Pass the Fava Bean and Chianti

[bcholmes]

I received my census in the mail today. This seems particularly topical.

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Are those mutually exclusive? I know men who have husbands and women who have wives. A husband is a married partner who is male, and a wife is a married partner who is female.

The alternative would be to break down that first option into two separate answers, 'opposite-sex married partner of Person 1' and 'same-sex married partner of Person 1', just like they did with the common-law options. That would be consistent, but would take up more space.

They seem to be specifically asking the common-law couples whether they're same-sex or opposite-sex, while not specifically asking that of married couples, although that information is to be found elsewhere in the documents -- Person 1 and the person filling out this question must have entered their genders somewhere.

What am I missing?

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Okay, I just read the link, and I'm still not convinced, but that's only because I know gay men who refer to their male partners as 'husbands'. .

I think this question is just asking whether Person 1 has a husband or a wife. It doesn't matter whether Person 1 is female or male.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I think these are almost identical choices to the ones offered five years ago - with same-sex married spouse added under Other instead of as a separate box. Maybe there is some statistical reason to keep the chart looking as similar as possible for comparison?

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

If you also read the text at the left, though, it says that if you're the same-sex married spouse of Person 1, you need to check other and write that in, not "Husband or wife of person 1".

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Not only is that irksome at best, but I would have completely overlooked the "Other," instructions that they gave if I were in a same-sex marriage and filling that out, so their data would have been more than a little muddled.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

While I can understand some of that rationale, I think that little "exclusions" like this help perpetuate lack of same-sex marriage acceptance, especially when the slight comes from a significant government agency.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Bah. Sorry, I see it now. This is what happens when I try to read important things before having coffee.

It almost seems like someone screwed up the ticky-boxes and forgot an option, so they stuck it in under 'other'.

[dragon3.livejournal.com]

So how do *we* fill out the form without admitting to a crime punishable by five years in prison?

It would be nice to have instructions to just tick "other".....

Especially now that "other" is not a crime

[surelars.livejournal.com]

Bah.

What strikes me as really odd is that "same-sex common law partner" is a category of its own, while "same sex married spouse" is relegated to other. I get the impression that it's sorta OK to live with your same-sex partner, but getting married is somehow stepping over the line.

Plus it's awfully bad design. If you fit into one of the categories ("Husband or wife of Person1"), you don't go looking for exceptions elsewhere. If that first category is meant to mean "Opposite-sex husband or wife of Person1", they can damn well write that. Having a hidden assumption ("husband or wife refers to a MOTOS") is way too heteronormative.

[surelars.livejournal.com]

Agreed. My partner K is in a same-sex marriage, and he refers to S as "my husband". I'm sure they'd just check "husband and wife" and move on, never realizing that's not what's supposed to happen.

and in Australia...

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

...we're going to get a census form that, while it allows for someone to put INTERSEX down as their gender, these won't be counted.

Bloody Australian Bureau of Statistics - worked there for 7 years (and at the time loved it) and know just the sort of juggling that gets done with stats.