Is there a gender disparity in survey responses?

  • Thread starter Loren Booda
  • Start date
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In summary: So, I think my fear is justifiable.In summary, the poll is biased and does not provide useful information.

Choose the options which describe you best

  • I am a male

    Votes: 31 91.2%
  • I have little fear of being raped

    Votes: 27 79.4%
  • I have little fear of starting an unwanted pregnancy

    Votes: 21 61.8%
  • I am a female

    Votes: 5 14.7%
  • I have justifiable fear of being raped

    Votes: 3 8.8%
  • I have justifiable fear of starting an unwanted pregnancy

    Votes: 5 14.7%

  • Total voters
    34
  • #1
Loren Booda
3,125
4
I am trying to find a pattern between male and female concerns in this survey.
 
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  • #2
Looks like you already have the pattern, considering the order in which you put the poll options.

edit... Unless I misunderstood your goal.
 
  • #3
I'm not sure what the objective is. I have about as much fear of being raped as of being mugged, which is to say, it isn't really something I think about. Of course I'm generally careful about paying attention to my surroundings wherever I go and such, but not to avoid being a victim of any specific crime. I'd be more worried about being killed if an attacker had a weapon. As for fear of unwanted pregnancy, I've outgrown that stage of my life. Now, even an unplanned pregnancy wouldn't be unwanted.
 
  • #4
I am not very fearful of becoming impregnated

This poll is a bad poll. The creator is putting his/her own spin on the subject and telling people that all fears of being raped are justifiable and that having little fear is unjustifiable.
 
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  • #5
yeah, i don't really get the poll... what does it show?
 
  • #6
Pengwuino said:
I am not very fearful of becoming impregnated

oh, but i have my ways... mwa ha... mwa ha.. mwa hahahaha!

silly penguin...
 
  • #7
Well, we now know that PF is overwhelmingly male. Recall your standard deviation, the one lady until now who chose to answer is "statistically insignificant."
 
  • #8
Gale said:
oh, but i have my ways... mwa ha... mwa ha.. mwa hahahaha!
silly penguin...

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

*clicks the 5th and 6th option as much as possible*
 
  • #9
Shows how slow I type. Basically, my purpose for this poll is both to show that men have much less empathy for the state of pregnancy than women, and do not associate sex with fear as much as women do - both arguments that women are violated enough without all of us guys deciding what they must do with their bodies.
 
  • #10
Loren Booda said:
Shows how slow I type. Basically, my purpose for this poll is both to show that men have much less empathy for the state of pregnancy than women, and do not associate sex with fear as much as women do - both arguments that women are violated enough without all of us guys deciding what they must do with their bodies.

So you intentionally spun the poll to get results that you wanted. Ok. Most real polls want to discover results, not re-inforce their views.
 
  • #11
Loren Booda said:
Shows how slow I type. Basically, my purpose for this poll is both to show that men have much less empathy for the state of pregnancy than women, and do not associate sex with fear as much as women do - both arguments that women are violated enough without all of us guys deciding what they must do with their bodies.

SO its a biased poll, and therefore meaningless. You don't start a poll trying to get confirmation of a bias, you form a question and look for the answer, any answer. I would have expected better methodology from you. Of course, it was not necessary for you to say this for it to be obvious. The wording of the options makes it plain, just from the fact that the options are worded oppositely for men as they are for women.
 
  • #12
What, nobody's complained about the lack of an option along the lines of, "I have an irrational fear of..." or "I have a great fear of..."? I'm wondering, what's an unjustified fear of rape?
 
  • #13
Moonbear said:
What, nobody's complained about the lack of an option along the lines of, "I have an irrational fear of..." or "I have a great fear of..."? I'm wondering, what's an unjustified fear of rape?


I think the thing is so flawed it makes no difference. For men, the only options are little fear or no answer. What about lots of fear or no fear? For women the only choices are justifiable or no answer. They might have unjustifiable fear. Or not have any fear. Its completely useless. The statements are two part statements (having or not having fear, and a qualifier on what kind or how much), which means that there is more than one reason for not answering yes.
 
