Thursday, June 16, 2011

British Universities- More Dangerous Than The Congo

Julie Bindel is writing about her favourite subject- the mass rape than female British students are subjected to- "one in seven women students had experienced a serious physical or sexual assault while at university or college".

I've been denounced By Ms Bindel for questioning the source for the statistic- a scepticism derived from both the sisterhood's previous misuse of studies and the specific similarity of Bindel's statistic to the discredited campus rape myth in the USA- and am inevitably accused of denying rape exists for my troubles (as I said it's a Julie Bindel piece.)

Sure enough the actual source for the figure reveals that they got the figure by- an online survey.

7 comments:

Mr Ecks said...

It looks like the usual pile of shite.
Sample-- "serious" physical violence-only 17% report it to the bluebottles. So somebody knocks her teeth out or breaks her arm (which is what I would call serious violence) and only 1 in 5 reports it?. How do we know this questionaire was filled in by the women they say filled it in and not by the "sisterhood" adding a little more colour to their tall tales.

JuliaM said...

We don't, which is why they've used it.

Matthew said...

So how is your Putin theory going to survive this Putin hiring a glamour model as photographer story? The obvious line would be to say he is using it to mask his sexuality, but I think that's too easy and expect something more sophisticated...

Ross said...

Matthew- I will have to think about that.

Mr Ecks- That is one of the reasons I'm sceptical.

Sarah AB said...

Online surveys always attract people with strongly held views. Thus if you have end of module feedback, to use another university example, conducted online you tend (I believe) to attract more students who either really loved or really hated the course. It seems likely that students who had either had an unpleasant experience or who were above averagely sensitive would be far more likely to respond. They should have asked men about their experiences too really.

Ross said...

Sarah- yes, it's a bit like Amazon reviews, you get a lot of 5 star and 1 star reviews, but not so many 3 star reviews by people who thought the product they bought was alright.

Anonymous said...

Or reference the BBC's "nation's favourite lyric" being hijacked at number 7 by the world famous John Otway with "Beware of the Flowers"?