Damned Lies

Another alarming report on wife abuse ruined a perfectly rainy day. It was in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I am shocked, not at the quoted figure (one in three women abused worldwide), but that it is taken at face value. It is immoral to dupe a land as poor as the Philippines into a welfare scheme for wealthy women. Every peso wasted may be another child starving to death.

The survey, titled, with becoming neutrality, “Ending Violence against Women,” was written and released by the “co-director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity” (Lori Heise). Think vested interest. Heise’s livelihood depends on showing there is a problem. Would we accept a study by the tobacco industry showing that smoking does no harm to health?

Let’s check the facts.

The study says “10 percent to over 50 percent of adult women have been physically assaulted by an intimate male partner.”

The wide range in data returned itself invalidates the survey. Science means reproducible results. If one investigating team produced a rate of over fifty percent, and the next produced ten percent, the proper conclusion is that the model is wrong. The meaning of the results is an x-factor.

What here constitutes “physical assault”? The article calls this “a distinct crime, of a vastly different nature from most other causes of ‘physical injuries.’” It involves things not seen as assault, but considered “justified” by “many people.” “One of every three women on the planet has been beaten, raped, or somehow mistreated.” (So the BBC report-italics mine). That “somehow mistreated” could mean almost anything. The Center’s summary actually refers to abusing women “physically and emotionally,” to “either physical or verbal abuse.” We cannot guess what the numbers mean, unless we know what their definition is. By calling a chicken a pig, you can also demonstrate “scientifically” that pigs have wings. Almost any sort of physical touch or body contact or verbal criticism has, by one study or another, been classed as assault when it occurs to a woman in the home. Given that two people living together are unlikely to avoid all speech or physical contact, it is easy to design a survey that would return a figure of 100%.

We must also know who was asked. Were those reporting self-selected? Invalid. Were only women asked? Invalid. A study of abuse that questions only women is comparable to allowing only the prosecution to give evidence at trial. It is accurate only if nobody ever lies or misconstrues, which is improbable, even for women. And in every single study cited here, only women were interviewed.

Just what question was asked? Did the interviewer have a preference regarding the answer? A survey can be wildly skewed by how you frame the question, or even tone of voice. If, for example, you ask, “do you believe women should have reproductive freedom?” you will get a different response than if you ask “do you believe the life of the unborn child should be protected?” Many people will answer “yes” to both. Pepsi-Cola once ran a campaign showing people in a blind taste test preferred Pepsi, labelled “L”, over Coke, labelled “R.” Then Coca-Cola showed people prefer the letter “L” over the letter “R” by about the same margin.

Is there a control? If similar rates are found everywhere, as indeed the study claims, it is hard to know how rates of “assault” could be brought down. Assault is a bad thing; so is death. If both, however, are universal, the probable conclusion is that nothing can be done.

There is an obvious control available. Such studies, to be meaningful, should at least compare the rate of assault of women with the rate of assault of men, using the same criteria and collection methods for both. If figures are similar, then wife assault is not a problem; this level of “assault” is part of life.

This was not done in any studies cited by the center.

Interestingly, when it is, we find women assault men more often than men assault women.

Do we need women’s shelters? Almost as much, I guess, as we need shelters for battered men. Given unlimited resources, both might be a good idea. Given limited resources, we have more important problems.

There is a further factor to consider. Shelters help break up marriages and families.

On the basis of the present study, the Philippine Daily Inquirer urges women to “practice how to get out of your home safely,” and “Devise a code word to use with your children, family, friends and neighbours when you need emergency help or want them to call the police.” “Have a packed bag ready, containing spare keys, money, important documents and clothes. Keep it at the house of a friend in case you have to leave your own home in a hurry.” Friends, it seems, can be trusted with valuables; husbands cannot.

How many marriages can survive this sort of paranoia?

Next day the same paper carried a half-page ad: a yoghurt container and the bold legend: “CAUTION: BUILDS FEMALE STRENGTH. HUSBANDS WHO HABITUALLY COME HOME LATE CAN NOW EXPECT MORE THAN A LECTURE” (Capitalization theirs). And a cartoon (“Sherman’s Lagoon”) showing a wife hoisting an axe and saying “See this axe, darling? If you leave the toilet seat up one more time I’m going to chop you into pate. Better make a will.”

There are, as Mark Twain noted, three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

The survey would certainly be two, and perhaps three, of the above.