Why is blogging such a boys club?

If you spend any time looking at social media demographics, there’s one stat you see over and over: women dominate the space. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter — all are more popular with women than men.

So it was a bit jarring this week to see that 67% of bloggers are male, according to the newest installment of the Technorati State of the Blogosphere report.

Admittedly, this isn’t a new stat. In least year’s report, Technorati’s survey put the male blogger ratio at 66%. But compared to the other mainstream social media activities, it seems bizarrely guy-heavy.

What’s the deal? Why is blogging a boys club at a time when women are such a powerful force in creating social media content? I posed the question to some of the marketing industry’s top female bloggers. Check out their responses after the jump:

Shannon Paul
VeryOfficialBlog.com, @ShannonPaul on Twitter

With blogging, there is very much a “this is my point of view” mentality. Blogging definitely requires more assertiveness by putting yourself out there.

Twitter and Facebook and interactions on social networks generally feel safer. Quick interactions and conversations are not the same as standing on a soapbox. Even if bloggers don't approach their blog with a soapbox mentality, the fact that they're putting their perspective out there with a unique domain name, etc., requires a kind of courage I think a lot of women still lack. Because it's hard as hell sometimes to deal with the repercussions of transparency in your personal life and with others in the workplace.

I think that it requires a kind of social courage — a willingness to create discourse, stand your ground publicly. A lot of women are more comfortable operating behind the scenes. 

Leigh Householder
Advergirl.com, @Leighhouse on Twitter

I'm generally the voice of feminism in conversations like these. And certainly I'd like to decry some barrier or hurdle that's kept women from having a larger share of voice in the blogosphere. But, honestly, I'm just surprised.

Surely male voices dominate the A-list blogs (if we even call them that anymore). But if you had asked me to guess, I would have said women make up the vast majority of total bloggers. Women are more likely to share their lives and be emotionally rewarded by sharing recommendations.

I do wonder if they've simply migrated more quickly to Facebook and microblogging. I read in Harper's a few months ago that 94% of blogs haven't been updated in at least four months. Are men more likely to blog or simply more likely to still be blogging?

Cathy Taylor
Social Media Insider for Mediapost, Adverganza, @cpealet on Twitter

Even though blogging is a social medium, or can be, it is not as inherently social as social networks, which bring people together. Women like doing that. Men are probably more tactical about it, for instance, being on social networking for career purposes.

When you think about it, blogging is more of a publishing platform. It has social features, but isn't necessarily about building a network.

I'll say something a little controversial here: Men have time to blog. Most women don't. As a working mom of two, something becomes clear the deeper you get into mom-hood. For most of us, the majority of the parenting is mom's job, even if both parents are working, so who has time to blog?

Here’s my take, which perhaps falls most in line with Shannon’s summary: The male-blogging ratio is a baffling number, but only if you assume that blogging is most related to social networking (55% female) or journalism, a field whose recent graduating classes are typically two-thirds female.

But what if you compare it to politics? As a blogger, you’re voicing your opinions and putting yourself out there for public scrutiny.

That analogy makes bloggers seem downright balanced by comparison. Women make up just 17% of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. At the state level, women on average make up 24% of legislatures.

Could the same social forces be holding women back from both blogging and public office? The analogy obviously has its weak spots, namely that politics is all about public acceptance. In other words, the percentage of women in office is largely a sign of how often Americans will elect a woman — not so much how often a woman will run for office. But blogging doesn't require any public acceptance. You just need the will or desire to do it.

So what do you think? Are bloggers more likely to be male because men feel more secure (or at least less vulnerable) in expressing opinions? Do guys just have more free time? Is it simply because so many of the early adopters were men from the tech industry? Or is it something else entirely? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Comments

[Rebecca Cullers]

This report from Technorati is surprising. They mention it was a survey, but they don’t go into their methods for administering it other than to say it was in English and that respondents are from 50 countries (but that half are from the US). It would be interesting to see just the data chart for the male/female split by country.

[David Griner]

Good point, Rebecca. I should have included this link to the survey's methodology section:
http://bit.ly/1Hs4tN

[Doug]

In the fitness/health blogging world, there are tons of women bloggers.

And most of them belong to the BlogHer network...and they really support each other

[Rebecca Tolley-Stokes]

I'm stunned. I thought for certain that female bloggers outnumbered male. Can't wrap my head around the results of this study.

[Elisa Camahort Page]

I have questioned Technorati's methodology on this front for a couple of years. And this year, after reviewing your link above, is no different.

Two things stand out:

1. The narrowness of using their own index/lists as the source for data. BlogHer does survey across our own network, but we *also* work with a third party do a recruited, weighted and distributed sample that represents the general population of women, not just our own readers. Their survey seems to be, therefore (from the brief methodology they present) The State of The Technorati Network, not the State of the Blogosphere. That's useful to know, too, of course, particularly since they have an ad network...and it's obviously why BlogHer surveys our network too, but I would not agree it's a sweeping statement, unless they provided more info about their survey samples and how the data was combine (or not combined) form different samples.

2. I got the survey. It was ridiculously long, rigid and intrusive. You couldn't opt out of sensitive questions, for example you were required to put a dollar amount into the question about how much you make. It had numerous long, tedious questions without a quick way to say N/A if you weren't that kind of blogger. To Cathy's point above, I know many women who abandoned the survey because it was too time-intensive, and there was no incentive to complete. Their methodology doesn't link off to anything more comprehensive. I'd be curious if they'd release stats on the abandon rate and the demographics of the abandoners.

If you're curious to review BlogHer's Women and Social media study, which compared and contrasted a general population sample to a BlogHer sample, a link can be found at our press page

[Elisa Camahort Page]

Oh, sorry, didn't realize no html, that link is:
http://blogher.com/press

[Ms_Krista]

Dave:

Thanks for raising this issue. If I may use a hip-hop analogy: I think blogging, like DJing or rapping, gives the impression of being "in control". Better yet it implies being in charge, or leading, a large amount of people. "Moving the crowd" is, after all, moving the crowd, whether it's on stage or in the blogosphere. Thus, I would propose the lack of support/encouragement for women to blog could be linked to the old social "norm" of a man being in charge.

I realize women are in leadership in every field around the world. Again I'm confining my theory to blogging.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I DJ as a hobby.

[David Faggard]

Good post. Interestingly enough, the stats fall pretty much in line with the milblogging community out there from what I've seen. But I've always thought that was mainly due to the amount of men in the military. Good post, thanks for the info.