Homocon

Rob Willer is the same Cornell University graduate student that brought us "The Effects of Government Issued Terror Warnings on Presidential Approval Ratings," a meager nine page opinion paper (not including the references) which made him the temporary darling of the Mainstream Media for his unsurprising conclusion that terror-warnings brought positive upticks in President Bush's approval ratings -- with the implication, of course, that terror-warnings are fabricated to bolster sagging approval ratings for Bush with statements like "There is a clear pattern in these data supporting the central prediction that a tendency exists for people to support standing leaders after threats of external terror, and specifically President Bush after government-issued terror warnings" and "I would expect terror warnings to not only affect general evaluations of President Bush, but also evaluations of aspects of his job performance apparently unrelated to terrorism."

After a flurry of attention from USA Today, The Washington Post, The L.A. Times and The Guardian, as well as NPR and The Today Show, Willer was dumped back into the ash-heap of academia when his conveniently timed study didn't contribute enough to create the Perfect Storm which might have unseated Bush in 2004. But refusing to adopt the role of shrinking violet, Willer immediately set to work on producing yet another piece of pseudo-research designed to re-attract the limelight -- "He questioned subjects about their political attitudes, including how they felt about a same-sex marriage ban and their support for President Bush's handling of the Iraq War" in order to come up with the headline: Men overcompensate when their masculinity is threatened.

"Overcompensation" in Cornell land means, of course, support for the Iraq war, traditional marriage roles and the desire to drive big, solid automobiles.

Willer's new study, with the knee-slapping title "Overdoing Gender: Testing the Masculine Overcompensation Thesis", produced "the predicted results," he said. Oh? The "predicted results" . . . ? You mean, the survey questions, which are never listed for anyone to see, may have been crafted and presented with a particular end goal in mind, like, "War bad! Hybrid good!" . . . ? Perish the thought! (And academics wonder why liberal institutions are increasingly dismissed as having any relevance to the larger cultural conversation).

But in the spirit of half-baked research and a tummy growling addiction to attention, let me present you with my own personal take on Willer's supposed male overcompensation survey, with, of course, the "predicted results" firmly in place.

1. "Masculinity-threatened participants also showed more interest in buying an SUV."

If you showed me a Lexus SC430 and an Infiniti FX45 side by side, I'd say that the Infiniti was "more masculine" in its appearance, not because the thought of buying a Lexus makes me feel insecure, but because the Infiniti boasts size, road lift and an overall impression of greater vehicle stability. If you, then, showed me a picture of a Cadillac Escalade, I'd say, "That's a beast!", meaning that I consider it to be large, solid, big shouldered, broad haunched and generally masculine in its appearance.

You see, in the real world, males are generally larger and more solidly built than females, hence, "masculine" as an appropriate adjective for larger, heavier automobiles, which appear to have more, ahm, thrust. Besides, the Escalade looks like it could run right over the Lexus without even having to stop and wipe its shoes afterwards, and most men that I know can appreciate that.

2. "I wanted to . . . explore whether overcompensation could help explain some attitudes like support for war . . . "

Standing your ground and fighting is widely considered a masculine trait in Western culture (indeed, most cultures as a whole), while talking it out and negotiating has been historically portrayed as a more "passive" (traditionally more feminine) option, and not necessarily the qualities one looks for in a heavyweight boxer or the pooch you're betting your Benjamins on in the dog fight. Hence, the Iraq War would, obviously and without having to conduct a survey about it, be considered a more masculine rather than feminine endeavor -- not because heavyweight boxers (or dogs) who fight are insecure, but because fighting itself is traditionally considered a more masculine behavior in Western culture.

Other studies have been conducted regarding male support for violence, with the conclusion that: "It is no longer appropriate for us to explain violent behavior as purely a result of some kind of 'intrinsic evil' - that an aggressive person is merely a 'bad seed' . . . Instead of knee-jerk condemnation of people with violent tendencies, perhaps we should bear in mind that aggressive people are likely to have been the victims of violence themselves" -- which would imply that support for the Iraq War would more than likely be a result of recent terrorist attacks on Western targets rather than suppositions of gender insecurity.

3. "In a separate study, Willer verified that support for . . . homophobia . . . (was) considered masculine by study participants."

In the press release (and I do find it interesting that there is a press release without an actual study to back it up) regarding Willer's survey, support for "a same-sex marriage ban" seems to be the only evidence he used to define "homophobia" and "animosity towards gays". This is a highly subjective interpretation of a cultural debate as, in actuality, there is no implicit or proven correlation between the two. A homophobic individual may be against same-sex marriage, but being against same-sex marriage does not mean that an individual is homophobic or harbors hostility towards gays. There are any number of people who question the wisdom of opening the definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, yet when the talk turns to legal unions and/or individual opportunity, these same people are fully supportive of homosexual couples and individuals.

Homophobia is defined as "fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men", yet from the sketchy press release we have on Willer's research, there is no indication that fear and contempt for lesbians and gay men were anywhere to be found.

The results of Rob Willer's study point more to shared cultural attitudes than revelations about gender insecurity. Passing this press release off as anything beyond a college-student's attempts to court the media limelight is irresponsible. Rob Willer conducted a survey in which the questions, and the people conducting the survey, were admittedly manipulative ("Willer said he and a colleague are planning additional research on subjects' attitudes regarding violence toward women, using the same method for manipulating masculine insecurity"), meaning, of course, that their methods were designed to produce the results they were looking for.

Glenn Reynolds, over at Instapundit, posted a very lucid opinion a while back about the gay marriage debate: "I think that gay marriage is good for everyone. Marriage is a good thing, and I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be just as good a thing for gay people as for straight people. Judging from the gay couples I know, it would be a good thing -- and I'm entirely at a loss to understand why people think gay marriage somehow undermines straight marriage. But to get there, you need to make that case, not just accuse opponents of being closed-minded bible-thumping bigots of the redneck religious right."

And this is the problem with research academics like Rob Willer -- he never makes a case for anything: opposition to the Iraq War, belief that SUV's are a poor automotive choice or that gay marriage might just be a good thing. Instead, Willer invested his time and energy into painting his intellectual opponents with the broad-strokes of "overcompensation" and "masculine insecurity," and now he sits back and waits for The Today Show to give him a call. Willer may believe that he's entirely in the right (or, uhm, the left, as the case may be), but his research is flawed by its superficiality, his methods are questionable in their lack of transparency and his biases are far too obvious to be ignored.

OFF-TOPIC:
The self-importance of this headline is ridiculous. I swear -- if the media could celebrate itself any harder it would explode in a shower of colored sparks.

OFF-TOPIC 2:
Whoa. The National Council for Adoption is mighty peeved with the New York Times for their attempts to dig into the sealed adoption records of Justice John Roberts' two adopted children: National Council For Adoption to New York Times, “Adoption Records are Off Limits”

“NCFA denounces, in the strongest possible terms, the shocking decision of the New York Times to investigate the adoption records of Justice John Roberts’ two young children . . . The adoption histories of four- and five-year old children have no bearing whatsoever on the suitability of Justice Roberts to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court – or in any other position, for that matter."