No, I didn't think so. The actual population isn't given in the last two examples, so they can't be compared to each other, and neither can be compared to the first because of the different criteria. So the whole thing's bollocks.
Or how about these definitions:
Sex:
biological differences between male and female bodies
Gender:
socially constructed categories of masculine and feminine and the socially imposed
attributes and behaviours that are assigned to them’
Could that be any more smug and verbose?
Or how about a newspaper cutting with certain bits underlined? She can't just trust the students to spot the things she wants us to spot, she underlines them and then asks us if anything stands out. And she takes
Latest statistics show that nearly half of all rape victims have been drinking heavily before they are attacked.
to mean that the writer's trying to blame the women rather than the rapist. Am I the only one who, instead, reads it as "being drunk is stupid because it makes you easier to rape"?
Why did I get into this bloody stupid non-subject?
Oh, and I'm starving. Got a blood test later today, so I haven't been allowed to eat since dinner on Sunday. Must... have... food....
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-10 05:04 am (UTC)That "no eating" thing? That was only supposed to be twelve hours before the test. Whereas I took "the day before" to mean... well, the day before. But the health centre had got so used to scheduling fasting lipids in the morning that they didn't realise "the day before" meant something totally different to someone with the test in the afternoon....