Call it the “Buzzfeed-ization” of headline writing, but this one from Tuesday’s Washington Post op-ed section is a doozy:
One way to end violence against women? Stop taking lovers and get married.
The data shows that #yessallwomen would be safer hitched to their baby daddies.
WaPost – "One way to end violence against women? Stop taking lovers and get married" http://t.co/qQpEkVxrRt #shame #neanderthals
— David (@nobullmitt) June 10, 2014
Whoa, that original WaPo op-ed headline told women hoping to avoid violence to "stop taking lovers and get married." http://t.co/cJZTqQdwHv
— Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) June 10, 2014
Straight from the 1950s, here's the @washingtonpost! Want to end rape? Well gals "Stop taking lovers and get married" http://t.co/z69Ette64c
— Megan McCloskey (@MegMcCloskey) June 10, 2014
After taking flak on Twitter, the principal author — a sociology professor at the University of Virginia who directs the Home Economics Project at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies — succeeded in getting it changed (the Tweet acknowledging the bad headline is no longer on his Twitter profile) to one that is no less offensive:
One way to end violence against women? Married dads.
The data show that #yesallwomen would be safer with fewer boyfriends around their kids.
Changed without an acknowledgement, of course.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/10/the-best-way-to-end-violence-against-women-stop-taking-lovers-and-get-married/
WaPost editors don’t seem to understand that they need to change the URL, too, and that the damage is done, so to speak, when that initial RSS feed hits the Net.
WaPo changed the headline to "One way to end violence against women? Married dads." with no note of edit. Yeah, the HEADLINE was the problem
— Alison McQuade (@akmcquade) June 10, 2014
However, there is more at issue here than a tone-deaf headline writer.
In addition to being offensive, the headline is not accurate.
We’ll ignore for the moment the fact that W. Bradford Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project at UVA, and his co-author, Robin Fretwell Wilson, UVA alum and the director of the Program in Family Law and Policy at the University of Illinois, assume that single or divorced women with children have lots of boyfriends.
No, this isn’t accurate because the class of women most likely to suffer violence at the hands of their domestic partner are married … but separated. Since 2001, their rate of violence ranges from three to four times greater than any other group.
If simply “getting married” solved the problem of violence against women, we wouldn’t have this chart, would we?
Here’s Wilcox and Fretwell, misrepresenting it:
… some other men are more likely to protect women, directly and indirectly, from the threat of male violence: married biological fathers. The bottom line is this: Married women are notably safer than their unmarried peers… (emphasis added)
While “married but separated” is clearly a different cohort than “married and co-habitating in a loving way,” the fact is that these women are married. And the three groups at the bottom, the much lower risk groups, are either married, never married or divorced.
The group at greatest risk married the wrong guy and hasn’t been able to get disentangled.
It's true! Getting married prevents violence against women! That's why there are no words in our language for a "wife beater."
— David Waldman (@KagroX) June 10, 2014
Also, even though correlation does not mean causation, note that rates of violence decline with age of partners (source, pdf). And are inversely related to income and education. In other words, in statistical terms there are confounding factors.
This isn’t the first time that Wilcox has taken liberty with data. From 2010:
Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project, is part of a growing movement of conservative Christians in the social sciences seeking to reimagine social relations through the lens of their distinctive faith. The lens of Christian patriarchy provides not only different shading to social scientific findings, but also kaleidoscopic distortion—creating patterns and shapes which simply aren’t there. The research cited by Professor Walton is being trumpeted in press releases and is promoted by conservative Christian foundations—Christian piety makes you have a better marriage, and that’s especially true for African Americans, we are told. But that isn’t what the research in the published paper shows.
You can read more about Wilcox and his views on marriage in this 2010 interview in National Review Online.
Amazing intellectual dishonesty at work here.
Yes, it has a name. Confirmation bias. Illusory correlation. Verification bias. “(Christian) marriage is the answer to all social evils” arguments. Fodder for “men are victims too” arguments.
What was going on in the minds of the WaPost editorial board — don’t they VET (do diligance) op-eds? Should we buy everyone in the newsroom a copy of A Mathematician Reads The Newspaper?
And will The Post publish a rebuttal?
FYI, here’s my mid-afternoon TweetStorm rant (courtesy of Dave Winer’s Little Pork Chop):
1/A few critical points RE the @WashingtonPost op-ed that suggests violence against women could be fixed if we SIMPLY GOT MARRIED.
— Kathy E Gill (@kegill) June 10, 2014
2/Here's the study @WilcoxNMP "cited" (pdf) http://t.co/Px8U7B09eh
— Kathy E Gill (@kegill) June 10, 2014
3/1st, the HIGHEST rate of violence? MARRIED women who are separated. Since 2000, 3-4x as high as others. pic.twitter.com/SqBxNWpwIo @WilcoxNMP
— Kathy E Gill (@kegill) June 10, 2014
4/2nd, "Females ages 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 generally experienced higher rates of intimate partner violence" @WilcoxNMP
— Kathy E Gill (@kegill) June 10, 2014
5/Let's say that Again: "The rate of intimate partner victimization declined with age." @WilcoxNMP
— Kathy E Gill (@kegill) June 10, 2014
6/3rd, from "1994 to 2010, the overall rate of intimate partner violence in the United States declined by 64%"
— Kathy E Gill (@kegill) June 10, 2014
7/Here's the #&!^#! pseudo-academic hatchet job: http://t.co/wwNw7QggXP @WilcoxNMP
— Kathy E Gill (@kegill) June 10, 2014
8/Final reminder – regardless, correlation != causation @WilcoxNMP
— Kathy E Gill (@kegill) June 10, 2014
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com