How women measure up as divers compared to men

[Rhone Man]

As a female who regularly has to cope with condescension from a subclass of male colleagues who see themselves as Dive Gods, I take heart from science:

Women divers outdo men, study claims - Telegraph

Surely you didn't need a survey to tell you this? Basic observation should have told you!

I have known many very able divers of both sexes, but when I think of the very best divers I have ever known, they were all women.

The only time I prefer male buddies to female is when we are hunting because, well, girls can be a bit girly when it comes to stuff like that. Sorry.


---------- Post added May 16th, 2012 at 01:30 PM ----------

Or maybe women simply don't feel they have to prove anything to anybody whereas guys are often swaggering.

Yes. Women are usually also much smarter than men when it comes to saying "You know what? This really isn't a good idea."

 

[Quero]

Surely you didn't need a survey to tell you this? Basic observation should have told you!

Need? No, you're right about that. But it's quite nice to have empirical confirmation of the conclusions that we're able to draw from anecdotal evidence....

And besides, it's such a nice thread, isn't it?

 

[Thalassamania]

oh, duck, of course a single study qualifies as science! There isn't any rule saying that research has to be replicated in order to be within the realm of science. Naturally, others may challenge the conclusions and attempt to refute them, including through replication of the research, and if a study is replicated with the same results, then the results are more convincing, but to say that a study that was conducted using scientific methodology is not science is simply fallacious. (I think you might be confusing the terms "science" and "fact." They are not synonymous.)

Women Divers - University of Hull

You decide if this qualifies as science...

Pretty poor science from what I can judge. Claims like:

But how do divers achieve good buoyancy control? According to Mandy Shackleton, a Masters student from the University’s Centre for Environmental and Marine Sciences, relaxation and a good breathing technique are key to maintaining control and minimising damage. Mandy has spent the last three years in Kenya, where she observed 500 divers and measured their impacts on coral reefs. Mandy, a qualified dive master, created an underwater tick sheet to assess the different types of damage caused by male and female divers.

Mandy says, “When men go diving, they experience ‘sensation seeking’. This triggers a chain reaction of hormones: the first to be released is the stress hormone cortisol, then testosterone – the hormone linked with aggression – and finally, adrenalin. The combination of these three results in erratic, dangerous diving. By contrast, female divers have better orientation underwater: they have a greater awareness of what is going on around them, they are more conscious of safety and therefore dive with greater care.”
​

are, frankly, unsupported. Her instrument, the "underwater tick sheet" appears to be uncalibrated and she is the both the only data taker and is, herself, uncalibrated, this leaves her experiment open to the grossest sorts of bias.

For my own, unscientific observations:

If I make a list of the ten best divers I've ever known, two are women; of the ten worst, all are men.

If I make a list of the ten best students I've trained, four are women; of the ten worst, all are men.

If I make a list of the ten best diving instructors I have known, three are women; of the ten worst, all are men.

If I make a list of the ten best diving instructor candidates I have trained, one is a woman, of the ten worst, all are men.

I'd conclude that in terms of "the best," well ... that's distributed at about the same level as women are represented in the community (e.g., 30%). However men are over represented, in the "worst" category. So ... I'd guess that if there is a difference between men and women as divers, it is in the width of the standard deviation (the bell curve for women is more compact) and that is likely an artifact of the general under representation of women in diving.

 

[Quero]

Pretty poor science from what I can judge.

Unless you have access to the actual report of the research, you have no basis for judging at all. The methodology and the conclusions have clearly been simplified for the purposes of a rather informal interview. The research was done in conjunction with a respected university and supervised by a respected academic; given that fact, I'm inclined to believe that the science is reasonably sound. Now whether the conclusions would be supported by additional research among a similar population of recreational divers is another question.

 

[simskiscuba]

I'm quite surprised and just a little disappointed that nobody has yet made any off color references or double entendre's regarding lung size and capacity.
Am I the only person here with their head in the gutter?

 

[Quero]

Better find a more appropriate place for your head, then, and leave the gutters of the women's forum unsullied.

 

[t4e]

Yes. Women are usually also much smarter than men when it comes to saying "You know what? This really isn't a good idea."

actually i told that to my instructor in the last class of training when he wanted us to do blackout don and doff with harassment
after watching my husband go through it and having his equipment being undone and his air turned off twice i basically refused to do it since i had my doubts that it will come useful at any point, if anything i thought it was not really an appropriate exercise for noobs lol

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Well, the Grateful Dead have been saying the same thing for decades ... and, after all, Jerry Garcia was the original Grateful Diver, so he oughtta know ...



... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Thalassamania]

Unless you have access to the actual report of the research, you have no basis for judging at all. The methodology and the conclusions have clearly been simplified for the purposes of a rather informal interview. The research was done in conjunction with a respected university and supervised by a respected academic; given that fact, I'm inclined to believe that the science is reasonably sound. Now whether the conclusions would be supported by additional research among a similar population of recreational divers is another question.

That is why I said, "from what I can judge." Perhaps I spent too much time (e.g., most of my working career) in academics, but in my experience, simply because a Master's level project is done in under the auspices of a respected university and is, in theory, supervised by a respected academic, that doesn't guarantee quality. If it did, no one would ever fail their orals or their defense of dissertation, and both those things happen with alarming regularity. Publication in a peer reviewed journal would go a long way though.

I'm familiar with her Major Professor's work on Plagiotremus rhinorhynchos, so I dropped him a note congratulating him on the attention that her work has received and requesting a copy of the instrument and where the article was published.

 

[boulderjohn]

Perhaps it is because I spent an entire career in a field (education) dominated by women, but I never gave this issue a second thought until now. Having seen every possible level of competence in education from both sexes, I can't remember ever thinking that there would be any significant difference in diving. I have seen all levels of diving skill from each gender as well. I can't imagine how I would ever calibrate a world-wide trend in this. The totality of my experience constitutes a tiny, tiny anecdote in comparison to the world of diving. I have always assumed that gender is not an issue in diving, and I see nothing here to change my mind.

That is partially because I share Thal's concerns about the reliability of the study. As someone who taught research methodology for years, I assure you that red flags leaped out at me in almost every paragraph. If such a project had been proposed to me by a student, I would have serious concerns about both purpose and methodology.

As for purpose, my initial question is "Who cares?" Why does it matter if the entire mass of female divers may tend to have characteristics that may or may not be marginally better or worse than the entire mass of male divers? That is an important question, because it suggests that for some reason the person proposing the study cares. That strongly suggests someone out to prove something, and someone out to prove something has the potential to bring a whole lot of bias into the study. That bias can play out in the entire study, from the original setup to data collecting techniques to observational bias. For example, the setup includes a determination of what characteristics make for a better diver and the degree to which each characteristic is ranked. If you want to see what I mean, start a thread in Basic Scuba and ask people to rank the most important characteristics of good divers and assign them ranking points. See what kind of consensus you get. Someone who subconsciously wants a study to turn out a certain way will, without intending to, select criteria skewed to make it turn out that way.

Thal gave an example of possible methodological problems, including observational bias. I cannot imagine how any study could be designed that could control for all factors through its methodology.

Some of you may remember the Hite Report on female sexuality. It made a big splash and is still referenced despite the fact that the methodology of the study was so poor that it is commonly used in college research classes as an example of how to get meaningless results.

I leave by repeating this thought: who cares? What difference can this possibly make one way or the other? If it matters to you, please explain why.