Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watdcsu.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!dmcanzi From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) Newsgroups: net.women,net.politics Subject: Re: Re: Watch them closely when they quote statistics Message-ID: <1540@watdcsu.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 22:52:25 EDT Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1540 Posted: Mon Jul 15 22:52:25 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 06:09:27 EDT References: <1519@watdcsu.UUCP> <1520@watdcsu.UUCP> <1266@mnetor.UUCP> Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) Distribution: net Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 48 Xref: watmath net.women:6413 net.politics:9952 Summary: In article <1266@mnetor.UUCP> sophie@mnetor.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) writes: >> Not only >> did the person who drew the diagram draw 25% of the figures as women to >> supposedly represent the 35% of the work force that women comprise, but >> the women in the drawing were drawn CLOSER TOGETHER than the men, >> making them look like an even smaller portion of the total. >> -- >> David Canzi > >Aren't you reading a bit too much into this? maybe women stand closer >together than men or something like that. >-- >Sophie Quigley The diagram was drawn as a single-file line of people standing in a file drawer facing the viewer (cute, nuh?), with women at the front and men at the back. The top of each man's head was drawn at about the level of the chin of the man behind, while the top of each woman's head was at about nose-level of the woman behind. The top of the last woman's head was chin-level on the man behind. The first woman was visible from the chest up. If the first woman's chest is included when measuring the diagram, the women make up roughly 1/4 of the measured length of the diagram. If the measurement is taken from the first woman's chin (which is my natural impulse), then the diagram is exaggerated. It could be that most people's visual impression of the diagram is the impression that results from including the first woman's chest. It could then be supposed that the artist drew the women closer together in order to make up for the length added to the diagram by the first woman's chest, but an artist with sufficient smarts to do that would also have known better than to represent 35% of the working force with only 25% of the human figures in the drawing. For whatever reason (perhaps an illusion resulting from perspective), the visual impression I got from looking at the diagram was that women were even less than 25% of the diagram. Some of the problems I pointed out in the original article could be innocent errors, but in the case of the pie charts and the "file drawers", I can't help but think that the people producing the diagrams weren't satisfied with the truth and felt a need to "enhance" it. According to the newspaper article, the pie charts are from the Worldwatch Institute, and the "file drawers" are from the ILO. I'm not very familiar with these organizations... are they perhaps in the habit of producing misleading statistical diagrams? -- David Canzi "Adequacy -- is it enough?"