Is there a gender disparity in survey responses?

[Loren Booda]

I am trying to find a pattern between male and female concerns in this survey.

 

[mattmns]

Looks like you already have the pattern, considering the order in which you put the poll options.

edit... Unless I misunderstood your goal.

 

[Moonbear]

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.

 

[Pengwuino]

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.

 

[Gale]

yeah, i don't really get the poll... what does it show?

 

[Gale]

I am not very fearful of becoming impregnated

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

silly penguin...

 

[Loren Booda]

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."

 

[Pengwuino]

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

*clicks the 5th and 6th option as much as possible*

 

[Loren Booda]

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.

 

[Pengwuino]

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.

 

[franznietzsche]

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.

 

[Moonbear]

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?

 

[franznietzsche]

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.

 

[Moonbear]

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.

 

[franznietzsche]

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.

 

[Moonbear]

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.

 

[Gale]

i think pf polls are generally silly when you're trying to get an idea about the general population anyway.

 

[arildno]

I have very little fear in starting an unwanted pregnancy. As Nancy Reagan so aptly put it: "Just say NO!"

 

[Loren Booda]

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.

 

[moose]

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

 

[Pengwuino]

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?

 

[Moonbear]

You mean I am the only one?

It's not called jail for penguins, it's a zoo! *throws pengwuino another fish*

 

[Loren Booda]

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?

 

[Orefa]

A good proportion of males should have a justifiable fear of starting an unwanted pregnancy. Not their own of course.

 

[moose]

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...

 

[franznietzsche]

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.

 

[BobG]

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?

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?

 

[Loren Booda]

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."

 

[franznietzsche]

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.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

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.