Last week's return of Demographic Tuesdays, repeating the Age poll was a success, staying up in the Recommended list for about 24 hours allowing all time zones to vote over all local times. Follow-up on Age below.
Continuing the repeat diaries in the same order, but not necessarily exactly the same question, this week's topic is What is Your Sex and Gender. Last time we were 68% male and 32% female, approximately a 2:1 ratio.
Since a random sample is not possible, the potential validity of the poll is improved by the diary being available in the Recommended list for 24 hours throughout the day, from early morning in the East through the night West coast time, giving all people, from early morning users in the East to late evening accessers in the West, equal opportunity to see it, to participate and vote, possibly reducing selection bias.
So, if you think that there is value in doing this please vote in the poll AND recommend the diary.
Who are we?
Know thyself.
Borrowing from Wikipedia, the word 'SEX' describes someone's body. It says whether someone is physically male or female. SEX refers to the male and female duality of biology and reproduction. Although often used interchangeably with 'SEX' in casual speech, the word 'GENDER' actually means something different. GENDER describes someone's personality or character. It says if someone feels, identifies or acts more like a female (feminine) or more like a male (masculine). Gender identity is "an individual's self-conception as being male or female, as distinguished from biological sex." Although gender is often still used interchangeably with sex, it should more properly be used when distinguishing social differences, known as gender roles.
I am just going to throw out a bunch of possible discussion points... it is not meant to be inclusive, exclusive, complete or whatever. Just some random thoughts to break the ice in getting some discussion going.
Sex, Sexism & Feminism:
Sexism is alive and real... in America, among Democrats, even here at Kos.
The everyday lives of women, throughout the world and in America are made worse by the history and currency of patriarchy and sexism. Whether it is wage and earning differentials or
In our little corner of the world, the hot issue is of course Clinton versus Obama, and the sex and age tendencies for who supports whom. No honest Obama supporter should deny that there are way too many American for whom Hillary Clinton is just a "b&*ch" that they will never vote for. Much of the criticism directed her way is sexist. But not all of it. There are legitimate ways to choose to not prefer her as the Democratic Party candidate. She can be critiqued as a triangulating DLC corporate centrist. It has to be okay to criticize her on the basis of policy and politics, without be accused of sexism. Obviously not all women think alike about Clinton, nor do all men. Duh.
Personally, I would argue that it is okay to prefer her, in part, because she is a woman. Identity politics, I believe anyway, is valid as one part, one aspect of making and overall choice. In such identity terms Hillary Clinton is (among other things) White, from an economically/ethnically/racially/religiously privileged family, and in her career she is also husbandly privileged (wife of former president). Such identity based identification and selection can go on and on. Is it okay to prefer Obama (in part, as one aspect of an overall choice) because he a black? Because he comes from academically gifted (both smart and valued education and getting advanced degrees) but less wealthy family? On the other hand, some see in Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton a way too classic story of an older, more experienced woman who has paid her dues, only to be passed over for a younger hard charging man.
Or should we vote based just on today's policy issues, experience and judgment, but no appeal to so-called identify politics?
Feminism: The simple view is that feminism is believing in political, social and economic equity (equality, equal rights) for all regardless of Sex or Gender. Insofar as historically this has meant overcoming societal barriers, legal or custom or practice, that give preference to men, then it is identified as feminism. But of course, your mileage my vary. Check out: BitchPhD, Feministe, Feministing, Pandagon, Shakespeare's Sister.
But of course, female-ness is not the only issue around gender/sex. Equally so is male-ness. What is the opposite of feminism? Is it Sexism? Is it Patriarchy? Is there legitimate "Malenism"; an approach to masculinities in today's society? Does anybody know of any good guy blogs (no, not ESPN)?
It seems to me (a 48 year old male) that over the past year, the false question of "why are there not more female bloggers" is being raised less often. There are of course plenty of blogs by women that are not predominantly about gender/sex/feminism per se. Some popular political examples would include Hullabaloo, War and Piece and of course The Huffington Post. I like many of the Seed Science blogs, and these include Aetiology and GrrlScientist. Alas, I still suspect that female bloggers, even if they are not covering sex/gender issues at all, are still subject to misogynist abuse that has no equivalent for male bloggers.
