Continuing the Discussion: Sexism, Inequality, 'Human Nature', and the Blogosphere

In response to my earlier post, Katharine from Cut to the Chase brings up some very compelling theories on what causes the stark inequality of press attention for female bloggers.

We seem to basically agree about the no-girls-allowed-in-the-AV-club-effect. However, after reading over Katharine’s points, I realized that I had grossly oversimplified the matter. Anyhow, I wanted to highlight and discuss these points in detail. (note: bold text denotes Katharine’s words)

a) politics especially is seen as "dirty" business and there's still a certain stereotype about women in "dirty" discussions, projects, businesses, etc.

- I’d mostly agree that this is a significant factor. However, I think that this “don’t curse around the lady…” quasi-paternal attitude is perhaps irreversibly ingrained the majority of men born before 1950ish; and these days, is only perpetuated by those who fall under the labels, “traditionalist”, and “conservative”.

It seems to me that the majority of men who hold this belief probably mistake their sexism for chivalry. And making matters worse, any attempt to confront their sexist assumptions would probably do nothing more than encourage them to label their confronter a “feminist” (and also a lesbian, depending on how sexually insecure/immature they are). Often, I’ve noted that these men are so cowardly as to only use these labels behind her back.

Am I wrong in guessing that the only way to combat this is to prove yourself to be just as dirty if not dirtier than the men in these discussions? One interesting follow-up might be to explore what strategies female conservative pundits use in order to be taken seriously among the biggest offenders of this effect.

b) Blogging to some extent reflects the traditional newsrooms and women are still frequently treated differently in newsrooms.

- Recently, I got a chance to talk to a woman who left her job at a major news network as a result this very point. I’m not exactly sure how they put it; they probably had their lawyer write it out carefully in a way that would protect them from possible accusations of sexual discrimination. But, as you might guess, the message received was “you’re not being enough of a ditz… consider wearing less masculine clothing…”

I’d assert, though, that this sort of sexism (assuming that no action is taken to prevent it) will continue, and indeed flourish wherever there is money to be made off of subscriptions or advertisements. Where as the last barrier I discussed was ingrained in culture, this barrier appears to be ingrained in economics. One need look no further than the annual revenue of the pornography industry to understand why the bean counters at, for example, the whether channel wanted their female meteorologists to be younger, and sexier.

Unfortunately, I believe that the root of this problem is hardwired into males. So it’s safe to say that as long as raising ad-revenue is allowed to trump self-evident ethical expectations (i.e. not treating woman as commodities); we can expect our media-conglomerates to eagerly continue this practice.  

c) Men in general are much more apt to give referrals to other men than to women unless the referral area of expertise is something identified more with women than men.

This argument strikes me as a bit one-sided. I think the effect you describe is caused by a variety of forces, most of which are benign. For example, it ignores the fact that many men might just be… well… shy. Remember we are dealing with a medium that is dominated by geeks. So, one interesting ethical question is: are we warranted to judge shyness or lack of confidence when it might result in disenfranchising women?

Also, I can attest that there is nothing that I find more boring than getting stranded with a group of girls who are close friends… Conversely, rarely have I seen my past girl friends as bored as when she was stuck with me and a bunch of my guy friends. I don’t necessarily think that these differences in interests can, or should be dealt with. Generally speaking, I think we can make this simple rule:

Breaking up the boys and girls clubs of the blogosphere requires the parties to be discussing something that is gender neutral (I sometimes wonder when I read a feminist blogger complain that men aren’t linking to her when her content and views are clearly directed towards woman. Though this comparison isn’t totally accurate, its like hearing a male blogger who only talks about the World Wrestling Federation complain about how he isn’t getting enough comments from woman. I suppose, my main point is, both sides have to make an effort for it to work. Just as in real life, it seems to require mutual respect, an element of trust, and an understood common interest.

d) Women network, but quite differently than the kind of associations men typically form and use.

This is true – and opens up enough interesting questions that I think I’m going to write a full post on it. However, it bears noting that back in when the Progressive Blog Alliance had just gotten started, I had enough time and interest to collect sociometric data on virtually every new member. The most important question was very simple, “which blog directed you to us?” During the first month of the PBA, it was actually an all boys club. This wasn’t intentional, it just was. Anyhow, I believe it was Feministe (imagine that) who was the first female to join. As soon as she joined, I recall no less than 6 woman following her in a row. After that, woman steadily joined the PBA at the same rate (or perhaps greater rate…) than men. Today, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the majority of the PBA is female. If you were to ask me what the secret to that success was I’d say this:

We were lucky enough to get two statistically influential females onboard early on. Plain and simple. I guess the message I’m trying to send here is that – yes – I agree that there is some clear sexism that needs to be dealt with. However, I think this conversation will move a long way once its widely agreed upon that solving this problem is going to take an effort from both sexes. In addition, I think its important for us to remain compassionate of our short comings as human beings. In the end we’re basically a huge population of monkeys that has been thrown into an unintended situation called civilization. Forgive me if this seems trite, but as the serenity prayer advises: we should accept the things we cannot change, have courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.