Census Night

So last night was Census Night. Theoretically the whole country* sat down to fill out forms asking us about our key characteristics. Namely things like where we live, how old we are, what we do for a living and how much we earn. All for a good cause naturally. The Australian Bureau of Statistics gathers this information every couple of years and it becomes part of the basis on which things like our social services and facilities are planned and applied. At least that’s my understanding. It also has a number of other ramifications and the potential to tell us some really useful things**. Like where all the single men are!

Ok, that was a little tongue in cheek but the census does provide the means to do this. There are a number of nice little boxes corresponding to different forms of marital status (and why is it ‘marital status’ can I just ask, why can’t it be ‘singular status’ since that’s the way you started out– that way being married might be seen more as something you haven’t yet moved on to and not a state which you haven’t actually achieved). I of course had to fill out the form by striking through the box relating to the ‘single’ status so now that my form is completed, I will officially be recognised as being such. And just another statistic really.

That aside, whilst I was completing my bit on the house form, I had the vague thought that if they just asked a few additional questions then we could get a whole lot more out of the project. I mean I can understand that government bodies may wish to know if we are providing unpaid care and assistance to the elderly. Your average Joe however, might be more concerned with say how on Earth one can understand women...well it sounds plausible. The short answer here is of course that you don’t but experts seem to believe that you can intuit a number of things from multiple choice questions so you might at least be able to get a little closer.

For example, you could ask women when they want a man to do something for them do they a) hint, complain and / or nag repeatedly till it gets done, b) consider that as a female they do not need to ask for what they want but reserve the right to be pissed when they don’t get it, c) go out and do it themselves ensuring that it gets done properly and in good time, d) ask politely or e) achieve the end in another way, the logic of which would only be understandable by another woman. To the men we could ask are you of the opinion that women should a) speak when they’re spoken to, b) speak only in the ad breaks, c) only discuss topics that they actually know something about, d) converse if they can actually articulate a point in less than ten minutes or e) always express themselves as you value all forms of communication and would like to place no restriction on what actually comes out of their mouths.

I’m not exactly sure what the answers (in general) would tell you from these questions. If nothing else however, they would at least make filling out the census more interesting. What do you think?

*I read somewhere that some travelling circus performers did not get census forms despite them having been stationed somewhere for several weeks.
**For instance did you know that in the last census, 70,509 people declared themselves members of the Jedi faith.