Technorati released results of their study of the blogosphere today. According to the research they found, by and large, bloggers are male.
It's something that we've seen replicated in other new media paradigms (and some old ones). Men make up the majority of "popular" Twitter users and men have dominated "old media" -- especially among high-level editor positions -- for centuries.
We might be tempted to write this off as The Way Things Are, but I think it reflects some deeper gender stereotypes. After all, many men I know don't think twice about putting their opinions on the web in a professional context and many women are more hesitant.
When I first started blogging, waaaay back in February of 2007, I couldn't come up with a name for it so I named it after myself. That, I figured, wouldn't change. (For all of you out there waiting for me to change my name if I get married let me just pause to assure you that it ain't gonna happen.) My colleague at the time and blogger at Feministing, Ann Friedman, marveled at this. In the feminist blogosphere, many women adopt psudeonyms. Many of the stereotypes and social cues we take about how to act in life translate to other kinds of media.
What's more, it sounds like of the female bloggers out there, they tend to be older women. Only 9 percent of active female bloggers are between the ages of 18 and 24. That's pretty dismal. Research also found that women are more likely to be "personal" bloggers and their style is more likely to be "conversational."
But there is one thing to be optimistic about: Although two-thirds of global bloggers are male, the stats are slightly better in the United States. Here, only 57 percent of bloggers are male. It's still disproportionate, but it's better than in Asia and Europe.
1 comment:
Outside of a few big, commercial, and professional sites, I know of very few men who write blogs or keep websites. In the past 9 years I've seen less than 10 male bloggers, the rest were all women. So I find their study very hard to believe, though I don't find it hard to believe that's what they came up with.
"After all, many men I know don't think twice about putting their opinions on the web in a professional context and many women are more hesitant."
I completely disagree about women being more hesitant about putting their opinions online.
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