Blogging + women ≠ EU
A purely unscientific, observational remark: there doesn’t seem to be too many women blogging about the EU. Or, for the heck of it, about politics in general. Why is that?
I studied politics and European studies and the classes were always relatively fifty-fifty in terms of gender ratio. Where do the women disappear after graduation?
I was randomly wondering around the net and got into reading about the European blogosphere. So here I am browsing through other blog posts and who’s commented on them and I notice how few women there are. I read through the registered EU blogs from Finland and the UK and see very few female names, @EULondonRep may well be the only one I can name from the top of my head and she works for the EU.
I leave you with a question: Why?
Filed under: Online Journalism, UK & the EU | 11 Comments
Tags: blogging, EU, women
Have you read <a href="http://www.eurosocialist.eu/"Eurosocialist?, or Bit More Complicated? Or EU for US? Or Europeanization? Or La Oreja de Europa (Spanish)?
There seem to be more women following EU politics on Twitter than in blogs – Eurosocialiste has compiled a list of EU Girl Geeks that is worth following.
I did not know of these, Eurosocialist’s seems excellent! And am now a follower of the list. Many thanks!
By the way – have posted about your blog HERE with some links to other female blogs.
Looking forward to reading your opinion on the EU / UK feud!
First of all thanks to Joe for making us aware of Cosmetic Uprise – and Mia thanks for writing!
Regarding to the question why there are not so many women in the Euroblogosphere: I think this represents the general statistics for political blogs and is not so much a specialty of Europe-related political blogs.
But as Joe notes, the general demographics on Twitter are much more favourable to women, and you see that the discussions in the Eurotwittersphere are much more balanced (and diverse).
I suppose there is research on why this is so.
Gotta love twitter.
My theory is that perhaps women are less keen on being branded as geeks – I for one go by the title of EU-geek among my friends but that’s perfectly alright with me. I do have glasses and everything.
But seeing as it is such a recent phenomenom, I’ll give it a few years and see what happens. Fingers crossed!
Hello fellow female blogger! Good to find you! Indeed, there are very few women blogging about European politics… that’s one of the reasons why I decided to start blogging, to put a little more balance in the Euroblogosphere. I think there are few women blogging about politics in general and that comes from the fact that women don’t feel as confident as men in expressing their views. I notice that at all political conferences or meetings I go to, very few women dare take the floor to ask questions. I guess that’s probably because women don’t enjoy rambling as much as men do (sorry gentlemen). We are probably more straight to the point and not as ego-focused in our approach to public speaking… but I’m probably being a bit harsh…
I completely agree. I mean admittedly going to conferences and even in classes, though the gender ratio is balanced men are more confident in taking the floor.
I just feel that if there aren’t many female bloggers around, there is the possibility we might just become a novelty. Like the obligatory minority group mention now and then.
Oh well, quality over quantity.
And I promise not to make this a war between the sexes.
Ah, well, you are not alone and there is hope:
Who rules the social web? | Information is Beautiful
Hi there, just followed the link through from my blog stats where your blog was flagged as a new visitor and found this post.
Lovely to meet another female euroblogger.
Before I had a child, the idea that I might look at the world through a prism related to my gender or family status seemed either silly or patronising.
But as my blog tries to set out, the motherhood issue is one reason you lose a lot of female European political bloggers – it’s actually quite hard to keep a blog going, keep up with the latest and be able to comment on it (let alone break stories) as well as work and raise kids which is the most important job because they deserve their parents’ time…
But that doesn’t mean women have nothing to say and that their voices shouldn’t be heard.
In fact I suspect that taking into account the needs and preferences of women, and mothers and carers in particular, would aid economic recovery and vastly increase the talent and ideas pools. Condoning ridiculous working hours, or saying that there’s a game that should be played in a certain way to “get on” is… [sighs, climbs down off soapbox]… well, you get the idea.
And on the Twitter thing – blogs take time, and research. Or just time and opinion if you’ve the confidence to be wrong and corrected. Twitter takes 30 seconds and a Tweet can be sent with one hand while simultaneously packing a bag for kindergarten…
Am adding you to my RSS feedreader, look forward to reading more of your stuff!
Rose22joh,
“But as my blog tries to set out, the motherhood issue is one reason you lose a lot of female European political bloggers [..]“.
Doesn’t male European political bloggers also become parents?
/Kallisti – (a Swedish male working with gender issues)
Kallisti – you’re spot on right. Both parents become parents. Perhaps things are more evenly balanced in nordic countries (I suspect so) but my experiences suggest and therefore my contention is that social pressure in the UK is still on mothers over fathers to put the child’s needs before personal activities such as blogging and that long hours etc. at work are less excusable as a mother of a young child than as the father (I suspect free high-quality childcare, shared parental leave and flexible working for all would help)…