Regular blog readers are familiar with the rule of thumb that every three months or so there will be another outbreak of blog posts wondering where all the women are. Clancy at Culture Cat provides and extensive list of links to discussions of this question up to March 2005; I’m not sure this data supports the hypothesis of a three month period for the cycle, but then again, Clancy acknowledges that the list is not complete. The point is, the issue seems to come up a lot.
There have been numerous hypotheses floated to explain the apparent absence of women bloggers (in terms of “visibility” if not actual numbers among the population that blogs). Some of these have been plausible, while others have … well, let’s say they’ve inspired some righteously indignant responses from a number of women who blog. Believe it or not, there have even been some explanations based on research (whoa!). For example, Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs. Here’s a quick overview from their introduction:
An initial consideration of the demographics of blog authors reveals an apparent paradox. Quantitative studies report as many (or more, depending on what one counts as a blog) female as male blog authors, and as many (or more) young people as adults (Henning, 2003; Orlowski, 2003), suggesting a diverse population of bloggers as regards gender and age representation. At the same time, as will be shown, contemporary discourses about weblogs, such as those propagated through the mainstream media, in scholarly communication, and in weblogs themselves, tend to disproportionately feature adult, male bloggers. This inconsistency led us to ask: what are the actual demographics of blog authors, determined according to what criteria? If significant numbers of female and teen bloggers exist, how can their relative absence from public discourses about weblogs be explained?
In this essay, we draw on methods of content analysis to establish both sides of the paradox, and advance an explanation for it. Specifically, we propose that the apparent gender and age bias in contemporary discourses about weblogs arises in part as a result of focus on a particular blog type, the so-called “filter” blog, which is produced mostly by adult males. We argue that by privileging filter blogs and thereby implicitly evaluating the activities of adult males as more interesting, important and/or newsworthy than those of other blog authors, public discourses about weblogs marginalize the activities of women and teen bloggers, thereby indirectly reproducing societal sexism and ageism, and misrepresenting the fundamental nature of the weblog phenomenon. We conclude by advocating a broader characterization of weblogs that takes into account the activities of a majority of blog authors, and more research on weblogs produced by women and teens.
In a nutshell: The blogs that get most of the fanfare (whether by way of media attention or links from “A-list” bloggers) are “filter” type blogs — blogs that focus on world events, online happenings, and such, and that typically include lots of links. Less attention is paid to “journal” type blogs or “k(nowledge)-log” type blogs. The gender distribution is such that more of the “filter” bloggers are male than female. (It turns out that the “journal” is the most common type of blog with female and male bloggers.) Ways blog authors contribute to entrenching the hierarchies among bloggers, yadda yadda.
What caught my eye in this article, however, was that of the (admittedly small) number of k-logs in the study, not one of them was authored by a woman.
This kind of freaked me out, because much of the time, I’m striving to make this blog a “knowledge-log” of sorts. Despite what people frequently assumed when I didn’t have a profile picture and I blogged only as “Dr. Free-Ride,” I’m a woman. And I know that I’m not the only woman authoring what is, or aspires to be, an “expert” blog in the general realm of the sciences.
Of course, given the brand spanking new status of ScienceBlogs, it seemed to me like the subject of the gender distribution of science bloggers was probably going to come up. A quick check here reveals:
- 14 blogs about science.
- 3 single-author blogs by women (GrrlScientist, Tara C. Smith, and yours truly).
- 1 blog with 2 authors, one of whom is a woman (Greta Munger at Cognitive Daily)
- 10 single-author blogs by men
As my better half points out, “For the sciences, that’s not a terrible gender distribution.”
But indeed, there are many more women out there blogging about science. A nice sampling of them are in my blogroll in the left sidebar, and I discover more almost daily. TopTenSources gives its picks, too. Possibly these blogs veer toward the “journal” mode as much as the “k-log” mode, making them “mixed” blogs in the taxonomy of the study linked above. Maybe the experience of being a woman in the sciences prompts bloggers to take on certain types of questions (e.g., “why is my female advisor so especially rotten to me, her female student?”) that men in the sciences face less frequently.
Still, try doing a search (your choice of search engine) for women blogging about science. See how many results you get. They’re out there, but not on the radar.
Anyway, please rat out your favorite women blogging about science. If you’re a woman blogging about science, tell us how you use your blog and what keeps you blogging. If you think you’d be into it, look into blogging for ScienceBlogs and shifting the gender balance.
I know you’re out there!
Bootstrap Analysis is an excellent blog…
female scientists whom I read regularly are
Young Female Scientist
Science Woman
Bontanical Girl
I have already made noises to Seed about inviting them to join us. Maybe more of us should say something?
Congrats on the move–an excellent choice by the Seed folks. I will continue being an avid reader and will have to check out some of the science blogs I don’t know about.
