Shere Hite

Shere Hite (born November 2, 1942 in St. Joseph, Missouri) is a sex educator and feminist. Her sexological work has focused primarily on female sexuality. Hite builds upon biological studies of sex by Masters and Johnson, Kinsey. She also references theoretical, political and psychological works associated with the feminist movement of the 1970's, such as Anne Koedt's The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm.

Research and reporting method

Hite uses an individualistic research method. Responses from anonymous questionaires are used as a framework to develop a discourse on human responses to gender and sexuality. Her conclusions derived from these questionnaire data has met with methodological criticism. As is common with surveys concerning sensitive subjects, such as sexual behaviour, the proportion of nonresponse is typically large. Thus the conclusions derived from the data may not represent the views of the population under study because of bias due to nonresponse http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/stark/SticiGui/Text/ch16.htm.

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However, regardless of methodological drawbacks, Hite has been praised for her theoretical fruitfulness in sociological research http://www.alli.fi/nyri/young/1998-1/reviewEkerwald1-98.htm.

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The suggestion of bias in some of Hite's studies is frequently used as a talking point in university courses where sampling methods are discussed, along with the Literary Digest poll of 1936.

Related Topics:
Literary Digest - 1936

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