 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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First off, I read the actual paper. I think it's a load of rubbish, and would question the reviewers who deemed this worthy of publication. As an academic myself, seeing this sort of paper being published makes me a little angry.
I'm not convinced the person who wrote the article for the daily wire read the paper all that thoroughly though. As an example, he says that Stoddart doesn't specify how many skiers were interviewed, whereas the paper clearly states "I conducted semi-structured interviews with 45 skiers in the Vancouver-to-Whistler and Nelson regions of British Columbia (Kvale, 1996; Rubin and Rubin, 1995)."
But to me, the paper reads as a wonderful example of confirmation bias. Stoddart set out to "prove" his hypothesis about how skiing resorts are a masulinised space, and duly found evidence of what he was trying to show. Of course, the correct scientific approach is the exact opposite: you establish a hypothesis that seems a plausible explanation of the reality, and set out to *disprove* it. Failure to disprove a hypothesis indicates that it is sound.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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The Sokal hoax didn't achieve a great deal, then. I'm not paying to read that, but I took a squint at his thesis.
Apparently they give PhDs to people who can't write or think:
https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/24/items/1.0066436
Chapter two is titled: "Skiing Naturecultures and the Mountainous Sublime", and he uses the phrase "Mountainous Sublime" no less than 22 times in there. I can't imagine what his examiners were doing: shame on them.
I'm unclear on the origins of "Mountainous Sublime", which the Dr appears to have used more than the rest of the world put together. Google provides a first example from a lit-crit person talking about Keats (see below). I'm not sure whose quotes those are precisely, but there's no earlier google reference. There's nothing I can see which connects the Victorian view of mountains and wilderness generally with a ski resort. It reads like an attempt to embellish and perhaps gain credibility.
"Woolford, John. "Keats Among the Mountains." EIC 49.1 (January 1999): 22-43.
Focusing on Keats's encounters with a supposedly sublime and mountainous landscape (e.g. the 1818 walking tour), Woolford discovers ... shows Keats to be dedicating himself to the art of the beautiful and rejecting "the austerity of the mountainous sublime to which Wordsworth (and Milton) had been committed" (40).
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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They need some pink trails, pink snowguns, and pink trams.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Guy has totally sold a couple of ski trips as an attempt to conduct an academic study. Of course you are going to find "evidence" of macho bs if you interview couples where the gf moans about getting left behind or Bros.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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If anything is sexist its the pre-conceived notions of the author
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Hmmmm....
I'd like him to try to explain his theory to Lindsey Von, Tina Maze, Janica Kostelic, Anna Fenninger, Mikaela Shiffrin, Lara Gut etc, for example. 
Would love to be there to see how that goes down.
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PhD = Piled higher and deeper in bs in this case.
I would not have accepted that as a degree level final project never mind at a higher level. A serious lack of academic rigor.
Still maybe he knew what is examiners would pass and churned out the requisite tosh while enjoying himself.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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the oppressive societal notion that “Women always Clean Up the Mess.”
Damn, that memo didn't get circulated in my household. I shall inform Mrs Dogwatch forthwith that henceforth, where a dead rat needs to be disposed of, the dog has shat on the floor or a drain needs to be unblocked, that it is no longer my department.
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I hope no public funds got harmed in the making of that thesis.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Thanks to those who cba to read and provide commentary because it sounds like a pile of shite, not worth the effort.
I'm intrigued, however, that you can list your (presumably relatively rare unless you have a rat infestation, incontinent/untrained dog, terrible plumbing etc.) cleaning duties dogwatch; who does the regular day-to-day stuff out of you and 'the wife'?  < I am joking.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@miranda,
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Well I'm not sure I have the courage to even skim-read the PhD. Very long, but maybe that's a normal thing in sociology... Read the abstract. There's something relatively interesting about the clash between skiing as a way of reconnecting with nature and the environmental cost of it, though he seems to bring politics into it in a completely artificial and forced manner.
As a response to a couple of posts on this threa, it's important to remember that personal annecdotes do not provide any great evidence for the wider trends. I don't think it's unreasonable to talk of a "societal norm that "Women always clean up the mess"" for instance. Nor is the existence of a handful of female skiers enough to disprove a theory about the piste being a "masculinised space" though to be fair skiing always struck me as one of the least sexist sports out there, in terms of equality of representation and visibility.
Of course, re the annecdotal evidence, the same remark could be made to the author. No great details are given as to how he chose who to interview, and as Dave points out if you choose your targets judiciously you could almost certainly prove anything you wanted. I guess as a wider point it's one of my gripes with the view of sociology (and related fields) as a science: they purport to use scientific processes to "prove" certain theories or hypotheses, with this particular author being particularly fond of the "qualitative multi-method approach", but in reality their approach never seems to me to always be scientifically flawed, as per previous post. Oh well...
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You know it makes sense.
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| miranda wrote: |
I'm intrigued, however, that you can list your (presumably relatively rare unless you have a rat infestation, incontinent/untrained dog, terrible plumbing etc.) cleaning duties dogwatch; who does the regular day-to-day stuff out of you and 'the wife'? < I am joking. |
Regular cleaning duties in the dogwatch household don't include "cleaning up a mess". There is no reason to have a mess in the first place.
Rat infestation in the garden, oh yes. At one point the area around our chicken pen was a maze of tunnels. A load of laughs. The little beggars have no interest in bait boxes. Mrs Dogwatch is pretty good at shooting them but won't pick them up or clear away the blood. Incontinent dog, they tend to get that way when they are old. A drain that blocks on a regular basis, yep. Generally when we have house guests so they can watch me with my arm deep in filthy freezing water while they sip wine and make encouraging remarks.
At a guess, you don't live a rural life.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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FAQ
Fortunately blocking it finally provided a permanent solution but prior to that I did bludgeon one with a spade in the garden and dispose of it - girl power! 
