People Magazine, in an otherwise laudable tribute to the fallen servicemembers this year, gives immediate lie to the argument that having men and women mixed in the services has no effect on press coverage, which is one of the strategic levers our enemies can pull to influence public opinion:
The Faces of the Military?
Of the 133 names mentioned in the article, approximately 8-9 are female (with a little guesswork for ambiguous names such as Jaimie). 6 women — or 100% of depicted fallen servicemembers–are shown in the article photo collage. Approximately 15% of the various services are female on active duty overall. Therefore, of the fallen, 9/133 = 6.7%, or in other words are represented at <50% of the rate of demographic representation in the services (i.e. have <50% of the casualties you’d expect from sheer demographics), and are shown for 100% of the photo-ops here. Judging by the photo, all the casualties were women.
People who are for putting women in the military refuse to acknowledge that we look at men and women differently as participants in hostilities. If this coverage isn’t a clear demonstration of the effects that putting women in military services has on the national psyche–that to really pull at the heartstrings, women’s losses are front and center in the news– I don’t know what is, and I don’t like thinking of what the coverage will look like when truly terrible things start happening.
“Pretty girls do not need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family. But girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult,” reads an excerpt from an article titled, Leftover Women Do Not Deserve Our Sympathy, posted on the website of the All-China Federation of Women in March 2011.
It continues: “These girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don’t realise that as women age, they are worth less and less. So by the time they get their MA or PhD, they are already old – like yellowed pearls.”
Now, China’s got 99 problems–but apparently kowtowing to PC isn’t one of them. Quick look:
3) Altruistic cautionary tales for younger women? Check
4) Sucking up to feminist fantasy about age, careers, and useless degrees being attractive and empowering? Nope, leave that to the western media–in this case, the BBC–in this article.
5) Consolation prize and ego-salve for all the unmarried 27-year-old women in the West?
“Elissa says she’d love to meet the right man, but it will happen when it happens. Meanwhile, life is good – and she has to get back to work.”
Check.
Happy Friday!
*****Update*****
I don’t know whether this phenomenon is more a testament to:
1) Female hypergamy in a highly status-conscious culture, or
2) The fact that no amount of female status (income, education, etc) overcomes being unattractive, even in the face of a pretty demographically skewed environment–referencing the high M/F ratio. You’d think guys would be all over this, but apparently not.
or
3) The availability and advantages over porn and other amusements over the likely cultural equivalent of feminist harpies.
Intrade is a prediction market. In short, it aggregates the views of individuals into a composite probability of an event occurring by using a trading pricing mechanism. The prices reflect the implied probability of something happening. For instance, if Event A is trading at 2.90/share, then the market says the probability of that event occurring is 29%. I follow it to get a sense of what may be coming down the pipeline.
In particular, I follow the presidential markets. President Obama has, with the exception of the latter part of 2011, had fairly solid numbers for re-election. However, his prices have been dropping recently and dramatically, so I wanted to look at why this might be, and whether the market was functioning efficiently enough to be regarded as a credible indicator of the Fall ’12 race. Intrade provides charts and day-to-day data on trading in its markets.
This chart shows the recent history of the intrade prediction on the re-election of President Obama.
Obama Re-election price history
There are a few major jumps with apparent ties to a few news events, highlighted below. I researched some of these events on the wikipedia calendar summaries. Macro concerns–a la Europe, and so on–probably weighed in on late 2011, as I couldn’t find any single events responsible for the trough in that area.
Prices, with some real-world events
Interestingly, though the price has been more or less constant over the last few months (less late May/June), trading volumes have been jumping dramatically.
Trading Volume Summary Stats
Now, obviously the volume increase is at least partially attributable to the nearing presidential election. However, the massive jumps in volume (e.g. ~7%-200% swings) with the more-or-less negligible price change (from 60-54, a 10% change) tells me that more and more people from both sides of the aisle are getting involved and putting money on the table in this market.
