So, about last week…
So, last week The Guardian online ran an article in the Global Development Professionals Network section, in which the authors sort of rambled on about the importance of discussing the sex lives of humanitarians. Yes, you read that right. A research fellow and an adviser at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) want to have a little chat about aid worker sex lives–that is, our sex lives. On the outside chance that you missed their arousing discussion, check it out. Yeah, yeah. Aid worker notoriety vis-a-vis all things sexual is legendary. I don’t think there’s any other aspect of the aid worker experience that is more commonly or gleefully portrayed in pop culture remakes of our allegedly exciting lives than our sexuality. From the apocryphal Emergency Sex, to the far-fetched tale of a UK housewive-turned-UNICEF warrior for the poor, to any one of several flaccid attempts to capture the aid worker experience as prime-time television drama,…
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FollowA look while still in progress
As we pass 600 hits, what does our “sample” population look like so far? And why is “sample” in quotation marks? As we mention in the FAQ, our target population -those who are now or have in the past worked in the aid/development industry- is not a homogeneous, database available-at-the-ready population. Just the opposite: you are all spread across the world in an astonishing array of locations and work circumstances, from New York City-urban to South Sudan-rural. We have here is a snapshot of a necessarily self-selected group of souls who have invested some precious time on our survey. Some bits from the data: Age/gender/’race’ Though those who identified as female make up 68% of our respondents, there is a markedly higher percentage of ‘long in the tooth’ males responding: “I have been doing humanitarian aid work for ten or more years.” Male: 33%, Female 17%, with males having a higher percentage…
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