Exaggerating With Statistics (About Rape)

OirishM · 2021-03-18T13:01:13+00:00

That's a good find.

Edwards et al (2014) do not explicitly mention how they managed such a feat, but I think the answer is clear from the labeling in one of their tables: "Any intention to rape a woman" (emphasis, mine). What the researchers did, then, was code any response other than a "1" as an affirmative; the statistical equivalent of saying that 2 is closer to 5 than it is to 1. In other words, the question was, "Would you rape a woman if you could get away with it," and the answers were, effectively, "No, Yes, Yes, Yes, or Yes.

...

The authors appear interested in deriving the most-damning interpretation of their data possible, however, as evidenced by their unreported and, in my mind, unjustifiable grouping of the responses. That fact alone should raise alarm bells as to whether the statistics they provide you would do a good job of predicting reality.

This is a pretty common dynamic with a lot of gender debate stats - we're seeing it again with the 97pc of young UK women have been harassed claim. The problem is how the initial stats are interpreted for the purposes of reporting, which may not match or may not necessarily follow the stats we see.

Acknowledging that bad behaviour exists on a continuum is valuable. It allows people to identify precursors to more serious behaviour. In practice, that nuance goes out the fucking window when reporting happens, which defeats the object of it somewhat. Most people aren't going to read the UN Women report on harassment of UK women, so they have no idea whether that alleged 97pc (a figure I'm not sure how one gets from the actual report, so perhaps there's a reporting issue there too) is 100pc sexual assaults on the more extreme end vs staring on the other. In practice, it's about 2/3 wolfwhistling, inappropriate comments, and staring. Not a good thing, but it's clear the bulk of the harassment the 86pc of young women suffering harassment in public reported is on the milder end of the continuum of behaviour the paper sets out. Putting this out into such a febrile atmosphere without contextualising it seems irresponsible.

It's hard to say how much of this is unconscious bias vs intentional twisting of data, but...I get the sense that women's activists are happy to collapse a continuum of behaviour if it will make their issues sound more pressing. Whereas, when discussing men's issues, people seem happy to nitpick over the details, talk about variations between extremes of behaviour - the behaviour continuum is 'suddenly' very important again. I've observed this dynamic reversed as well, with men trying to present a generalised stat/soundbite on some issue while nitpicking women's issues based on what continua of behaviour apply. To some extent, it is likely a natural consequence of very hurt people trying to get people to pay attention for their issues, but it is not necessarily a good dynamic to encourage.

Worth nothing there is an exchange between the study author and the article author in the comments, for context.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/comment/813256#comment-813256

Edit: Should probably also link to the UN Women harassment report discussion, think it links to the actual report

https://www.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/m6l8g4/un_women_uk_study_on_sexual_harassment_97/

Oncefa2 · 2021-03-18T12:34:03+00:00

Sexual assault is clearly a problem and can be extremely traumatic.

But why exaggerate and hype up how common it is?

Psychology Today takes on two widely reported statistics about sexual assault, breaks them down, and puts them into context.

The number of female college students who are raped is likely as low as 1 in 16, or 75% less than the common 1 in 4 statistic implies.

And the number of men who admit even a slight wingless to rape, if they could get away with it, is only 2% to 7%, not 31% as is widely cited. And even that number is based on a small sample (n=86) of college aged men. And is acquired using questionable survey methods.

The justification for exaggerating these numbers is based on the belief that men and women don't understand what sexual assault is. And while it is true that men and women don't always contextualize their experiences as assault, it's likely that researchers have grossly overestimated the problem by conflating things like awkward kisses and drunk (not blacked out) sex as rape.

This is important because men, and especially minority men, are vilified as rapists and potential criminals. And this vilification is used to justify questionable police tactics that play into racial and sexist stereotypes against men and minorities.

Better_Repeat · 2021-03-18T13:54:25+00:00

I once saw an 'infographic' where it stated:

only 2% of men are falsely accused, compared to 20% who are rapists.

It featured a grid of 'male' figures (like on the men's toilets), with 2 (literally two, not percent) shaded dark grey (to represent the falsely accused). However, I took a moment to count the number of rows and columns, and it turned out that there were more than 100 figures. So even going with the dubious '2% falsely accused', they made it look like a smaller proportion.

Edit: I actually managed to find it: link.

Vandechoz · 2021-03-18T17:49:43+00:00

The participants in question were asked about their likelihood of engaging in such behaviors "if nobody would ever know and there wouldn't be any consequences."

Wouldn't causing harm to someone be considered a consequence?

I think the "if you wouldn't get caught" phrasing from other surveys is better.

Title	Exaggerating With Statistics (About Rape)
Author	Oncefa2
Upvotes	41
Comments	9
Date	March 18, 2021 12:33 PM UTC (5 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/m7pt7e/exaggerating_with_statistics_about_rape/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/exaggerating-with-statistics-about-rape.1190863 https://theredarchive.com/post/1190863

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