The company I run specialises in building business intelligence tools... one aspect of this job is creating interactive surveys designed to mine important data from some sort of target community -- consumers, staff, management peer groups, et al. Probably the biggest challenge we have is making sure the data our systems collect is valid... not skewed or at least skewed in a direction and to an extent we can measure and later compensate for.
This thread has been an interesting read in my professional opinion. Of course, the postings here can't adequately convey the nuances of meaning that people may have intended, but I would like to suggest something to Nessum -- who's thread it is.
I suspect your premise may be flawed because it appears to me that you have made a conclusion based on incomplete data or at least prematurely based on insufficient data. You seem to have made up your mind before you started writing the introduction to your piece... nothing wrong with that, but that's an EDITORIAL not a RESEARCH paper. And since you asked for help, my assumption is you are more interested in producing a paper weighted towards research than an opinion piece.
I am not suggesting sexism does not exist in scuba-related materials... I suspect there is evidence enough to support that it does. But it seems the scaffold on which your arguement is built may have been erected in the wrong place. I would also suggest that the data you have collected here in this thread would be far more interesting in your paper than your original suggestion.
By the way, as well as being president of a rather small and insignificant business intelligence company, I'm a technical instructor-trainer who has been diving for a few years and who has dove all over the world.... my opinion is that sexism, classism and ageism thrive in this sport... just as they do in most other endeavours. However, that's an opinion I am unable to support with any meaningful data.
Steve Lewis
