You're camping out in the woods. You just happen to have a Doppler radar system with you. From your knowledge of science and waves, you know that when you send the radar out and the wavelengths come back to you, you are able to determine whether a storm is coming toward you or not. Well, you send out the waves at a certain frequency. They come back to you closer together, at a higher frequency. This tells you that a storm cloud is coming. Rain is coming. So, what do you do? Put the tent up or take it down.
This is a question that was asked of the students in Mr. Bender,s Physics classes. It has written as an extra credit problem, with the intention of portraying whether students know their subject or not. When Mr. Bender received the tests, he glanced at some of the answers. He told some of the students to think about the question again because it was not answered "correctly." As it turned out, all of the girls in the class had interpreted in one way and all the guys, including Mr. Bender, in another. The girls said that if the rain was coming, then they would take the tent down and go home. The boys said that if the rain was coming, then they would put the tent up and get inside.
Later, Mr. Bender polled several of the faculty members on the topic. Surprisingly, the result followed the same line. Most of the male faculty claimed that they would not go home, they would use the tent for shelter. Most of the female faculty said that they would go home to get out of the rain. On this small scale, this question is a gender bias question. This means that the question is slanted in favor of one gender answering it one way or another. The question was interpreted differently by men than by women and both answers are logistical and can be backed with facts. |
