This post is on the BDSM Activism web board.
| 6 Jul 09, 9:06 PM merrynb99 UK(SL), 5 yrs  |
Excuse me, but the title of the original press release for the researcher's piece was "Promiscuous men more likely to rape"! Where the hell did the Telegraph get "provocatively-dressed women more likely to be raped" from that?! She protested that she was no expert, that this was her dissertation project and that her findings were "very preliminary". Quoting the researcher direct from an actual conversation he had with her, Goldacre reports her as saying "Women who drink alcohol, wear short skirts and are outgoing are more likely to be raped? "This is completely inaccurate," Shaw said. "We found no difference whatsoever. The alcohol thing is also completely wrong: if anything, we found that men reported they were willing to go further with women who are completely sober." And what about the Telegraph's next claim, or rather, the paper's reassuringly objective assertion, that it is scientists who claim that women who dress provocatively are more likely to be raped? "We have found that people will go slightly further with women who are provocatively dressed, but this result is not statistically significant. Basically you can't say that's an effect, it could easily be the play of chance. I told the journalist it isn't one of our main findings, you can't say that. It's not significant, which is why we're not reporting it in our main analysis." So who do we blame for this story, and what do we do about it? Shaw said: "When I saw the article my heart sank, and it made me really angry, given how sensitive this subject is. To be making claims like the Telegraph did, in my name, places all the blame on women, which is not what we were doing at all. I just felt really angry about how wrong they'd got this study." Since I (Goldacre) started sniffing around, and since Shaw's complaint, the Telegraph has quietly changed the online copy of the article, although there has been no formal correction, and in any case, it remains inaccurate." And interestingly, although the Telegraph may now have altered the body of the online article, they most certainly haven't messed with the inflammatory (and inaccurately reported) headline: | ||||||
| 6 Jul 09, 9:20 PM Tanos  UK(M), 14 yrs   |
And nowhere does that say "blame". You're not the person to blame if your unlocked car gets stolen either: it's the car thief that has the blame, because people shouldn't be stealing cars.
Even if you project that out of yourself onto the words actually written, it's still not the blame. "Blame" was the Guardian journalist's straw-man word. Regards, Tanos www.tanos.org.uk | ||||||
| 6 Jul 09, 10:27 PM proccie UK(HP), 5 yrs    |
Like I said, many would not see it that way, including in the case of the car my insurance company, they would blame me by not paying up. And in the case of the woman many less educated than you, on the religious right, maybe, would equate dressing provocatively as blame, we could do without them having their prejudices reinforced. You may well be right logically, but in the common argot the meaning of headline is clear. Dr Ben Goldacre may have puffed the piece a little, but no where nearly as bad as the Telegraph did to the research in question in the first place. I see no straw man I see a "blown-up" story on a piece of unfinished research. Regards Don
Zen S&M: The sound of one hand smacking. Edited 6 Jul 09, 10:33 PM by proccie | ||||||
| 6 Jul 09, 10:57 PM emark UK, 8 yrs |
Aha - an argument for making porn! Now those certain "violence-against-women" groups who want all porn criminalised will be preventing an essential means of evidence! Sign the statement against criminalisation of possession "extreme" images. Petition against plans to criminalise sexual cartoons appearing to depict anyone under 18. Edited 6 Jul 09, 10:58 PM by emark |
