Measuring Constructed Preferences: Towards a Building Code

A “building code” for preference measurement is needed in a world in which many expressions of preference are constructed when people are asked a valuation question. Construction of preferences means that preference measurement is best viewed as architecture (building a set of values) rather than as archaeology (uncovering existing values). We describe potential faults in the process of preference construction, offer guidelines for measuring constructed preferences (a “building code”) to mitigate these faults, and discuss how the code must be sensitive to the purpose of the valuation (design vs. prediction).     

Patriarchy: The Predominant Discourse and Fount of Domestic Violence

While supporting the need to make class and other forms of marginalisation more visible in the understanding of, and response to, domestic violence, this article argues that, domestic violence is ultimately a discursive phenomenon and that patriarchal discourse remains the fount of domestic violence. This conclusion was drawn after data from a qualitative study of 24 men, from different cultural groups (ethnic, religious, racial, age and class), who had used violence in an intimate heterosexual relationship was considered, alongside ethnographical accounts of societies in which domestic violence is deemed not to have occurred, or to have been minimal. Whereas egalitarian and respectful attitudes towards women are enshrined in the discourse and social institutions of tribes such as the Semai and Waorani, in which intimate partner violence was absent, the most overwhelming discovery of the qualitative study was that class and cultural differences, evident in an analysis of the men's narratives, seemed to be eclipsed by the preeminence and strength of gendered discourse, in keeping with Western patriarchal dictates.