A slightly more respectable showing today, although still way off the 57:43 ratio that characterises the paper's actual readership:
Today's topics:
When I first started this project, Billy and Llewtrah both wondered what proportion of all letters to the Guardian were written by Keith Flett.
I have to say I haven't seen a single letter from him in either the Guardian or the Observer since I started counting, but never fear, for he has written one to me!
Keith says:
'Very interesting [although taking into account that letters are ephemeral and there are other things..] it might be worth considering that usually and certainly at the moment the letters editors of the 'broadsheets' are all men! There has been a similar debate in the Times Higher recently.
And indeed there has - the 24th Jan 2008 issue of the Times Higher Education supplement has this article, which investigates why so few of the letters published in the supplement are from women. And guess what? According to the article:
'A glance at the letters page for 14 December 2007 reveals six female names. Was that a typical week? Definitely not, the letters editor tells me. On average, about 95 per cent of the letters received each week come from men'.
The article goes on to examine why this is so - and we come up against the usual arguments that women are 'too busy', either with work, or childcare, or both, to write to the newspapers. It also suggests that women lack the confidence and self-belief to air their opinions in public - although, somewhat contradictorily, the journalist argues that this has not been the case in the past.
Those arguments will sound very familiar to anyone who remembers the legendary Mary Dejevsky article in the Independent, which claimed that women don't keep blogs for exactly the same reasons.
But the thing is, we know for a fact that women keep blogs in practically equal numbers to men. So we know that those arguments about being busy, or not being confident enough, don't hold true for women's tendencies to express themselves online.
So to go back to the original point of this enquiry, if women are too busy or too diffident to write to the papers, but are perfectly comfortable expressing their opinions online, can the Guardian letters editor really say that the letters page provides a better service to the whole Guardian readership than the online commenting facility?
7 comments:
A note on the fact that women keep blogs in practically equal numbers to men.
I think quite a key point here is that the majority of female blogs tend to be personal blogs that talk about subjects that are on a more micro level.
Male blogs tend to be less about themselves and more about a given subject or speciality whether it be technology, sport or politics.
Of course letters to a newspaper are more likely to be about macro issues - politics, world affairs etc rather than personal experiences, relationships etc.
Thanks James, although I'd quite like to take issue on a couple of those statements:
>>The majority of female blogs tend to be personal blogs that talk about subjects that are on a more micro level<<
While that may seem to be the case, it's not borne out in the findings of what I still believe to be the only major independent survey of bloggers that's been undertaken to date, which is the Pew Internet one from 2006. It says:
The Pew Internet Project blogger survey finds that the American blogosphere is dominated by those who use their blogs as personal journals. Most bloggers do not think of what they do as journalism.
Most bloggers say they cover a lot of different topics, but when asked to choose one main topic, 37% of bloggers cite “my life and experiences” as a primary topic of their blog. Politics and government ran a very distant second with 11% of bloggers citing those issues of public life as the main subject of their blog.
Entertainment-related topics were the next most popular blog-type, with 7% of bloggers, followed by sports (6%), general news and current events (5%), business (5%), technology (4%), religion, spirituality or faith (2%), a specific hobby or a health problem or illness (each comprising 1% of bloggers). Other topics mentioned include opinions, volunteering, education, photography, causes and passions, and organizations.
It may well be that the *better known* blogs are single-issue blogs written by men (although let's not forget that the Observer rated the female-run Huffington Post as the most powerful blog in the world), but if you take the blogosphere as a whole, it would appear that most bloggers of both genders are writing personal stuff about their own lives and experiences.
>>letters to a newspaper are more likely to be about macro issues - politics, world affairs etc rather than personal experiences, relationships etc.<<
This sounds like you're suggesting that women have little interest in political issues - are you?
The personal is political. That's the sort of thing that Fay Weldon characters used to say.
Gawd, I'd forgotten Dejevsky. Happy days...
Fair points and I am only speaking from experience. For a few months I tried my hand at a bit of political blogging and I still keep up with a few of the main ones now but I found/find it to be male saturated.
Here is a link to an article by Iain Dale (arguably the most influential UK political blogger) who showed that only 14% of his readers are female. I imagine the figure would be even worse if a survey was carried out for the Guido Fawkes or Political Betting blogs (the other two of the top three most widely read UK political blogs if I remember correctly).
"This sounds like you're suggesting that women have little interest in political issues - are you?"
I hate the whole grouping of women and men together because it is such over generalisation, so I think I'll sidestep that question. The point is not whether men or female are more political but whether men are more likely to feel the need to voice their views in public (i.e. blogging or letter writing).
Take a look at any of the leading political / news blogs and I think they is a biased towards comments from men, for whatever reason.
I'd love to think that the letters the Guardian/Observer get are representative of their readership but personally I doubt it.
I think I got a bit confused what my point was there...
Tim: That's a phrase that's usually associated with radical feminism, but I don't see why it shouldn't apply to both sexes equally. In the past couple of weeks there have been a lot of letters in the Guardian from correspondents of both sexes about how they're worse off after the 10p tax rate abolition: a case of the political being personal if ever there was.
James: well, reading some of the comments on Iain Dale's Diary, I'm not surprised that relatively few women enjoy spending time there.
>>the point is not whether men or female are more political but whether men are more likely to feel the need to voice their views in public (i.e. blogging or letter writing).<<
But almost equal numbers of men and women have blogs, which to me suggests that both sexes *are* almost equally inclined to 'voice their views in public'.
You may well be right in suggesting that more men than women like talking about politics. But this doesn't necessarily explain the discrepancies on the letters page, because the letters page doesn't just cover politics. Today, for example, there are four letters on the subject of the correct pronunciation of 'quark', one on the threats to Snowdonia national park, one about car parks in Otley, and two about how to make Radio 3 more popular - none of which are really 'macro' or political issues.
i am a regular guardian reader and very frequently tut and tsk and make a mental note to fire off a letter
but by the time i remember, it's usually after 1/2pm and i know that the letter is very unlikely to be considered given the copy deadlines etc.
also, by early afternoon, the CBA* factor has often kicked in
* can't be arsed
but i am pleased about this blog and will be really interested to hear what the letters editor has to say in response to your stats
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