Do Women Blog Too?
by David Eaves
Public policy expert; Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Queen's University.
- First Posted: Mar 22 2010 08:32 AM
- Updated: 8 months ago
Is Margaret Wente right to say men are quicker to have unfounded opinions in the blogosphere than women?
Once again a Globe columnist talks about technology in a manner that is not just factually incorrect, but richly ironic!
Last week Margaret Wente published a piece titled, "Why are bloggers male?" The rich irony is that Wente says she doesn't blog because she doesn't have instant opinions. Readers of her column likely have their doubts. Indeed, I hate to inform Ms. Wente that she does have a blog. It's called her column.
Reading her piece, one wonders if Wente has ever followed a blog. Her claim that women don't like to emit opinions every 20 minutes struck me, as an incredibly active blogger—I post four times a week— as odd. Of course, as anyone who actually uses the internet knows, there is a blogging-like medium where people are more predisposed to comment frequently, although not every 20 minutes. It's called twitter.
But if, as Wente claims, women are hardwired to not share opinions, then why, according to Harvard Business School, do women outnumber men on twitter 55 to 45 per cent? Indeed, what is disturbing about the Harvard survey is that rather than some innate desire to have opinions, women suffer from the disadvantage of having their opinions marginalized for other social reasons: both men and women tend to follow men on twitter, rather than women.
But forget about the complete lack of thought in Wente's analysis. Let's just take a look at the facts.
Her piece starts off with the claim that men are more likely to blog than women. Of course Wente doesn't cite or hyperlink a source, so it is hard to know if this is fact or merely opinion. A quick Google search, however, shows Wente's opinions don't match up with the facts.
According to a 2005 Pew Research Centre study, "Women and men have statistical parity in the blogosphere, with women representing 46 per cent of bloggers and men 54 per cent."
And in The Blogging Iceberg, by the now defunct Perseus' Development Corporation, research shows that that males were more likely than females to abandon blogs, with 46.4 per cent of abandoned blogs created by males, versus 40.7 per cent of active blogs created by males. That might even tilt the balance in favour of women. In France, that is what Médiamétrie has found, with over 50 per cent of French bloggers being female.
Awkward.
I do agree the men are potentially more likely to share their opinion than women. But there may be strong social reasons for this, and it is clearly not cut and dry. Many women have decided they want to share their opinions via twitter—indeed, more women than men have. But when it comes to being "quick to have opinions on subjects they know little or nothing about," men hardly have a monopoly. One need only look at Wente's daily blog. Or, I meant to say, column.
Comments
Re:Marks
“ While i agree Margaret Wente's column barely had a line that could not be refuted by facts or significant argument, i think it sparked flawed gender arguments about writing and reading. I dont think blog statistics by gender can be substantiated - in random sampling, do they include MySpace blogs (where many Artists post) or Facebook notes? Do they include vLogs and photo blogs? How you are followed can also be measured in different ways. The Huffington Post is the most followed blog. The Daily Beast is also a very followed blog. Both were started by women. If these two blogs are followed more than 100,000 blogs by males...which gender is more followed? Margaret Wente's column was followed to the point of becoming Canada's most trending topic on Twitter. That was the rich irony.
chung w
“ I read Wente's column less as a diatribe on new media and the blogosphere (although as one of the several resident G&M curmudgeons, no doubt there was a bit of that) and more as plea for more women's voices in public affairs commentary online. With that lens, I believe there may be a shred of validity in Wente's piece. While she didn't say this in the original column, I read bits of her online discussion, where she clarified she'd written it from the point of view of current affairs. Wente wrote, " I was referring in my column to the type of blogging that refers to news and current events. This is largely -- though by no means exclusively -- a male world, just as radio phone-in talk shows and televsion panels of people analyzing and opining on the days' events." As a woman deeply interested in matters of public policy and current events, I agree with her. Let's take the federal level as an example. In the blogosphere, save for Kady O'Malley at CBC and Susan Delacourt at The Star, I struggle to think of many more female commentators of any scale in Canada. Scroll down here, to "Blog Central," for just one example of what I mean: http://www2.macleans.ca/.* Of the top 10 political blogs in Canada (http://rjjago.wordpress.com/canadas-top-25-blogs/), only one (#10) is authored by a woman. A quick skim through the first 100 contributors to The Mark, in the politics category, suggests that less than a quarter of them are female. If we take Dave's great point about columns being blogs, in the Globe and Mail, Wente is the only woman with a regular gig commenting on public affairs (interspersed with updates on her condo and her and her friends' confusion over gadgetry and their kids' jobs). The Star fares better (Chantal Hebert on Ottawa, plus several others on other news-y topics). I have no doubt there are a lot women blogging and tweeting out there, just not on current affairs or politics. There are also lots of women reporters on the Hill (most of whom tweet, and whose reporting I follow), just not a lot with profile in the commenting scene, either online or off. The more interesting question to me is why, and if anyone else cares about this, what to do about it. Wente "blames" it on men's propensity to step up and speak out. Maybe we women need to do a bit more of that. I'll include myself as a guilty party - as pretty regular blogger at www.samaracanada.com/blog, I think about my blogging more as a curating and less as opining. Maybe that should change. Or maybe editors have to do more to hire/encourage women in this way, if Wente's right that they're not naturally predisposed to opine. Or maybe readers have to demand more of it, and encourage those who are trying. I don't know. But I think Wente has a point. Thoughts? *As an aside, these are all excellent writers who I rely on to help shape my own views on things... I don't wish any of them to stop writing. I only wish Maclean's would add a female or two to its mix.
Alison Loat
“ Test Test
Andrew D'Souza