SAS 2001 - the first monograph

Last month, September 2002, the Ministry of Community Development and Sports (MCDS) released the first monograph [1] from its survey project, Social Attitudes of Singaporeans (SAS).

SAS 2001 was the first survey of a longitudinal project to examine changes in social attitudes over time. SAS 2001, for which fieldwork was done in January - June 2001, would serve as the baseline for future surveys.

Question no. 14 of the 18 questions in the survey was based on the statement, "I find homosexual behaviour unacceptable." Respondents were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement. This questionnaire was administered face-to-face by trained interviewers.

The survey sampled Singapore citizens aged 15 and above. MCDS reported that a high response rate of 80% was achieved, resulting in a useable sample of 1481 Singaporeans. Their responses were reweighted in accordance with the demographic profile of Singaporeans, based on the census of 2000.

The monograph discussed quite a number of findings from the survey, but this article will present and discuss the results relating to the one question pertaining to homosexuality.

 
Singaporeans' attitudes towards alternative family arrangements and practices, overall and by marital status: (figures represent % who found the arrangement/practice unacceptable [2])

It's a no-brainer that unmarried persons tended to be less disapproving of homosexuality. I also wonder how they classified divorced and widowed persons.

 
Singaporeans' attitudes towards alternative family arrangements and practices, overall and by age group: (figures represent % who said unacceptable) 

At first glance, it looks discouraging, in that overall, 85% of Singaporeans considered homosexuality unacceptable, but the above table showed a major shift in opinion was taking place.

There was a stark difference between the older groups (30 years old and above) and the younger group (under 30). Among the older Singaporeans, only 12% did not find homosexuality unacceptable. This more than doubled for the younger group, to 29%.

 
Singaporeans' attitudes towards alternative family arrangements and practices, overall and by educational level: (figures represent % who said unacceptable) 

As expected, the better educated the person was, the more unlikely the person was to find homosexuality unacceptable.

Unfortunately, the monograph did not provide any results crossing the two variables of age and education. It would have been interesting to see what the subset of younger Singaporeans (under 30) with post-secondary education thought of homosexuality. My guess is that disapprovals would have been somewhere in the region of just 55%.

 
Singaporeans' attitudes towards alternative family arrangements and practices, overall and by race: (figures represent % who said unacceptable) 

It's interesting that the title of the table in the monograph said, "by ethnicity", which is incorrect. Ethnicity is quite different from race, and since the data is clearly by race, I have changed the word in my header above.

It's very common for the government to present data by race, and this monograph is no exception. This government is so obsessed by race, they do it even when it has little meaning. Yet, one can tell they're defensive about it from they way they substituted the wrong word "ethnicity", so as not to sound too racist, perhaps.

As I said, these results have little meaning. If one wanted to see how social attitudes correlated with cultural backgrounds, there are far better surrogate measures of culture, such as religion, first language, or language used with other family members, or even self-identification with ethnic/culture labels. Race alone doesn't tell you anything.

 
By income

The monograph noted that "household income was not associated with liberal attitudes, even between households with very disparate incomes."

 
The homophobia in the question

Did you think there was latent homophobia in the survey question? I felt so. It spoke of "homosexual behaviour", which, in many respondents' minds, would be reduced to genital contact, or else to non-normative gender presentation, i.e. effeminate males and butch females. Phrased this way, it isolated and distorted the issue from orientation and affective preference.

It is easier to condemn homosexuality if it is taken out of its affective and emotional context. On the other hand, respondents would have to be more thoughtful in their answers if they are prompted to think in terms of people just following their given natures, following their heart.

In my view, the choice of words used would likely have had an impact on the results obtained.

Another criticism I have is that asking whether one found homosexuality acceptable or not, propagated the idea that that was the correct way to frame the issue of sexual orientation. It's a government survey, after all, and people would assume its construction to be authoritative. 

As I have argued elsewhere, it is totally misleading to frame the question this way. Homosexual orientation is present in humankind, it isn't chosen behaviour, and that being the case, it isn't up to anybody to "accept" it or not.

Would one go around with a survey asking people:

• "Do you find female-ness acceptable?"
• "Do you find Vietnamese acceptable?"
• "Do you find natural brunettes acceptable?"
• "Do you find a person's preference for spicy food acceptable?"

Such questions smack of misogyny, racism, hair-colour chauvinism and diet-gestapoism. All these kinds of people exist, by the grace of God, or whatever, and it isn't up to any of us to say if we'll agree to have them on this earth. Yet people go around asking about homosexuality, without realising the hidden homophobia in their choice of words.

How would I phrase survey questions to find out about people's attitudes to homosexuality -- no, that's badly phrased too -- to find out about the extent of homophobia in our society?

I would ask

• how many friends he had whom he knew were gay, lesbian or bisexual.
• how comfortable he would be if he had to work in a medium-sized office where one third of male colleagues were gay
• how comfortable he would be if he had to work in a medium-sized office where one third of female colleagues were lesbian
• how likely or unlikely would he watch a film with main characters who were gay compared to films with only heterosexual characters
• whether he felt such films needed more restrictions even if no explicit scenes were in them
• whether he had a family member who as gay or lesbian, and how positive/negative his relationship with that member was.

There could well be difficulties with my examples, since I'm not a psychologist or sociologist with expertise in surveys, but my point really is that simplistically asking people if they found homosexual behaviour unacceptable is in itself injurious. The question misconstrues sexuality and positions gay people as objects of judgement.

 
Denial 

Even though the monograph  was titled "Survey on social attitudes of Singaporeans" (my emphasis), within, it took special trouble to stress, 

"However, it is important to note that the findings are attitudinal and perceptive in nature, and may not translate into actual practice of the arrangements or behaviours concerned."

There is more than a whiff of denial here, trying to pretend that the younger generation and the better-educated are only feeling kindly towards gay perverts, morally loose cohabitues, fallen women and selfish divorcees; they themselves won't do these things. Oh no!

 
Media reports

The media carried reports of SAS 2001 the same evening and the day after. A related article, SAS 2001 - the media reports will look at how they handled it.

© Yawning Bread 

Footnotes

1. To read the monograph in pdf format, go here
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2. It is not clear from the monograph whether the survey permitted "don't know" as a response, and if so, how the results reflected this.
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Addenda

None