Research Survey: British Women's opinions of "Woke"

[ResidentA]

Greetings Mumsnet Community,

I am a researcher currently conducting doctoral work on the perceptions of women around the concepts and ideas often categorized popularly as "woke". This research is being conducted at the Sorbonne IV in Paris under the department HDEA, Histoire et Dynamique des Espaces Anglophones. This survey is anonymous. The ethics statement is to be found at the beginning of the survey.

Your participation is invaluable for this work and will contribute to understanding the positions of British women on contemporary issues around women's rights, politics and society.

This survey is posted on the Survey Monkey platform and is designed to be brief, an estimated 6 minutes to complete.

Woke in Britain: Female Perspectives

Many thanks for reading and thank you in advance for your kind participation.

Rebecca

Hi Rebecca, not sure if you realise but your drop down menu of definitions of "woke" is pretty problematic.

You ought to know its origins are in African American/ Black political activism. You don't acknowledge this anywhere. That's a big omission.

Thank you for your feed back. The survey has its limitations , of course: I hope that people will feel free to leave commentary in the spaces provided as these types of comments are also valuable data points. Thank you!

Okay but the first question is a drop down survey asking people to define "woke" and none of the options are close to historically accurate. Your definitions are highly politically charged and I'm kind of struggling to see how this got ethics approval tbh.

Anyhow obviously I won't engage further.

I’ve done this but the survey doesn’t work entirely. Question 18 doesn’t allow for answers for instance.

I can see why you would say that. But yes, it is political .The study is meant to gauge political and social views. Thanks!

Thank you! I will check that. Many thanks!

It’s a very poor survey, although I have completed.
The term Woke is nowadays used in a derogatory way. The survey presumes that we accept the word and it’s meaning, many questions were almost impossible to answer because of that presumption.
It lumps T&Q in with LGB - I along with many people find this difficult to include together.

well quite, the word had a meaning and now its been so far stretched its corrupted- it reminds me of when in my youth we would self mockingly use the term 'politically correct' to denote a person or action that was unthinkingly alligned with the current fashionable causes, only to find the term got adopted into mainstream speech without the irony.

Hi Rebecca

The survey has its limitations - Is an understatement.

The term 'woke' originated within the Black - African American community, and used by the wider black community. It has since been appropriated and weaponized against Black men, women and children in the US and in Britain.

If you are going to use the term, you should give credit to the origin and context in the definitions available.

Do the opinions of British Black and Brown women not count?

started but stopped as someone who designs surveys for a living this includes a lot of bias which will render your results meaningless

It’s particularly galling that you use the term ‘Woke’ when you also include a question about White Privilege - it feels like you are ill-equipped to analyse results from such ambiguous questions.

I have had a look at the survey and to say it has limitations is to put it mildly. You have asked for sex and age but no other demographic info or education level. How can you ask a question like does "white privilege" exist without knowing whether the person giving an answer is white or not?

Unless Rebecca is looking for confirmation bias. I didn't make it past the first page.

“will contribute to understanding the positions of British women on contemporary issues around women's rights, politics and society”

I really can’t see how your very limited question set will gain any understanding into British women’s positions on these issues.

THe OP's confirmation bias is showing

maybe this discussion is the data
maybe we didn't all see the same version
maybe a different version is being posted elsewhere
maybe the real research question is 'how argumentative are mumsnet users, compared to netmums users?'

Quite! I did it (I love surveys) but it’s not a good survey as it is!

Can you not provide a definition without detailing its etymology?

The last point was the one that really concerned me. I wanted a box to elaborate on my opinion rather than a just yes/no.

LGBTQ+ issues are important to me.
LGB because I am opposed to homophobia and want to see protection for LGB rights.
TQ+ issues are important because gender ideologists make unscientific claims which threaten women's rights; prey on vulnerable, young people and lead people to take drugs and surgery which cause irredeemable harm to their bodies.

Yes absolutely - by answering ‘yes they are important to me’, It says nothing about why they are important.

I disagree that we should give a long description of the history of the word woke -
The word has found its way into common you said, though I do not think we have a common understanding. It's fine not to refer back I think to its origins.

no I think the history is relevant
when the word was first used it had a meaning and was used sincerely
now its meaning is vague and used in a derogatory way, eg 'woke nonsense'
I don't think I've ever heard the word used in a positive way

I gave up at LGBTQ. T & Q have nothing to do with LGB

Thank you for your feedback: The survey is meant to obtain responses without providing historical references of any kind. The goal is to know how women feel about the terms, familiarity, etc. Of course, it is for all women. Thank you!

All women? Do you mean all women or all people who say they are women regardless of their actual sex?