Stand Your Ground Forums > Main
Response to Mr. Bad re: Farrell, Koss, and Archer
Mr. X:
--- Quote from: "gwallan" ---
--- Quote from: "ampersand" ---Finally, although I agree the question wasn't phrased as well as it should have been, the evidence indicates that it wasn't misunderstood. First of all, no sign of such misunderstandings came about in the pretesting. Second of all, a later study, not by Koss, compared the results from the question as Koss worded it, to the question worded in an unambigious form. Rephrasing the question to remove ambiguity made no difference to the results, which indicates that in the context of all the other questions, women surveyed correctly understood that the question referred to non-consensual rape, rather than drunken consent. Given the evidence that the question's phrasing was not misunderstood, there's no reason to drop the question from the results.
--- End quote ---
So participants were able to understand that distinction while unable to determine for themselves that they'd been raped. Credibility is being stretched to breaking point here.
--- End quote ---
Well of course. If women go along with the whole thing, their word can be taken. If they don't then they are dumb twits that need the state and feminists to tell them they were raped.
"Just ignore the feminists behind the curtain. She is of no concern to the great OZ".
ampersand:
--- Quote from: "Mr. Bad" ---
--- Quote from: "ampersand" ---
I think that it's obvious that the subject of that sentence is the study, not the mass media; therefore it is the study, not the mass media, which Farrell is claiming reached the 25% figure. To claim that the study reached "the 25 percent figure" - which in the context of the chapter, is clearly referring to rapes, not rapes and attempted rapes combined - is misleading at best.
--- End quote ---
No, the topic of the entire chapter was the media. You would know that if you had actually read The Myth of Male Power. Your argument above is disengenuous.
--- End quote ---
No, it's not. Even if I'm mistaken (always possible, although I don't think I am in this case), I'm sincerely so. (And I've read MoMP twice, by the way.)
And there's no contradiction between saying that the topic of a whole chapter is the media, but the subject of a particular sentence in that chapter was Koss' study. As we will see, that's the case here.
Here's the sentence I'm referring to again:
--- Quote ---A Ms-sponsored study which the mass media widely quoted as saying that 25 percent of all women were raped by the time they were in college used this question to reach the 25 percent figure...
--- End quote ---
The blue text contains the subject to the sentence, which is "A Ms. Magazine study." The red words modify the subject, but are not themselves the subject of the sentence. The verb phrase, explaining what the subject did, is in green.
When students have trouble understanding the meaning of complex sentences, one thing teachers often do is to drop out the modifiers and just look at the subject and the action verb. This (in most sentences) gives the core meaning of the sentence. Here's what we get if we do that exercise here: "A Ms-sponsored study ... used this question to reach the 25 percent figure."
Here's a sentence with the exact same structure:
--- Quote ---A employed painter who the mass media quoted widely as saying that paint tastes yummy reached his goal by collecting bottle caps.
--- End quote ---
Who in that sentence is collecting bottle caps - the painter, or the mass media? Does it make any sense to claim that this sentence says the mass media is reaching a goal by collecting bottle caps? No - that's nonsense. But it's also exactly how you're interpreting Farrell's sentence.
* * *
There is no room for doubt about the sentence structure question: Unless you and Farrell speak some special, non-standard English known only to MRAs, I'm right and you're wrong. The subject of the sentence, who according to Farrell "reach[ed] the 25 percent figure," is the study.
However, there is another possibility: Is it possible Farrell just made a mistake? Perhaps, although the subject of the sentence was technically the study, not the mass media, Farrell actually intended to refer to the mass media. If so, your claim that Farrell never falsely said that the study reached the 25 percent figure can be rescued.
Although author error is always possible, I would argue that it's not a very plausible interpretation in this case. Usually, when a writer makes an error of that sort, we know because in context the sentence doesn't make sense read literally. For instance, if in the middle of an exchange about how to bake well, someone writes "now, you must be careful to use too much flour. Using too much flour will ruin the cupcakes," I'd assume they meant to say "be careful not to use too much flour," because that's the only way their sentence can be parsed that makes contextual sense.
But Farrell's sentence makes perfect sense, in context and read literally. Farrell is saying that the mass media screwed up by pushing the 25% figure; and he is saying that Koss reached the 25 percent figure by using an inappropriate question. Although I disagree with Farrell about Koss, nothing in what Farrell wrote was self-contradictory or doesn't make sense.
In fact, the alternative interpretation you're arguing for - that Farrell mean to say that the mass media used one of the survey questions to reach a 25 percent result - makes less sense. It wasn't the mass media that conducted the study, so blaming the media for that - as you're claiming Farrell did - makes much less sense than blaming the study, which is what Farrell actually did.
I had intended to spend more time replying to people on this forum today, but I'm being called away for baby-sitting Sydney (regular "Alas" readers know who Sydney is!). I'll try to return to this thread sometime in the next week, or later today if possible.
gwallan:
:duh:
Mr. Bad:
--- Quote from: "ampersand" ---
However, there is another possibility: Is it possible Farrell just made a mistake? Perhaps, although the subject of the sentence was technically the study, not the mass media, Farrell actually intended to refer to the mass media. If so, your claim that Farrell never falsely said that the study reached the 25 percent figure can be rescued.
Although author error is always possible, I would argue that it's not a very plausible interpretation in this case. Usually, when a writer makes an error of that sort, we know because in context the sentence doesn't make sense read literally. For instance, if in the middle of an exchange about how to bake well, someone writes "now, you must be careful to use too much flour. Using too much flour will ruin the cupcakes," I'd assume they meant to say "be careful not to use too much flour," because that's the only way their sentence can be parsed that makes contextual sense.
But Farrell's sentence makes perfect sense, in context and read literally. Farrell is saying that the mass media screwed up by pushing the 25% figure; and he is saying that Koss reached the 25 percent figure by using an inappropriate question. Although I disagree with Farrell about Koss, nothing in what Farrell wrote was self-contradictory or doesn't make sense.
--- End quote ---
I don't know Amp, but it appears that you're looking very hard for a reason to use that one sentence to try and discredit Farrell. I've read the book twice and re-read Chapter 14 (the one on how the media politicizes rape) just recently and to me it is very clear in context that Farrell intends to indict the media re. narrowly interpreting the results of the Koss study in their fervor to politicize rape. Now you've already aknowledged that even Koss herself can write poorly, so I find it a bit questionable that you jump on that one sentence (out of an entire chapter, let alone book) to use to criticize and try to discredit Farrell.
Like I said, to me the meaning was quite clear. Obviously YMMV.
Quentin0352:
Heck, you expect something honest from Amp when he can't even respond to his definitions of rape that are fluid depending on what he wants it to be at that moment in time?
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version