The Celtic doormat
Meanwhile, in Scotland…
A study of schoolchildren has found that most of those questioned thought violence towards women was acceptable if there was a reason behind it. The majority of the pupils said it was justified if the woman had an affair, or if she was late in making the tea.
Or anything in between, no doubt.
Yes OB, the Pope could have been blaming loss of faith by the general population. (I’m only going by TV news grabs here.) Another interpretation, less likely perhaps, is that he is having a crack at loss of faith among the clergy.
It appears to me likely that the clerical child molesters and their clerical defenders probably have a fair number of cynics, sexual opportunists and two-faced men in their ranks. Just a hunch, you understand. But this leads to the question: ‘how many priests actually believe all the theology and doctrine they are trying to sell?’ Secondly, how could anyone ever find out how many?
I suggest that the Pope require every member of the Catholic clergy to answer a few fairly basic questions, starting with ‘do you believe in God?’ and ending with ‘would you submit to a lie-detector test on all that?’
I am sure that after he reads this Pope Ratzinger will lose no time starting the program.
Could be those kids have been following that brilliant curate down in Kent. . . he’s been giving some helpful advice lately about the place of women and how to keep them submissive.
Could be those kids have been following that brilliant curate down in Kent. . . he’s been giving some helpful advice lately about the place of women and how to keep them submissive.
Insanity! Surely it’s more parsimonious to assume that children are naturally racist and misogynist. How dare you imply that they might be taking the example of bigoted adults. Children are pure.
They are not pure. They are filthy little natural mimics. And they are always on the lookout for a reason to hit someone. . .
Apologies if my sarcasm was not clear enough. I have simply seen the argument that “misogyny/racism are genetic, because study x shows kids are misogynistic/racist” enough in recent history to put me in an irritable mood on the subject. People impress their biases on their kids, then hold up the kids as evidence that those biases are somehow right because they are “natural” (nature vs. nurture? What’s nurture?).
A less abhorrent but more widespread version would be the aeons-old meme that kids are pure and all believe in God/angels, and it’s only our pride/stubbornness as adults that keeps us from being “as children”.
I meant to mention in that last example that the belief of children, imprinted by their parents, is subsequently held up as evidence of the existence of God. Circular reasoning is everywhere. Too many people with fluff where their brains should be.
I wonder if you would get the same result if you deleted ‘woman’ and replaced it with ‘person’.
I don’t pretend to know the answer, but I don’t know whether the researcher has uncovered a depressing acceptance of violence against women, or of violence in general.
Since you mention it, I also wondered just a little if the ‘for a reason’ bit represented the children trying to give an expected answer as opposed to a worked-out belief. In other words if the poll asks ‘is it okay to hit a woman?’ then ‘is it okay if there is a reason?’ might work as an unintentional cue – kids might think ‘I’m supposed to say yes; if there’s a reason then that must mean it’s okay.’
But the researcher probably wouldn’t have been that dumb, so never mind.
Or if girls speak to boys at all, let alone want to choose their mates:
Camels, Gnats, and Shallow Graves
http://www.starshipreckless.com/blog/?p=1607
Patrick: in a word, no.
Paul – very sorry. Your sarcasm what very clear. But I think mine wasn’t. And you make a good, clear point also.
I think this study is more likely to show that twelve year old children are quite adept at pulling the plonkers of the self-righteous.
The…what? The self-righteous? Is research into violence against women self-righteous?
Erm, I think the kids may have been taking the piss, because they were given a number of choices to select. Bear in mind the younglings of our species probably get very, very tired of being told to fill in forms, do tests, show the correct response etc. I think I’d have gone a bit snarky about it too.
OB,
Were these people doing research into violence against women I wouldn’t call them self-righteous.
But they aren’t; they are conducting fatuous ‘attitude surveys’ of children, designed to generate shock-horror headlines and keep the research grants rolling in.
Nancy Lombard at
http://www.napier.ac.uk/fhlss/HSS/Staff/Pages/Nancy_Lombard.aspx
tell us:
“My main research interests are male violence against women, children and young people, feminist methodology, gender and sexualities, lone parent families”
So B, F O D, this woman does indeed do research into violence against women. Recently she’s done some talks about violence against men. I don’t know about Scotland but in the US this kind of research does NOT keep grants rolling in. In fact there is no such thing as grants rolling in. It takes work, brains, and a really really good idea to even be competitive in the US research $$$ world. There is not much interest in funding research about violence against women at any level. . .
I can’t find the original article online but this research is reported as “talking to” children not asking them to do attitude surveys or check items off on a multiple choice list. There were 89 kids in the study, pretty small for something large scale like a survey. I believe she interviewed them. She has a chapter in an edited book that isn’t available online either, but my university library’s copy is available and if I have time I’m going to have a look.
If you want to look for it, here’s the citation:
Lombard, N. (2008) It’s Wrong for a Boy to Hit a Girl Because the Girl Might Cry: Investigating Primary School Children’s Attitudes Towards Violence Against Women, in Alexander, F. and Throsby, K. (eds.) Gender and Interpersonal Violence: Language, Action and Representation Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, pp. 121-138
Brian,
But do you know that? It looks as if you’re just assuming it, and Claire’s comment backs that up. The possibility of leading questions occurred to me too, but so did the possibility that the researcher knew what she was doing. It’s not clear whether or how you know what you asserted.
My response was similar to Patrick’s – I wanted to know what the children would have said if asked if it was ok for women to punch men if *they* had affairs.