  • #14
franznietzsche said:
I think the thing is so flawed it makes no difference. For men, the only options are little fear or no answer. What about lots of fear or no fear? For women the only choices are justifiable or no answer. They might have unjustifiable fear. Or not have any fear. Its completely useless. The statements are two part statements (having or not having fear, and a qualifier on what kind or how much), which means that there is more than one reason for not answering yes.
Why? I answered little fear. Why should I fear those things? I can do my best to prevent them, but I don't much live in fear. Men in prison might have a very justified fear of rape. And, usually when there's a possible unwanted pregnancy in question, I've known of plenty of guys who have been practically quaking in their boots while waiting for the results of the pregnancy test. It wasn't worded fear of getting pregnant, it was worded fear of starting an unwanted pregnancy. I guess you could also just choose to answer with your sex and nothing else if nothing else applies.
 
  • #15
Moonbear said:
I guess you could also just choose to answer with your sex and nothing else if nothing else applies.
The survey is set up, as I read it, such that, the first three are if you are male, and the last 3 are if you are female, meaning a male is not supposed to respond to 5/6 and a female is not supposed to respond to 3/4. If this is not the case, then the results are even less meaningful, because you have no correlation between gender and the answers to the other questions, since you can't see who answered what. And if this is not the case, why is the second gender question halfway through?

My point was that you cannot deduce WHY a person decided the choices did not apply to them from the fact that they only answer their gender because there are mutliple potential reasons. You cannot claim that a woman who did not respond to 3 has no fear of being raped. Perhaps she does feel her fear is unwarranted. Doesn't mean there is no fear.
 
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  • #16
franznietzsche said:
The survey is set up, as I read it, such that, the first three are if you are male, and the last 3 are if you are female, meaning a male is not supposed to respond to 5/6 and a female is not supposed to respond to 3/4. If this is not the case, then the results are even less meaningful, because you have no correlation between gender and the answers to the other questions, since you can't see who answered what.

My point was that you cannot deduce WHY a person decided the choices did not apply to them from the fact that they only answer their gender because there are mutliple potential reasons. You cannot claim that a woman who did not respond to 3 has no fear of being raped. Perhaps she does feel her fear is unwarranted. Doesn't mean there is no fear.

Oh, I'm not saying it isn't flawed, I just thought it was for different reasons than you did. I didn't think I was limited to only the answers underneath "I am female," and didn't use them. The order might reflect the bias inherent in the question, but the poll set-up doesn't limit you to answering that way. Obviously, people making that assumption does indicate a flaw in the poll anyway. The bigger reason is that there's no way to actually tell who answered what, so you can't tell if there's any gender difference, as you pointed out. The choices are also rather limited.
 
  • #17
i think pf polls are generally silly when you're trying to get an idea about the general population anyway.
 
  • #18
I have very little fear in starting an unwanted pregnancy. As Nancy Reagan so aptly put it: "Just say NO!" :smile:
 
  • #19
I believe my seeming disingenuousness is more caused by the restraints of PF polls (length of sentences, number of choices, PF population, etc.) than any purposeful deception. I admit that I should not have drawn a conclusion before analyzing the data, but I think most pollsters entertain that.

Please offer an example of how you would word such a survey, trying to compare the concern of men vs women over their feeling of personal security as regards pregnancy and rape, and therefore abortion. Maybe this topic is best addressed by written responses, not a poll.
 
  • #20
Loren, don't you think that you have to make a poll option for each one, for males and females?...

Like

I am male and X
I am male and Y
I am female and X
I am female and YIf all the guys who visit PF were in jail right now, with access to the internet, I believe that they would be scared of rape more than most women are O_O
 
  • #21
moose said:
If all the guys who visit PF were in jail right now, with access to the internet, I believe that they would be scared of rape more than most women are O_O

You mean I am the only one?
 
  • #22
Pengwuino said:
You mean I am the only one?
It's not called jail for penguins, it's a zoo! *throws pengwuino another fish*
 
  • #23
To retain accurate correlations, I was faced with 8 survey statements, each asking yes or no to the 3 questions of type: Gender? Concerned about being raped? Concerned about unwanted pregnancy? The statements became unmanageably long.

I thought I could take a shortcut if the first three results of this poll were of nearly equal and sizable count ("male" PF responses), and the last three results of nearly equal but significantly lesser count ("female" PF responses). I assumed then that there would be a positive correlation among the first three counts, and separately, among the last three counts.

On the job I have yet to get one e-mail out of 1700 from persons with mental health questions from jail, although over half of the postal mail I have answered comes from inmates (at least 90% male). I think rape is an assumed yet unspoken fact of prison life.

