No reply yet from either Letters Editor, and Statcounter says they haven't been in to look here either. But the email only went off on Sunday, so it's early days. In the meantime, here's what I sent:
Dear Guardian and Observer letters editors,
I wonder if you could help shed light on something for me. I've just completed a month-long study of the gender split between the writers of letters published in the Guardian and the Observer, and I've been recording the results in a blog here.
My original aim was to question whether the letters pages of both newspapers reflected the actual gender split in the papers' readerships. This was specifically in order to query a point that Nigel Willmott made in a Guardian article in March about the editorially-controlled letters page providing a more useful service to readers than the free-for-all of online commenting.
The results suggest that the letters pages in no way reflect the actual readership – there are far more published letters from men than from women in both papers - but I am wondering why this is so. Is it the case that far fewer women write letters to the editor? Do you think it's because you tend to publish letters from public figures, and public figures tend to be men? I'm afraid I started off with the assumption that it was all down to (conscious or subconscious) sexism, but my readers and I have since come up with a number of theories, which are listed at the end of this post.
I'd be very interested to hear your views on the subject, and if you could give me some idea of the gender split in the correspondence your papers receive, I'd be really very grateful. I also hope you won’t mind me publishing your replies – along with this email – on the blog in question.
Many thanks in advance,
Patroclus [only signed with my real name, obviously]
I will, of course, keep you fully informed of any developments.
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