I am not going to bother linking to the Sunday Washington Post Charlotte Allen op-ed, and the many take-downs, fisking and deconstructions available to that bit-o-bs. But another, more substantive example of the continuing importance of these issues was the Sunday NY Times article on same sex education in primary schools and it's partial basis in sexist pseudoscience.
TransSexual and TransGender:
Last time I did the Sex diary, I mixed Sex with Sexual Orientation. Based on some of the discussion in that poll, this time I've mixed traditional Sex categories with Transgender; well actually Transsexual. I will cover Sexual orientation in a separate poll.
Why not just do Male and Female. Perhaps I should. It would be simpler, and I will no doubt be criticized for this combination. But it does seem that there are many Transgendered folks here on daily Kos. But based on my experience with doing these polls before, I believe that if I did a Demographic Tuesday's just devoted to that subject it would attract much less activity and discussion then if it is combined with Sex. By combining, I think the discussion will include many more people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analysis of Age Poll:
Here are the results of the daily Kos age polls from last week, the prior one from November 2006 and the U.S. population estimate from 2006:
It looks like our apparent age distribution is about the same as it was last time. Median and Mode (plurality) age-group is 45-49. Despite the cliche of yesteryear, and the new variant due to Obama-mania, we are not mostly a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings.
Additional thoughts and commentary as to "Age", as well as Sex/Gender, certainly are welcome.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here is link to the complete series of Demographic Diaries.
Of course these polls are not "scientific." The poll is inherently self selecting and is not a random sample. Since we don't know enough about total population, sample frame and self selecting sampling factors, we cannot even measure or estimate how inaccurate it might be. There is always the possibility for selection bias including but not limited to responder bias, making the survey results different than truth. And just size alone does not make it valid since still self selecting and has inherent selection bias.
Yet probably it does have some validity... yet not valid and can't even measure how invalid... yet.... Granting all that, there are some indicators suggestive of possible validity in these polls: for example if distribution is relatively stable and does not jump around wildly during the day, this is not definitive but suggestive (at least that it is not being "freeped". Also, when the poll is done repeatedly, either same way, or only slightly different way (some advantage to doing slightly differently, if thought out, as test of validity), at different times, let’s say different day of week, weekday and weekend, morning vs. night, months or years apart.
Some folks asked why should we do these demographic polls at all, and raised the issue of privacy concerns.
As to the why question, the simple answer is "know thyself." Who are we when we spout off and comment? Also, it can be fun. It also helps the discussion of whatever the topic is. And yes, maybe it will be reported by other media or be used to market advertising to the site.
As to the privacy concerns, Kos has certainly made clear his strong views against "outing" the real identities of anybody. I do not know what access the site administrators have to the data or linkages of usernames to poll responses. Myself, I am just a regular user, and have nothing to do with administration or behind the scenes here. I don't know who has voted or what age goes with whom. All I have is the same bar graph and diary that is publicly visible. Also, there are no cross-tabs between any variables. It is not like a questionnaire with multiple separate questions per single interviewee. I guess the question is a matter of what the site administrators COULD access and link or identify if they were so inclined, whether they WOULD do so; and what protections are there on system to prevent an outsider from doing so? Clearly if there were a serious break of confidentiality/privacy, the Kos community would react very badly. The simple answer is, if you are that concerned, with this or any other issue, then do not participate; don't vote. This is a voluntary poll, within one of many diaries, among the nearly infinite number of webpages you can browse.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Update: top headline on Yahoo news: Gender and race in Ohio
Following the order that we did the last time... I'll be putting up the Race/Ethnicity diary next Tuesday. I will come back and do Sexual Orientation (straight, gay, bi) on a Tuesday shortly. Also... income, social class, education, geographic region/state, urban-suburban-rural, job, yada yada yada.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------