Banish Penguino to Antarctica to star in his own documentary? :cool:
 
  • #24
A good proportion of males should have a justifiable fear of starting an unwanted pregnancy. Not their own of course. :smile:
 
  • #25
Through this poll we learn that 89% of the population is male.You know, sometimes when reading certain surveys on certain news websites, I think they make them this unaccurate...
 
  • #26
Loren Booda said:
Please offer an example of how you would word such a survey, trying to compare the concern of men vs women over their feeling of personal security as regards pregnancy and rape, and therefore abortion. Maybe this topic is best addressed by written responses, not a poll.


Have as another poster suggessted,

I am male and X

I am female and X

Further, the questions must be worded identically, with the exception of changing the gender.

Also, keep in mind, if any part of a statement is false, the whole statement is false. In order to make sure that the answers tell you something. The questions that will be compared must differ in one and only one aspect, such that a different answer is definitely due to that aspect.

Written responses would also work better, I agree.
 
  • #27
Loren Booda said:
Please offer an example of how you would word such a survey, trying to compare the concern of men vs women over their feeling of personal security as regards pregnancy and rape, and therefore abortion. Maybe this topic is best addressed by written responses, not a poll.

You would probably need an age range in there somewhere as well. Grandparents probably aren't too worried about unplanned pregnancies.

If you mixed results from men in prisons and the mixed population in general, might there be a correlation between a person's physical size and fear of rape?

Moonbear said:
Now, even an unplanned pregnancy wouldn't be unwanted.
Is that a triple negative or just a double negative? Or is it something in between - kind of like a double axel is to a double and a triple lutz? :smile:
 
  • #28
If I were to redo this poll, I would group together the 2 questions on gender, followed by the 2 yes or no questions with "little fear of being raped," followed by 2 yes or no (amended) questions with "concerned about being raped."
 
  • #29
Loren Booda said:
If I were to redo this poll, I would group together the 2 questions on gender, followed by the 2 yes or no questions with "little fear of being raped," followed by 2 yes or no (amended) questions with "concerned about being raped."


That would work if you could see who answered what, which unless I'm missing something, you can't do in the PF poll system. Unless you mean doing a regular pen and paper poll where you can correlate one person's answers to various with each other.
 
  • #30
Franz said:
That would work if you could see who answered what, which unless I'm missing something, you can't do in the PF poll system.
There are public polls. For example.
 
  • #31
BobG said:
You would probably need an age range in there somewhere as well. Grandparents probably aren't too worried about unplanned pregnancies.
Shouldn't need that, as it will affect both genders equally, thus drop out of the equation.
 
  • #32
There is also a problem with multiple choice pools. I see that among the 35 voters so far, 32 are male and 5 are female. :rolleyes:
 

FAQ: Is there a gender disparity in survey responses?

What is gender disparity in survey responses?

Gender disparity in survey responses refers to the differences in the way that individuals of different genders respond to survey questions. This can manifest in variations in the types of responses, the level of detail provided, and the overall participation rates between genders.

Why is it important to address gender disparity in survey responses?

Addressing gender disparity in survey responses is important because it can affect the accuracy and reliability of survey data. If one gender is significantly underrepresented in survey responses, the data may not accurately reflect the views and experiences of the entire population. This can lead to biased or incomplete conclusions and hinder the effectiveness of any resulting policies or decisions.

What factors contribute to gender disparity in survey responses?

There are several factors that can contribute to gender disparity in survey responses. These include social and cultural norms, differences in communication styles, and varying levels of comfort or confidence in sharing personal information. Additionally, the design and wording of survey questions can also play a role in influencing gender disparity in responses.

How can gender disparity in survey responses be addressed?

One way to address gender disparity in survey responses is to ensure that surveys are designed in a way that is inclusive and unbiased towards different genders. This can involve using gender-neutral language, avoiding stereotypical or sensitive topics, and offering multiple response options that are relevant to all genders. Additionally, efforts can be made to actively encourage participation from underrepresented genders and to create a safe and welcoming environment for all survey respondents.

What are the potential implications of not addressing gender disparity in survey responses?

If gender disparity in survey responses is not addressed, it can lead to inaccurate and biased data, which can have negative consequences. This can include perpetuating gender stereotypes and inequalities, as well as hindering the effectiveness of policies and decisions that are based on flawed data. It can also result in a lack of representation and inclusion for certain genders, leading to a lack of understanding and awareness of their perspectives and needs.

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