Is it possible to do non-sexist research on male-pattern baldness?

azazelcrowley · 2020-03-13T22:39:18+00:00

Any data you seek must be published to remain ethical.

SamHanes10 · 2020-03-13T20:34:23+00:00

I see you aren't happy to keep this discussion to it's original thread, and instead want to blow your trumpet here, and also take other peoples comments out of context. Unfortunately, it simply shows you have a very poor understanding of science and how control groups work.

In reference to the original paper, the male group is an essential control group. It is not possible to infer that the 'discrimination' against married childless women is due to potential pregnancy without this control group. It is possible that there is general discrimination against married childless people that is nothing to do with pregnancy, for example, because people dislike childless people. In other words, to attribute discrimination due to potential pregnancy, they need to show that this does not occur in married childless men in addition to showing that this does occur in married childless women.

In reference to your suggested 'analogy', the female group would be an essential control. The question you are asking is:

Are bald men (specifically) discriminated against compared to other men?

Note the word specifically. Here, it is essential to your hypothesis is only about bald men. It is not about bald people in general. If you did find that bald people in general (i.e. both men and women) were discriminated against, this would invalidate your hypothesis.

In this putative research, it is essential that a non-male group is included in the study. If you did not include the non-male group, you would not be able to conclude that bald men are specifically discriminated against. You could say your data shows that bald men compared to other men, but you cannot rule out that this is a general discrimination against bald people. Certainly, you could do a male only study and not include females, but then, I would expect the reviewers of this study rightfully point out that your study cannot conclude that it is a specific form of discrimination against bald men.

If, during your study, the non-male group suffer much greater discrimination that your any of your male groups, your research thrown into question. This is because having a control group that is very different from experimental group means that the two groups cannot be directly compared without further caveats. You might be able to say, for example, that the data appears to show specific discrimination against bald men and no evidence of discrimination against bald women. Nevertheless, this is a weak comparison because it assumes that the same level of effect could be observed at different overall levels of discrimination.

In order words, the larger finding in the study immediately becomes the fact that there are much large dynamics of discrimination in play, and any report of that study must acknowledge that this research (into discrimination against bald men specifically) cannot be done properly since it is impossible to obtain a proper control group.

The research is not sexist because it was focused on men, the research is sexist because it continues to focus on men even when the findings show a bigger issue at play (discrimination against woman), yet fails to address this. It would also be wrong for the study to continue to report their findings in terms of discrimination against men without adequately addressing the massive issues in terms of differences with the control group.

My advice to you: Learn how science works before trying to (passive aggressively) lecture others about it.

2020-03-14T02:06:45+00:00

What about shaving your head? That always looks better than balding or doing a bad comb over.

Skept1kos · 2020-03-14T11:25:15+00:00

If the study is focused on trait-based discrimination of males, including females in the reference group makes it a flawed study to begin with.

Title	Is it possible to do non-sexist research on male-pattern baldness?
Author	Skept1kos
Upvotes	4
Comments	9
Date	March 13, 2020 5:32 PM UTC (6 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/fi3e68/is_it_possible_to_do_nonsexist_research_on/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/is-it-possible-to-do-non-sexist-research-on-male.1063840 https://theredarchive.com/post/1063840

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