University of Kent survey

[MillicentFaucet]

I really don't want to believe that the people who signed off this research knew how it was going to be presented on MN. I grabbed enough info to have a dig about, I really hope that the psychology dept of Kent University didn't intentionally seek to paint the many thousands of MN users as bigots.
But it appears that the deleting of everything to do with it suggests the people responsible are aware of unethical it is.

I posted the point about the ambiguity/ possible insulting nature of the "no cervix" question on the thread that got pulled later , and someone responded to say they would look into it which suggests it hadn't crossed their minds

@Clymene

Here are a few examples of the shockingly poor statements they want respondents to give their opinions on:

'People that don't menstruate or don't have a cervix should be able to identify as women'.

'God's laws about abortion, pornography and marriage must be strictly followed before it's too late'

The point of the latter question is to make anyone whose views on sexual morality are founded on strong religious evangelical grounds give themselves away.

I was furious with that question because I have very definite views on the sexual immortality of pornography which are founded on a 100% secular basis. However having calmed down I could have answered "strongly disagree" and continued. Abortion and pornography were never raised again.

The question was intended no doubt to establish if there is a link between strong religious opposition to sexual freedom and opposition to gender ideology.

Therefore you (general you) could all have truthfully answered "strongly disagree" to that question and cheerfully answer every other question in as an extremist Terven position as you fancied. So their survey would actually show there is no link whatsoever with extremist religious views and extremist Terven views.

"Extremist" used for purpose of making examples work.

'researchers' with no understanding of feminists and a strong bias against feminists, survey feminists. They needed to do research before jumping to a survey based on preconceived ideas.

Or perhaps they meant would you start disco dancing ... freak out , c'est chic

Thanks for the links. I’ve looked through it as far as I could (I was moving through the pages without answering until it stopped letting me do that). I think it’s methodologically weak, but that is not really a complaining matter. If people want to complain, I would focus on the ethical issues – ie that the methodological weaknesses are so significant, that it renders the survey findings unusable. This is an ethical issue because you are basically wasting people’s time. Also, it's an ethcial issue that the assumptions and biases of the researchers are obvious, and offensive. I didn’t see the participant information sheet, which with online surveys is often the front page – that should explain the purpose of the survey. They do say in the de-brief sheet, but it’s too late by then, as participants have already wasted their time. the list of organisations they give in the de-brief sheet only concern trans issues. Why did they not signpost participants to gender critical organisations?
There are two researchers involved, one from Reading University and the other University of Kent. The Reading researcher is a Post-doc research assistant and the Kent researcher is a PhD student. As it’s clearly branded as a Kent study, the complaint should go to Kent.

GCmiddle, they were very insistent that anyone wanting to know more about the purpose of the survey should PM them so that it was kept private. Which looked suspicious in itself.

And which also showed that it hadn’t occurred to them that if they PMd one MNer, she could immediately share the info with everyone else.

I'm depressed that I share a professional field with one of those researchers. Disagreement is good i guess.

Looking at her other work, presumably she believes that societies that are aware of physical differences between men and women inevitably impose gender role boundaries on behaviour, and police those gender roles with violence. So that if sex is just the way we feel, there is an opportunity to reduce gender role imposition on each sex.

I think that's phenomenally naive and not particularly helpful - violent policing of gender roles that includes some males in the oppression of women isn't IMO an advance - but I guess that might be her stance.

societies that are aware of physical differences between men and women

Every society in the world, throughout time, and in fact not limited to humans - a great many other species are aware of these too.

Oh I agree with you gasp0de. But I think perhaps she believes if we weren't so aware of it in the brave new world, sexism would reduce. I don't.

This seems to be a common, though utterly bizarre, idea.

Yes, incredibly naive. Whatever you do about gender roles, clothing etc, you can't get away from reproduction.

@PermanentTemporary

Oh I agree with you gasp0de. But I think perhaps she believes if we weren't so aware of it in the brave new world, sexism would reduce. I don't.

So if one is not aware of sexism, it doesn't exist. Have I got that right?

Isn't this the equivalent of the small child putting its hands over its eyes and believing that the person in front of it has vanished?

Delurks

University of Kent is on my DCs list of university choices for next year and we are visiting to look round in the next couple of weeks. I wasn't quick enough to see the survey but if anyone can pm me details/screenshots I will take a look and be very happy to contact Kent and let them know how it has affected our thoughts about Kent as a choice

Crikey! Those questions are useless. Do those two academics honestly believe that people who disagree that people can ever change sex and that any male who feels like a woman is a woman, have anything like those opinions?

Did they honestly believe that posters on MN would not pick apart their dodgy questions?

I really despair what this study would have even showed. Where was any nuance?

It depends where you, or I, or this researcher thinks sexism comes from. To me and to a lot of posters on MN, changing your life so that you are 'living as the opposite sex' is in some cases a form of sexism, strongly associated with homophobia. Look at a video game company in the US run by four late-transitioning transwomen, including a married couple. Well, great, it must be a congenial and non abusive environment for them. But they say that a man who works for them 'is their only male employee', one at least appears on lists of top women in tech, and apparently has 5 children (also interviews delightfully, lovely personality). How many women in tech have five children and run a company with a programming background? The woman who bore these children in her body is invisible. Maybe she chose to be invisible. Maybe she didn't. It reeks of sexism and my young colleague seems to have no thought for the reality of what sexism is.

A PhD student and a Post Doc from a different university? Is this then part of a university supervised research programme or an attempt by two random individuals to generate propaganda?

If people want to complain, I would focus on the ethical issues – ie that the methodological weaknesses are so significant, that it renders the survey findings unusable. This is an ethical issue because you are basically wasting people’s time. Also, it's an ethcial issue that the assumptions and biases of the researchers are obvious, and offensive.

Thanks GCmiddle, that's helpful.

Also, I think the fact they cheerily dumped their survey in the middle of several threads where women were discussing the midwife crisis and maternity policies along with their own experiences of these issues was grossly inappropriate, and served to derail those discussions until MN stepped in to delete their posts.

They used the excuse (on their own thread afterwards) that they didn't realise how MN worked, but any researcher who's reaching out to potential subjects on social media should be able to work out how topics and threads work - it's really not unique to MN, and they showed a shocking disregard for serious maternity issues and for the women affected by them.

complaining to ethics about the methodological weaknesses is rarely helpful - ethics committees don't have the expertise to evaluate the methods of every study in detail, nor should they because it would be far too slow and restrictive. for an unpaid online survey study, the ethics committee would evaluate

• do participants give informed consent?
• do they know how their data will be stored & used?
• is recruitment fair & appropriate?
• does the study comply with GDPR?

if you think there are issues with those, complain about them. Otherwise, ethics probably can't do much. but I imagine the researchers have already learnt a lesson about jumping into this pit of vipers with a badly worded survey.

There is a clear invitation to complain if you have any ethical issues with the study. People aren't required to be university educated and aware of academic pressures to do so.

I did not see the full survey but have seen some of the questions on this thread.

This is my PERSONAL reaction and not meant as any kind of further comment on the area that I am surprising angry about. Like, actually really fucked off indeed.

I was born and raised RC.
I never believed even though at convent school for primary and lots and lots of religion. Some teachers nuns. This was in England.
So I have been an atheist my whole life.
I have also been a feminist from before I knew the word.

None of this is learned. It's just a fundamental of how I am and always have been.

Around the world many religions in particular the abrahmic trio have caused massive amounts of harm around the world. War, murder, oppression, torture.

As background RC I have always seen that the (traditional now watered down in places) views on abortion, contraception, homosexuality, sex in general etc have caused just outrageous immense suffering and harm to vast amounts of people through history and over the world and still today for millions and millions.

(I have no issue with RC individuals btw as a blanket thing I mean get to know people etc round here you'd be hard pressed to find any who even slightly took notice of those things for them or others).

Sorry going on but I'm SO FUCKED OFF...

How DARE they push out this utter shit.

How DARE they. Because I know that sexism is to do with sex not gender.

That I MUST be very hard line in a religious branch that CAUSES SO MUCH SUFFERING MURDER AND DEATH TO WOMEN AND GIRLS BECAUSE THEY ARE FEMALE ALL OVER THE WORLD IN UNCONSCIONABLE NUMBERS.

Yeah go fuck yourselves quite frankly.

You are extremely biased.
You enjoy stereotyping those you don't agree with and I'm guessing you can't even see it.
We are but AMERICAN FFS. God's law, concept of evil? What the actual fuck are you on about? It's bizarre and uselessly out of context here apart from some groups, areas, sects. Who are spread around the place and if you want THEIR views then you need to go ask them. This is MN. Posting here makes fuck all sense.

And BIG PROBLEM. Those questions are not inclusive across religions/ no religion. That is a massive problem. You have seemingly totally failed to remember that there are lots of religions in UK and so the survey exhibits religious insensitivity. And someone who is filling it in is of a religion that is poly- theistic, does not have a God, or they are called something else. Well they might feel pretty pissed off right? Been forgotten. Ignored. EXCLUDED.

what a total fucking shitshow.

@Doubletoilandtrouble

To be honest, I think someone who has grabbed some info should complain to the ethics committee within the psychology department.

The study would have needed ethical sign off in order to be published. Complaints to the ethics committee could have a positive impact for further studies.

I sent them an email yesterday. I wonder if I’ll get a reply!

@parietal

complaining to ethics about the methodological weaknesses is rarely helpful - ethics committees don't have the expertise to evaluate the methods of every study in detail, nor should they because it would be far too slow and restrictive. for an unpaid online survey study, the ethics committee would evaluate

• do participants give informed consent?
• do they know how their data will be stored & used?
• is recruitment fair & appropriate?
• does the study comply with GDPR?

if you think there are issues with those, complain about them. Otherwise, ethics probably can't do much. but I imagine the researchers have already learnt a lesson about jumping into this pit of vipers with a badly worded survey.

That is untrue. The method is fundamental in establishing whether a study is ethical. For a start the method used must enable the study question to be answered. An biased or underpowered study would be unethical because it takes from/harms participants for no benefit as it cannot answer the study question, or for very biased studies may present untue even fraudulent results. An ethical study must also cause the least harm possible versus possible benefits. These are methodological questions.

I guess the ethics committee should be interested in the fact mnhq took their survey down because of their behaviour?

Well yes, it doesn't appear that the recruitment is "fair and appropriate". The biased way it's written is likely to put off many of the women they are supposedly wanting to hear from.