Comments on: 1 in 3 women beaten by partner

By: Trudy W. Schuett

Trudy W. Schuett — Sun, 05 Dec 2004 10:40:34 +0000

I’m seeing that “1 in 3″ business popping up everywhere in the past few weeks. I’ve begun to wonder if maybe there isn’t some centralized bureau of misinformation somewhere that chooses what kind of nonsense to disseminate on a month-by-month basis.

You could only arrive at a conclusion of 1 in 3 by some bizarre definition.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 03:10:49 +0000

Sorry Robert. Characterising men as gentle fits nowhere in my experience of living and studying NZ society over the last 20 odd years. Conversely I’ve extensive experince of an environment where men have been grossly and unfairly characterised as the only sex that perpetratres violence.
Given that experience I’m chilled with fear therefore seeing even the abstract for a study which advances the claim that 1 in 3 adult NZ women have been subject to violence. For it seems to me therefore that in an environment whereby men are grossly characterised as perpetrators of violence and women as victims of such that the claims of the study creates further perversive inference which further damages male-female relationships.

By: JohnP

JohnP — Fri, 03 Dec 2004 01:12:27 +0000

I’ve just posted a critique of this study by my wife Felicity here.

By: robert

robert — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 22:09:03 +0000

since more than half of respondents had not been either physically or sexually abused i would argue that broadcasting these results actually characterises men as gentle.

but i agree it would be damaging to broadcast an inflated figure for the proportion of violent men, but the fact is we don’t know yet that the figure is inflated. i strongly recommend you obtain the full study report from nzma, they do make a 1-month subscription available, & base any criticism you make, on what happened in the interviews, NOT on the sample size, which was, in context, very large & such as to provide a very high degree of confidence. trying to argue against the discipline of statistics would weaken the standing of your cause.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 10:14:02 +0000

Yes unfortunately the general public can be lured by such which claims to be ‘large scale study’, especially when much of the media is now one of the three pillars of the lace curtain.
I hope you can see therefore why I’m so quick to be condemning. I hope you can appreciate my urgency to counter-comment it. Such media broadscaling which characterises men as brutal seems to me very unhealthy socially devisive and thus damages EVERYONE.

By: robert

robert — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 03:53:45 +0000

you may be right that there is a problem with the study but so far your case seems to rest on the fact that a sample with a 6 times larger percentage of the population than is normal in surveys in nz is “small” and that after publication of the results they have been backed or used by other groups with a vested interest, & that universities aren’t always as academically/scientifically rigourous as they should be. now you might be right that there is something wrong with the study, but if you hope to convince the general public, (& i suppose you do), you will have to come up with something a whole lot stronger than that.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 04:09:19 +0000

Robert.
Regardless of what you say I still believe that less than 1% of a cohort is a ludicrously small sample to make such claims as 1 in 3 women are abused! and that it’s authors Janet and Elizabeth along with several others who’ve weighed in behind them do indeed have a vested interest in such claims. How the abuse industry likes to inflate itself!
And whoopee that it was done by a university. So what! I’ve seen more shonky ideologically driven so called ‘research’ coming out of universities in NZ and elsewhere over the last 20 odd years than I care to remember.

By: robert

robert — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 03:23:24 +0000

given that 1000 people are normally polled to guage the views of more than 2000000 voters, it seems that 2 - 3 thousand is a huge sample to represent only half the adult population. the research was carried out by a university, you might have meant that the funding was from those with a vested interest. if so this seems to be the only basis you have as yet for querying the study. you might do better to wait until you have read the full study before rubbishing it so heartily.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 12:56:15 +0000

Whaichever way you cut it 2,885 women questioned out of a total cohort group in Auckland and North Waikato of about 350,000 (a conservative estimate) is less than 1% of that female population. That HARDLY seems to me what the authors claim - a large cross sectional study. Duh!
I note also the research was carried out by those with a vested interest in getting more funding for the abuse industry.
And whoopdedoo! the report states that 15% in Waikato and 17% in Auckland had experienced violence from a non- partner during thier lifetime.
Jeez, I would have thought EVERYONE would have at least once in thier lifetimes fallen foul of a schoolyard bully, drunk at a party, irate neighbour, ………..etc
Fill in your own nouns here folks.

Pitiful, misandrist nonsense mascerading as science.

By: robert

robert — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 05:26:54 +0000

the full report is available for free @ the nzma after 6 months, but if you are too impatient you can subscribe (for a fee) for just one month, otherwise ask your doctor if they have a copy next time you go…?