Shere Hite defends her study

Press, 30 November 1987, Page 12

Shere Hite defends her study

The latest report on women and love in America by feminist, Shere Hite, has critics fighting for the right to attack her. Some dub her bleak and angry survey “The Hate Report” The 923-page book that unleashed such ire is “Women and Love: A Cultural Revolution in Progress,” a compilation of 4500 women’s responses to a 127-question survey. The book blames men for women’s troubles in love.

"Gossip!” wrote Boston Globe columnist, Ellen Goodman. "She goes in with a prejudice and comes out with a statistic.”

"It is the new sexism!” says Warren Farrell, one of the first men to serve on the board of the National Organisation for Women, a leading feminist group. “She is taking a magnifying glass to the anger that is in the hearts of almost every woman in a small degree." “It’s not science,” says Dr June Reinisch, director of the Kinsey institute at Indiana University. “It does represent the feelings of some small group of women in America, but it’s not generally representative of American women in any way.”

Hite contends that differences between women and men are not just biological and psycho-

logical, but Ideological. She says that after two decades of sexual liberation, women must define their own ideology and code of emotional behaviour. As in her two earlier books — “The Hite Report” on femalae sexuality and “The Hite Report on Male Sexuality” — Hite uses statistics to bolster her opinion that American women are justifiably angry and discontented with American men.

“Most people feel my methodology is an advance over previous methodologies,” Hite said in an interview in her Fifth Avenue flat. “Research into attitudes is really hard to quantify.” Nevertheless, she found: 70 per cent of women married five years or more are having extra-marital affairs; 87 per cent say their friendships with other women are emotionally closer than their love relationships with men; only 13 per cent of women married more than two years are “in love” with their husbands; 84 per cent of women are unsatisfied emotionally with their relationships. An ABC News-“ Washington Post” telephone poll of 1505 men and women was at odds with Hite’s findings. It showed,

among other things, that most American women — 93 per cent — are emotionally satisfied with their relationships. To get her findings, Hite distributed 100,000 12-page - essay questionnaires through women’s groups, gardening clubs and churches. Only 4500 women responded and statisticians said the low response rate invalidates the study.

“It is as far from science as you can get She got the malcontents and people who have the time to sit down to fill out a 127-question questionnaire.” the Kinsey Institute’s Dr Reinisch said. Hite dismisses those who call her unscientific: “They really don’t understand the issues. They have no idea what they’re talking about.” Hite, 45, is married to a 24-year-old West German pianist, Friedrich Horicke. A former model she has the delicate good looks of a pre-Raphaelite princess. She is partial to tailored suits and sky-high heels, and is conscious enough of her appearance to refuse to speak while being photographed. As. questionable as the conclusions may seem, some of her respondents’ comments are moving: “I do feel I am a failure not being married,” one writes. Another says, “I

have given up on love relationships.” Happy women seem out of place, but they do exist: “The main basis of our marriage is just the pleasure, the security of daily companionship, working together toward common goals, a sense of knowing the other is there when needed, a. genuine caring about the welfare of each other.”

But more typical was the respondent who wrote: “I feel I read my lover well, like a boring novel. He could never understand most parts of me because he’s never given his emotions a chance to mature.” It was comments like those that prompted Farrell, author of a book on men, to call Hite’s study “The Hate Report" “The book encompasses over 6000 critiques of men, and zero of women,” he told Reuters. After almost a month of relentless promotion, Hite has withdrawn from the fray. She decided not to talk to the news media — a decision she made after interviews with top United States television stations and newspapers. Hite takes umbrage at the suggestion that there might be more happy women out there. “So 20 per cent of women are happy! Does that make me wrong?”