Interesting post.
Just to add another data point to your research, our nonscientific survey of CogDaily readers so far has revealed readership that is 71 percent male and 29 percent female.
Although a guy, I also checked the sex-ratio on SB immediately. My
thought was that it was better than expected, considering it is just a
start. I am hoping that it gets more even as the list grows. I agree
with the commenters above on all the blogs they suggested.
I also immediately thought of
Craving Progress
Syaffolee
Penn
The whole “where are women bloggers” schtick re-appeared last October
at a BloggerCon and I reported from that session.
Let’s try that link again.
Ah, and how could we forget Jennnifer Forman of the Invasive Species Blog!
Thanks for the shoutout, Coturnix. I’m a woman scientist who blogs, but my blog isn’t a science blog. However, I do have some plans in the works, and I’ll update about them soon. Hopefully, one more week will be enough to get my side project up and running.
My favorite woman in science blogging is grrlscientist, who has just moved here. I’m glad to see your blog, and I’ll come back to check it out. This science blogs thing is exciting!
Aha – now I know why I don’t get as many hits over at the Invasive Species Weblog as, say, Pharyngula. It’s a blatant case of indirect sexism. I knew it!
I never really think about the fact that I’m a *woman* blogging until I read posts like this (then, of course, I am happy to see my blog mentioned and watch the sitemeter logs pop up a little bit). I read several of the blogs listed above because they’re good, not because they’re written by women.
I wonder if maybe the blogs with big communities of active participants (commenters) are male-run and male-driven because many females are not interested in engaging folks that might be really nasty and in-your-face about their disagreements? That seems to be the formula behind the success of many blogs. There has been a backlash lately though – I have seen some people at the smaller blogs posting about how the big political blogs (p-logs?) on both sides have become unreadable because of venomous commenters.
Thanks for the acknowledgement to GrrlScientist and in your sidebar.
As a blogger who mostly writes a journal-type blog with occasional forays into k-log type entries (am I getting this write), I wonder about whether the type of blog is related to the nymous status of its author. I know that when I think about writing science posts I am most comfortable writing about my own field, but because I am trying to remain pseudonymous I am concerned about revealing my specialty (its rather small and close-knit). And I am remaining pseudonymous so that I don’t hurt my job search chances….it’s a vicious cycle. Anybody else feel the same way?
I found the distinction between blog types to be interesting. I’m definitely a “knowledge blogger” on culture of chemistry and have a more journal-like blog elsewhere.
I am teaching an intro science course at a women’s college this semester and on the course blog (chemistry104.blogspot.com) have begun a list of both science blogs and women’s science blogs, so this post was a great source of yet more!
As to the where are the women question, I wonder if it is because women have fewer unscheduled hours in their days than the average male? Less time, less time to blog!
Found you via sciencewoman; I have recently been blogging about this same issue and am glad to see some actual research on the topic.
I’m aware of two recent “where are the woman” conversations, one about law prof blogging and one about so-called professional blogging, which I gather refers to trying to make lots of money by sticking ads on your blog.
I have a personal/mom blog and a more professionally oriented tech blog that might qualify as both a knowledge blog and a filter blog. I have started adding more filter-type posts to both my blogs as I’ve realized how that can help me get my messages out better. I feel fortunate that in my field (software development), blogging is considered a valuable and respected activity. Most tech bloggers do it under their own names, as I do. I’ve found that a welcome change from the more cautious world of personal blogging. It’s unfortunate that many academics, especially those in the early stages of their careers, can’t operate with the same openness.
Another excellent science blogger is Dr.Petra Boynton. I hope that Seed is open to non-US blogs.
Still, try doing a search (your choice of search engine) for women blogging about science. See how many results you get. They’re out there, but not on the radar.
But won’t that just pick up the ones who actually discuss being a woman in science? I mean, obviously I’m a woman and a scientist, but it’s not something I’ve really discussed much on my blog. I’ve long been the lone female over at Panda’s Thumb, but it’s not really been an issue there, either. The only mention you’ll see by me about the issue (well, ok, by Professor Steve Steve) is here, mentioning a conversation I had with Dr. Cynthia Needham about this phenomenon–a lack of female scientists in the blogosphere. I wish I could say we came up with some brilliant insight, but alas, no.
Echoing the comment above: I don’t think you can find all female science bloggers by searching for them in a search engine. My site probably won’t show up, because I’ve never specifically advertised myself as such. In general, I don’t really like using the “Female” card when it comes to things like this. I never consider myself a “female blogger” or “female scientist”, just “blogger” and “scientist”.
I do want to point you to a website that might interest you: a girl in my department organizes meetings focussed on Women in Science, and has an accompanying site, LadyScientist.