Hey Pollster, Here's an Opinion for You

[queerbychoice]

[telephone rings]
Me: Hello?
Male Voice: Hi, I'm calling on behalf of the Blah Blah Blah Research Company to conduct a survey about current political issues. We are not selling anything. This call may be monitored by my supervisor to ensure adherence to specified research standards. Is there a man in your household I can talk to?
Me: No.
Him: There isn't any man in your household I can talk to?
Me: No.
Him: Does that mean he just isn't available right now or I can't talk to him, or there are none?
Me: There are no men in this household!
Him: Hmm, okay . . . maybe you can help me. Are you registered to vote in California?
Me: Yes.
Him: Do you or does anyone in your household work in media, advertising, politics, or social research?
Me: Yes.
Him: Do you or does anyone in your . . . oh, that's all the questions I have then.
[click]

Is this why American politics are so ridiculously right-wing? Because the politicians all base their ideas of what the public wants upon public opinion polls and the public opinion pollsters skew their polls by trying desperately to speak only to the male voters of any households that contain men?

Comments

[mousme.livejournal.com]

You don't know me, but I'm commenting anyway. (It's all digitalis' fault, if you need someone to blame.

After the obligatory snigger, I thought I should point out (having been one of those hapless phone survey people) that they had probably simply filled their quota of women. Women answer surveys more readily than men.

So that guy probably had his supervisor shouting at all the reps on the floor: "That's it! No more women! I want you to get men on the lines!"

Or maybe American politics really are more fubar than I thought. ;)

[sankta.livejournal.com]

Or the survey was, for whatever reason, only interested in certain demographics. It's an idiotic sounding survey, though.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

He didn't really get to the actual survey. He excluded me from it on the grounds that I'm employed in the media/advertising industry.

[sankta.livejournal.com]

ALL SURVEYS ARE IDIOTIC SOUNDING.

RAAR! HELEN SMASH!

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Ah! Well, if women answer surveys more readily than men, I wish they would vote more readily than men too.

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Agreed. :(

[socialismnow.livejournal.com]

True, but did you know that the US is fairly unusual in its tendency of women to be more leftwing than men? In almost all European countries, studies have shown that men vote for leftwing parties more often than women, while women are more likely to vote for rightwing parties. The left/male correlation also formerly held true in Canada although this has reversed over the last two decades. In 1997, women in the UK voted Labour in the same proportion as men for the first time ever, but on the other hand, it was the most centrist Labour platform in history.

I suppose what it shows is that gender-politics correlations are social constructs.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I had no idea. That's rather scary. Don't leftists still tend to be the ones defending feminist interests? Why are the women in other countries opposed to being liberated?

[socialismnow.livejournal.com]

In 1931, a coalition of Republicans, Socialists, and Radicals won the Spanish election. (In Spain, the Republicans were a party of the centre-left.) They gave the vote to women. At the following election, in 1933, there was a rightwing landslide, one of the factors for which is cited by historians as: "The introduction of votes for women for the first time in Spain, as usual, profited the Right." (Hugh Thomas, Spanish Civil War)

In Britain, too, it was the left that gave the women the vote, legalized abortion, passed the Equal Pay Act and Sexual Discrimination Act, and yet women continued to back the Conservatives.

Political scientists have three main ideas about this. They say the left is associated with notions of "workers" and with trade unions, which have male-dominated cultures; that the right appeals to notions of family; and that women are more religious than men, and the rightwing parties (in some countries called Christian Democrats) have been the religious ones.

Given that nowadays, women are more and more part of the world of work, feminism has undermined traditional notions of the family, and religious belief is on the decline throughout Europe, perhaps the left/male correlation will decline (or has already done so) or even reverse itself.

[boojum.livejournal.com]

(Also digitalis-brought)

There's a lovely scene in the comic Stone Soup about this sort of thing: The nine-year-old picks up the phone. The telemarketer on the other end wants to speak to the man of the house. She considers her household (older sister, mother, aunt, grandmother, and male cousin) and hands the phone to her two-year-old cousin.

[redskiedmorning.livejournal.com]

When I had a phone in my name, telemarketers would always call and ask to speak to me or my husband(ha!). One company was particularily bad - they would insist on speaking to the hubby, until one day my roommate finally snapped "She's a lesbian. Do you want to speak to her partner?" (who was in the room at the time). The guy on the phone sheepishly declined and that company left us alone for a while.

One the plus side: when I was at my mom's house this summer, a telemarketer called and asked to speak to her or her spouse - all gender-neutral like :) I was impressed.

[princesswitch.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I've never, ever gotten that. It sucks that there are still some pockets of sexism like that, though!

I've gotten calls like that about my credit cards.

[montrealais.livejournal.com]

"Is there a man in your household I can speak to?"

I would have just said, "Speaking." Really screw him up ;)

Meh. Polling is the practice of determining what you think according to what your neighbour agreed to tell a stranger who phoned at dinnertime.