Melbourne Central: La Trobe Street Exit Feminist Pseudoscience Backfires
A new study has been performed by the University of Michigan, which proves conclusively that any old idiot can get a research grant at an American university. If you like, you can read the full article [archive].
Dr Frank Stafford, the researcher responsible for the study claims that women do indeed do more housework than men. He says:
It's a well-known pattern. Men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labor.
This is indeed a well-known pattern, but it's not this blindingly obvious remnant of traditional values that mainstream media has latched onto. This mind-bending study offers some oddly pejorative numbers to support this view. According to the article:
Having a husband creates an extra seven hours of housework each week for women, according to a new study.
For men, tying the knot saves an hour of weekly chores.
"YEAH!" I hear women squeal as they finally get irrefutable scientific confirmation of something they've long suspected. It's astounding how much of a burden men are on women in the household, but lets break the numbers down a little.
So, wives save their husbands one hour a week, while spending seven hours doing so. How efficient of them.
There's a statistic I'd be proud of as a woman. Now I finally understand why they're so invested in disseminating this information as much as possible.
If I were a woman I'd be pushing to to dismiss this Dr Stafford on grounds of innumeracy and lack of common sense.
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[...] some people have interpreted this to mean that its taking women seven hours to do the housework it took a man [...]
> which proves conclusively that any old idiot can get a research
> grant at any university, given enough clout
There - fixed it for ya.
Haha, I know it’s a prejudicial statement, but truth is a defence to these things right?
I will concede that it may not just be America where this can happen — could be England too I guess, but getting a research grant down here is much more like choosing from a set menu.
Down here, If your research has anything to do with native wildlife, skin cancer, population distribution or a handfull of other ‘typically Australian’ topics then you can get a grant if you trade your firstborn child for it… otherwise screw you there’s only $2.50 left in the entire research budget.
It just seems (and not without evidence) that this kind of tabloid research designed to sell women’s magazines usually comes out of the USA or the UK.
I’m not claiming balanced journalism or anything. In fact, I fully acknowledge I can be an asshole about these things sometimes, but I honestly don’t see these idiotic articles ever begin with “French researchers conclude… ” or “A Swedish university has found…”
You’re right, of course. Out here, it is easier to get grants for pseudo-scientific socio-cultural/socio-economic studies than it is to study the mating habits of the manatee or understand cosmic phenomena.
That, I think, is an unfortunate state of affairs made by the prevalence of media and a social system where being intelligent or geeky isn’t necessarily the same as being “cool”. Sad, that.
Innumeracy? Not really. Obviously, all of the work the husband’s previous girlfriend or his mother did for him is now slapped firmly into the lap of his new wife. She now has to do their work and his pathetic one hour as well. Fortunatly, it’s not all that hard to through socks into the bedroom corner.