In the 20 or so minutes it took me to slurp down my Robek's Vitabek-enriched Strawbanana protein smoothie, I noticed a distinct and at first blush, alarmingly robust correlation between the heels on a woman's shoes and her marital status.
Now before you rush to dispel my not-yet-sussed-out, still very nascent, still multifaceted hypothesis that unmarried professional women are more likely to wear skinnier, taller, more toe-revealing pumps than their married counterparts, know that I did make a cursory attempt to limit my sample group to women under 30 - women who looked under 30, anyway - and women in professional dress so as not to allow lurking variables such as age (i.e. older women need shorter, fatter heels for health reasons) and dress-code (i.e. those in NGO-type work environments, married or not, are most likely forced to wear comfort sandals and crosstrainers) to cloud my results.
Because I am a devout follower of the Scientific Method, my goal for today is to scope out a research plan centering on this potentially powerful theory. From crafting a carefully-worded hypothesis to writing distinct operational definitions to identifying measurable empirical evidence gathering techniques to speculating on the kinds of thoughtful conclusions and recommendations I might put forth, this study has the potential to be a 4 or even 5-part series of postings.
I always knew pursuing my first longitudinal case study not focusing on the pan Asian region would be a turning point in my life.
Very exciting stuff. Stay tuned...
9 comments:
Oh! Oh! Can I do your regressions?
Babe, I thought you'd never ask!
I'll be looking to construct all my conclusions around a 99.7% confidence interval. Ambitious, eh?
I love it when my passions intermingle unexpectedly!
this is going to be AMAZING! I can't wait.
This *is* the follow-up to your Master's thesis on military transparency in East Asia, right?
Where and when will you do your researching? It matters, you know. I've noticed here in Georgetown that many women sporting large rocks and platinum bands on their fingers are actually wearing pretty decent shoes. Heels. Tall and skinny. On the other hand, Capitol Hill is an emergency in this area.
Please hurry with your "research"
I can't wait....
Where and when I'll be doing my research are KEY and will assuredly be addressed in my research plan.
I'm a fanatic when it comes to finite operational definitions, so I'll even take the time to define seemingly obvious categories like "married," "unmarried," "DC women," "tall heel," "skinny heel," etc.
I may contract out some field research to those friends of mine who work in different pockets of the city, but I'm still not sure.
The biggest downfall of any study like this is scoping your project too widely. I learned that the hard way in my last semester of graduate school...
this is going to be classic Johanna. It already is...
I cannot WAIT to see the results of this study.
I'm more excited for the explanations behind your conclusions. For example, *why* you think married women wear shorter fatter heels?
You're gonna start a war with the marrieds, you know that, right?
This must be a DC thing...the married women in Manhattan are as or more sky-high than the singles.
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