From: [email-masked] (Subbarao Kambhampati)
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 91 08:49:30 PDT

Path: leland.Stanford.EDU!stanford.edu!agate!ucbvax!cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!susanc
>From: [email-masked] (susan chacko)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Re: Indian Women in U.S[on the hidden motives of the Pittsburgh Survey][Please Read]
Message-ID: <susanc.678463067@keckiris>
Date: 2 Jul 91 13:57:47 GMT
References: <[email-masked]> <[email-masked]> <susanc.678219650@keckiris> <[email-masked]>
Sender: [email-masked] (News)
Organization: Rice University, Houston, Texas
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[email-masked] (Subbarao Kambhampati) writes:
>But, does this really mean that a pittsburgh survey appearing in Eves
>Weekly will have as negligible an effect on the society as the
>Balachander's movie about calf-love?

>Unfortunately not! What you overlook is the essential "HYSTERISIS" in
>the way humans allow external factors to influence them--How much
>influence we get from a particular source depends rather closely on
>how close the advocated philosophy is to our value system.
>.....

Quite a newsgroup, this. I keep away from it for all of 24 hours,
and in the meantime there are only about 100 messages on the 
topic of arranged marriages, Subbarao has expounded at length
on his favourite topics and has then retired, Dorai has written
him an oratorical obituary, Subbarao has risen again for a brief
moment, the interminable cows and bulls have paled into an
insignificant minor topic....phew!

Well, given that Subbarao has retired and no-one else has posted
on this topic, is there any point in me posting this? On the other
hand, can I resist this opportunity to have what may well be
the last word, unattacked by scathing sarcasm :-)? 

Oh well. The hysteresis point is well taken, and I do agree that
people internalize facts and situations that support their own
predetermined value judgements, but do they really get these
facts from Eve's Weekly? EW, when last heard of (and I admit that
was ages ago) was more suited to supporting value judgements on
the efficacy of nail polish removers than serious life-determining
issues. Do I underestimate them? Do you actually hear people 
quoting an EW survey to bolster their opinions on women's
independence? Or is it more like 'You saw what happened to
Muthukrishnan's daughter, she tried to work after she had a
baby and her family fell apart.' I suppose *newspaper* reports on
the growing numbers of working women with families might have
more impact, but I'm not sure about that either.

I'm not saying that surveys in print have no effect at all, but
that it takes a vast collection of such surveys, in a variety
of magazines/papers, to cause a change in collective opinion.

Susan.

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