Comments on: Reifying Gender in Election Coverage

By: Joshua Clement Broyles

Joshua Clement Broyles — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:38:00 +0000

I’m not sure that it’s so much reification as cherry-picking. Since it doesn’t tell us much of anything anyway, the easiest ulterior motive to suspect would have to be to imply that the electorate is more close to evenly divided across demographic variables than maybe it really is. If they would show, instead, any of the variables suggested, the imbalance of responses would likely only be more pronounced. One possible implication is that the news venue wants to produce the impression of a less predictable election in terms of the way demography predicts voting patterns. Another possible implication is that they just don’t know what they’re doing with demographies, and chose the one they thought would be either the most provocative or the least provocative, depending on their viewership goals.

By: Guest

Guest — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 00:53:00 +0000

Could you explain how this is reification?

By: Brandon

Brandon — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:31:00 +0000

Many men are terrified by anything that might be considered even remotely “gay.”

By: Sariel

Sariel — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:31:00 +0000

Politically speaking, women tend to be more supportive of GLBT issues. Some of this aligns with feminism and some of it is that women tend to have more gay friends than their male counterparts.

By: nik robots

nik robots — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 01:07:00 +0000

I’m curious how was this data collected, and from what sample of women & men?

By: nik robots

nik robots — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 01:06:00 +0000

If any one finds the procedure/methodology discussed, let us know!

By: Alison

Alison — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 02:49:00 +0000

why would women and men have different opinions on GLBT issues?

By: Sariel

Sariel — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 02:36:00 +0000

Having watched the coverage after the debate the focus group was really small – only 6 -12 people and they mostly looked middle-aged and white to me. It’s not really a relevant sample size just something to give people to pay attention to other than the actual policy being debated. What would’ve been interested (although probably not reliable data) is if the candidates had talked about GLBT issues, women’s rights (fair pay, abortion, birth control coverage in healthcare), or anything else where we could reasonably surmise men and women would have different levels of interest.

By: Brandy

Brandy — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:01:00 +0000

Had the candidates discussed gender salient issues the lines would have been more interesting. However, when you have a population you don’t know anything about gender is the easiest way to split them in half. Economics and cultural background are not so cleanly cut as “gender” is for “most” Americans.

By: Dal

Dal — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 12:53:00 +0000

Perhaps with a large enough sample size, but it’s hard to decide whether that should be expected without knowing…

By: Gilbert Pinfold

Gilbert Pinfold — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 09:25:00 +0000

This is a good point. The idea that ‘men and women track each other’ seems to beg the question. If sex was not significant you would not expect the male-female response graph lines to run like railroad tracks.

By: drdanj

drdanj — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:08:00 +0000

Did anyone else notice that whenever the two cameras got into the just right positions, “pu” showed behind Romney and “berty” showed behind Obama to form puberty? It’s almost lined up in the image above. Just a random observation.

By: Stefan Krueger

Stefan Krueger — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 20:11:00 +0000

“In fact, men and women seemed to track each other pretty well.”

Really? I’m curious about how this claim is defended. I’m looking at the lines in the image, and I see quite a bit of difference, considering the percentage of the electorate might actually change their vote. The parties are fighting over a very small slice of the electorate, so the differences between those two lines might be quite important. Additionally, isn’t gender actually quite a salient factor in political affiliation? Numerous studies support this idea. (e.g., http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8309.1997.tb01118.x/abstract)

By: Yrro Simyarin

Yrro Simyarin — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:00:00 +0000

I didn’t see the debate – was there even significant variance between the male and female opinions of these two candidates?

By: Jay

Jay — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:00:00 +0000

Do you mean sex rather than gender?