As more people are putting money in the market, the market should function more efficiently per the research sited in the wiki article on prediction markets. That is to say that the price should be a more accurate indicator of the “wisdom of the masses” and a better reflection of what will actually happen.
Therefore, the price/probability of Obama’s reelection dropping in the face of increasing volumes is a bad sign for Obama’s re-election. Anything can happen, but if this trend continues (and I expect that it will), we’ll see dramatically increasing volumes, and we’ll see the Obama re-election probability dropping to sub-50 in the next 2 months. This will indicate a losing campaign in the fall.
Conditions for Obama winning, or staying above 50 in Intrade: improved unemployment figures and improving economic indicators, e.g. the S&P increasing. But with Europe about to blow up (again, or finally?) and a dropping stock market, I don’t see that happening in the near term.
An interesting study might be to correlate trading volumes with media coverage citations for both GOP candidates and Obama, but I’m not sure where to get that data.
****Update
Also, as a teaser– Right now, 7 June, Obama is trading at 52.7. Romney is trading at 43.3. Those added together equal 96% probability. Now, we know that one of those two is going to win in November. There is no 3rd option. Where is the other 4% of probability hiding out?
Here’s the angle: Soldiers are valiant heroes, sure, but a lot of them end up on CNN.com as scarred nutcases, too. Or, that’s what we’re told. I mean, that last one is part 2/3 and is the front page of CNN today.
Hypothesis: media coverage of veterans is based on projected pity in order to displace guilt and disagreement with the conflict. Kind of like White Guilt is the underlying foundation of a lot of our national conversation/coverage of race.
Method of determination: Let’s see if Veterans are really as messed up as coverage makes them out to be. If so, then maybe we need to be worried about it. If not, then the media is doing something wrong. More to follow.
Problem: This is an unhealthy relationship for a nation to have with its military–when it views its soldiers as a psychologically unsound, emotionally-apart “other” entity. The increasing dissociation with the military makes wars more likely, as soldiers become “Someone Else or Someone Else’s Children.” Worse, this kind of reporting is wrapped in the sheep’s clothing of concern and empathy–so it looks like we’re doing the Vet a favor by raising awareness of his problems. Where’s the positive coverage of the soldier as doing something right?
And allow me a question–do you want your family problems on the front page of CNN, or do you just prefer to treat them?
Rates of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) seem to be about 6% for returning Iraq vets, or up to 14% (if you can find the actual DoD stats, let me know). The percentage of military in combat arms branches–such as Infantry (grunts), Armor (tankers), Field Artillery (gun-bunnies), and so on–is, according to this highly-authoritative-yet-ballpark-accurate figure, about 25-35% depending on who you include. Those are the people most likely to be exposed to combat, and so there’s perhaps a quarter-to-a-half of combat troops experiencing problems–although, anecdotally, I didn’t see anything near that incidence of problems in my units.
Mental illness problems for the general population include:
Well, holy crap. All of those can be diagnosed as PTSD symptoms. All of a sudden, I begin to wonder where all the articles on civilians ending up as scarred nutcases are, as these numbers are just about as scary, and are likely underreported compared with the military numbers. Reporting on mental health in the military is over-reported compared to the general population sample, based on the continuous mental health surveys inflicted on servicemembers. Regular civilians go in when they know there’s a problem, or when there’s external evidence of an issue, such as an arrest. Servicemembers are practically told that they have problems as they come back from deployments.
Now, this is not to talk down combat service. I have nontrivialexperience in the areamyself, and fully understand, respect, and value what servicemembers actually do. I believe that genuine problems arise from exposure to intense combat, and should be treated. But I have a huge problem with civilians pitying veterans due to the supposition that they’re messed up, and the consequent view of soldiers as freaks–which is exactly the point of view that the CNN article propounds.
Solution? Let’s have more truly positive coverage of what we’re doing. We don’t have to necessarily always agree with the wars, or their execution–but let’s look for the positive effects of our efforts. National pride wouldn’t be out of place, either.
Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints 