#16662: Chris Clarke — 02/23  at  10:35 AM
While you clearly have a ways to go to work yourself into Feminist Heaven, PZ, I suspect that 21 percent female blogroll might just put you into the top quintile of bloggers as a whole.

- Chris (43% female blogroll)

#16663: — 02/23  at  10:40 AM
My blogroll would be about 90% male. If someone can show me blogs written by women which are as good as Kevin Drum's, or Carl Zimmer's, I'll eagerly add them to my incoming RSS. Good blogs, like the Panda's Thumb, for some reason tend to be predominantly male, like the Panda's Thumb.

#16666: — 02/23  at  10:47 AM
I related this statistic from LiveJournal yesterday on Kevin Drum's 'Political Animal':

Gender

Are males or females more likely to maintain journals?

* Male: 1935560 (32.8%)
* Female: 3963946 (67.2%)
* Unspecified: 1800470

As you can see, there's more than just blogs out there, and there are a *lot* of females who do write/post/opine online.

#16668: Roxanne — 02/23  at  10:48 AM
Well, if you'd all quit writing about this "science" bullshit, then you'd have more time to discover women bloggers. [snark]

Also, if all it takes to be added to more men's RSS feeds and blogrolls is pulling a paragraph from the NYT and then adding, "but Andrew says X" or "Josh says Y" then I'll get cracking.

#16669: — 02/23  at  10:49 AM
It's always easier to call someone a hypocrite than to refute his arguments. You don't have to pay so much attention to character assassination.

- Alon Levy (no blog, no blogroll...)

#16670: — 02/23  at  10:56 AM
Men are from Movable Type, Women are from LiveJournal.

(Boy, does that mean Six Apart is one sharp matchmaker or what?... :=)

#16673: PZ Myers — 02/23  at  11:04 AM
What does that make us Expression Engine users?

#16677: — 02/23  at  11:10 AM
What does that make us Expression Engine users?

More evolved life forms?

#16679: Jodi — 02/23  at  11:25 AM
This is ridiculous. Why or why do people on some version of the left eat their own? I'm a feminist and most of the blogs on my blog role are from men and most of the comments are from men. A better exercise would be to go after anti-woman, biologically essentialist, and conservative content.

#16722: Rana — 02/23  at  01:26 PM
What these buffoons fail to realize is it's not the linking (or lack thereof) that is irritating. It's the claim that women's blogs aren't popular because something is wrong with them, while simultaneously refusing to even consider that something might be wrong with either the yardstick used to measure popularity or the (male) blogger claiming to be interested in inclusivity (while maintaining a low-female blogroll).

Since PZ's never done this (indeed, he has the admirable trait of treating all the people on his blogroll as _people_), to go after him for not having a 50-50 link split misses the point so badly that one must suspect that it is an effort to deflect attention away from the more important question of why liberal "feminist" male bloggers feel the need to paint women as inferior bloggers while claiming neutrality in the first place.

(One can say many things about right-wing male bloggers' relationships with women, but at least they never talk the feminist talk while walking the sexist walk. And they cheerfully admit their biases when called on them, instead of getting mad at other people (women) for daring to point them out.)

...

I'd also like to point out that these Gene folks left out my blog, which would slightly increase your female percentage, PZ. Makes me wonder who else on your blogroll they've failed to notice... and why...

#16730: Reed A. Cartwright — 02/23  at  02:04 PM

Good blogs, like the Panda’s Thumb, for some reason tend to be predominantly male, like the Panda’s Thumb.

The lack of female participation on PT is one of our concerns. We're not happy with the fact that we have only one active female author. Our problem is not in finding quality female bloggers, but in finding quality females interesting in addressing creationism in blog format.

There are several good female bloggers who discuss biology, but are for good reason drawn to discuss reproductive biology and reproductive politics.

There are also several good female biologists who combat creationism, but are not involved in doing it over the internet.

#16738: Chris Clarke — 02/23  at  02:15 PM
I’d also like to point out that these Gene folks left out my blog, which would slightly increase your female percentage, PZ.

Well, duh. It's called Frogs and Ravens, and everyone knows girls don't like frogs.

#16739: razib — 02/23  at  02:19 PM
i would be willing to bet money that PZ has a higher percentage of females on his blogroll than we do. i don't care. i normally link to people who comment on the boards, link to us, or request a link (and i'll be honest that i rarely read the blogs i link to). since our core readership is around 10-25% female, i wouldn't be surprised if the proportion of blogs we link to are female in that range (though i don't read more than 6 or so blogs on a regular basis so i don't "hat tip" many people).

i pay for the bandwidth. i own the domain. same with PZ, he should link to who he chooses to, bias shouldn't come into it because every visitor from another blog takes up his bandwidth and he is implicitly paying for their visit. same with every other blog on the blogosphere that's not sponsored by some organization. i don't read political weblogs much, but i have heard now and then that there is a bias against women. i have talked to female bloggers about this perception. perhaps there is bias, but since the blogosphere is decentralized, the only way to change it is blog by blog on a personal basis.

four of us split the duties of parsing PZ's blogroll. on a high speed connection it took about one hour each. so it would probably have taken 4-5 hours for PZ to do his own analysis, basically an afternoon. from then on he could set his own goals and targets if he so chose.

why does it matter what the composition of PZ's blogroll is?

1) he seemed to imply that there is a plentitude of great female bloggers, ergo, any underrepresentation on blogrolls was due to selection bias rather than a reflection of supply. i suspect that depending on the topic of interest it is supply. i'm not single, but several of my co-bloggers are, and we link to interesting women who frequent our comment boards ASAP.

2) the media often pays more attention to the pecadillos of conservative politicians than liberal ones. i think that's fair-conservatives set themselves up as relative moral exemplars because of the principles they espouse and rhetoric they engage in. that doesn't mean they have to be saints, but there is a line they can't cross. similarly, if you are a liberal, and you promote certain values of diversity and inclusion, but by your own actions you aren't inclusive yourself, well perhaps that needs to be pointed out to you.

3) i do not believe PZ is biased in the least against women. i also suspect that covert bias is minimal on his part. i think he links to his intellectual fellow travellers. that's normal. i think conservatives, men, geeks, trekkies women, interior designers, mechanics, musicians, feminists, etc. do the same. if there happen to be more conservatives or men blogging, then you can connect the dots in terms of how large these networks are going to be.

4) we might have made some errors. if you care to correct us, if accuracy matters a great deal to you, our tally is open to your examination. i am sure we made many errors, though i think the general result is probably robust.

#16740: razib — 02/23  at  02:26 PM
p.s. two more things, until the frequency of political posts starting shooting up, i was a fan of PZ's site. and if you look at Truth Laid Bear's Traffic Ranking it seems like PZ is the highest ranked science blog on the list. so who he links to probably does matter more than is typical....

#16744: Rana — 02/23  at  02:32 PM
Interesting response. I do have two questions, since you seem concerned about this topic. Why PZ? Why _only_ PZ?

It seems to me, that if you were truly interested in addressing the issue of women's representation and popularity in the blogosphere, you'd be doing the same sort of dissection of every blog that posed the "Where are the women bloggers" question, not just the blog of one male blogger who called the whole equation into question. (And I don't think that PZ's gender is irrelevant here; if it's only women complaining, well then they can be dismissed -- if a man complains, well, that means it's not just about the women and their assumed flaws.)

I don't like wearing tinfoil hats (they crinkle!) but it's very tempting to assume that the reason why all or most of the heat and counter-attack is directed to those who challenge those flawed posts, and none to actually considering the merits of the posts themselves, is that the defenders have something at stake in the debate.

Instead of defending the likes of Kevin Drum, Matt Yglesias et al when they post something stupid like this, and dismissing their challengers out of hand, why not look at _both_ sides with equal scrutiny? The only reason I can think of to not do so is because of fear that the critics are right. Or fear of looking stupid oneself. And then the "puzzled" male bloggers would have to (*gasp*) put up or shut up.

So... any plans to look into the validity and blogrolls of the "something must be wrong with the women bloggers" folks?

No?

#16749: razib — 02/23  at  02:48 PM
It seems to me, that if you were truly interested in addressing the issue of women’s representation and popularity in the blogosphere,

but you see, i'm really not interested in that question. if i was single, i might be far more interested, as when i was single i was eager to get more female readers. i'm not single, and i my readership is already straining my bandwidth, so i'm not keen to diversify beyond what i have now. as for why i focused on PZ

1) his comment was forwarded to me
2) he is the top science blogger in terms from traffic from what i can see
3) if PZ, who unlike drum or yglesias, has taken a rather strident and uncompromising pro-feminist stance several times since the larry summers controversy and now the issue of blogrankings doesn't have a diversified blogroll despite his ostensible lack of bias, then one might question how much bias really comes into play.
4) time is finite, i really don't care that much about this topic, so i'm not going to audit every blog out there. on the other hand, there are people who do care, so perhaps they should take up the torch (*hint*). i've already stated that it took us about 4-5 hours to aduit 267 weblogs. if there are many blogging activists interested in this question, go for it, divying it up you could audit the "big boys" in a few days if you have enough people. as it is, it seems all you have are impressions and NZ bear's ecosystem. does more data hurt? ball's in your court if you think this is a problem (as i said, i don't particularly care much).

#16750: razib — 02/23  at  02:49 PM
oh, and also, i simply wanted to provide a useful link to anyone who get's acccused by PZ of bias in the future. you might or might not think it is a valid talking point, but perhaps it might dampen down the righteous tone....

Trackback: Think globally, act locally Tracked on: Gene Expression (206.123.109.146) at 2005 02 23 14:53:34
Gender info on P.Z. Myers' blogroll excluding "The Progressive Alliance": Field Male Female Other %Male %Female %Other Aggregate Totals Feminists 0 9 0 0% 100% 0% 9 Academics 13 18 6 35.1% 48.6% 16.2% 37 Educators 7 4 1...

#16753: Rana — 02/23  at  03:05 PM
Thank you, razib, for confirming my suspicions.

I _thought_ that this was because you had a bone to pick with PZ for being an outspoken feminist, and a popular* male feminist no less, and not because you actually cared about questions of gender equity.

Very neat, btw, how you tried to deflect my critiques so that it's no longer about you, but about others' failures to do what _you_ implied needed to be done.

Clever -- but not clever enough.


*Popular, ironically enough, as defined by the very ranking system PZ raises questions about. Amusing!

#16756: mattH — 02/23  at  03:10 PM
The most interesting thing about this to me is the need to quantify things and then making a judgment based on that (likely) flawed quantification. I think the first posts by Rana and Jodi pretty much explain why I think precentage-of-blog roll is a fallacious factor in determining the feminist support of a blogger.

#16759: razib — 02/23  at  03:18 PM

I _thought_ that this was because you had a bone to pick with PZ for being an outspoken feminist, and a popular* male feminist no less, and not because you actually cared about questions of gender equity.


he isn't civil to others. that's a problem. those is glass houses....


The most interesting thing about this to me is the need to quantify things and then making a judgment based on that (likely) flawed quantification.

ok, well then, my impression is that there is no bias in linking on the blogosphere against women.

#16761: razib — 02/23  at  03:22 PM
by the way, i freely admit that a head count is a very primitive way to figure anything out. that is part of the reason i did it: people tend to rely on head counts to make assessments of bias all the time. that neglects 1) the size of the pool and 2) the weighting of the individuals.

if you want to say that simplistic numerical metrics do not express the nuance and texture of a particular issue, i agree with you. but in public fora where people say there "aren't enough women in IT" or "there aren't enough women in science" it tends to be based on simplistic head counts.

#16767: Rana — 02/23  at  03:42 PM
Ah, but see, razib, you were trying to present yourself as the voice of neutrality and reason when you posted about PZ.

Now you've just admitted it was for some sort of petty revenge. Seems that you've ceded the moral high ground -- if you ever had it in the first place. (So, need some windex for that glass house?)

You're just digging yourself in deeper and deeper, dude.

btw, it's exactly his incivility to fools and sexists that makes this a feminist blog -- not how many bloggers he did or didn't link. See, he understands that women are people, each judged on their own merits, not little numbers to tally up. You could make your entire blogroll 100% female, but that wouldn't turn your blog into a feminist one.

And, duh, that's part of PZ's point: using the ranking system -- and any other numerical rubric devoid of context -- is meaningless. Yes, numbers provide some sort of measuring system, but you have to know who came up with the system, why, and what it actually measures. It's you who thinks links = indication of feminist authenticity, not us or PZ.

So... you've revealed your true colors, while simultaneously proving PZ correct!

Wow! Who knew you'd do the hard work for me?

#16771: Rana — 02/23  at  03:50 PM
(Plus, then there's the fact that the data you're basing your claims on is (a)incomplete and (b)flawed. I took a closer look at your categories, and noticed at least five blogs by women you misidentified, and a few missing ones in addition to the ones already noted. (I mean, Cav Lec, home of one of the most outspoken women out there, is "neither"?) So, again -- this isn't about truth or accurate reporting of data; it's about slanting data to make PZ look bad so you can score points with your buddies. It's a shame you're so transparent with your intentions -- and that it took so much time to generate flawed data that misses the point PZ's making. Smarter monkeys, please!)

#16773: razib — 02/23  at  03:51 PM
Now you’ve just admitted it was for some sort of petty revenge.

sure, sure, you are correct. as always....