Heather Mac Donald has an interesting column on the widely discussed data showing that some 87% of all Wikipedia contributors are male. She argues persuasively that it’s difficult to attribute the gap to discrimination, since most Wikipedia writers are anonymous, thereby making it virtually impossible for Wikipedia to discriminate against women even if they wanted to.
Wikipedia obviously covers many subjects. But to the extent that the underrepresentation of women there extends to the entries on politics and policy issues, it’s part of a longstanding pattern of lesser interest in such issues among women as compared to men. For example, decades of research show that there is a substantial gender gap in political knowledge, with men especially overrepresented among the 5% of the population who follow politics most closely, as measured by political knowledge levels (a group that is some 80% male). I present some of the relevant data in Part VI of this article, including the figure about the top 5%. As I describe there, the gender gap in political knowledge covers a wide range of issues. There are relatively few exceptions. Similarly, this recent Harris poll shows that 25% of men, but only 10% of women report reading at least one nonfiction book on politics over the last year. As in the case of Wikipedia, it’s hard to attribute these gaps to discrimination. Basic political information of the kind tested by pollsters is easily accessed in many different places, and booksellers would be more than happy to sell more political books to women.
Obviously, it would also be wrong to attribute the gap to “stupidity” on the part of women. Political ignorance is not stupidity. As I have often pointed out in the past, it is actually rational behavior for most citizens, assuming that their only reason to become informed is to be a “better” voter. Most of those who do acquire a lot of political knowledge do so primarily because they find it interesting, rather than because they are unusually intelligent or patriotic. Moreover, it is clearly not the case that women are generally less knowledgeable than men. Younger women today have higher average levels of educational attainment than men, and the Harris poll mentioned above shows that they also read more than men do overall.
Thus, the gender gap in political knowledge and interest in politics is likely due to lower interest among women in this particular field rather than “stupidity” or a general unwillingness or inability to acquire information. More men than women are interested in reading about politics and following policy issues closely.
Why the difference? The most obvious explanation is that politics was historically a male-dominated sphere from which women were largely excluded. Only in the last few decades has that begun to change in a major way. Elements of the old attitude surely persist, and they probably influence women’s propensity to become interested in politics. At the same time, that may not be the only factor. Despite massive changes in public attitudes on women’s role in politics over the last fifty years, the general gap in political knowledge has declined only modestly over time (I cite some of the relevant data in this article). The gender gap might therefore persist even after sexism in politics has been more fully overcome than it has been so far. One possibility is that women are simply more likely to have various nonpolitical interests than men are, which leaves less free time available to follow politics. For example, the Harris survey shows that many more women than men read various genres of fiction than men do (science fiction is an unusual, but predictable exception).
At this point, some readers will be tempted to dismiss the data by saying something like “I’m a woman and I love politics,” or “I know many women who follow politics all the time.” But the data are based on statistically representative samples of the population as a whole. For every such general pattern, there are many individual exceptions. The fact that I like Jane Austen novels doesn’t discredit the data showing that her readership is disproportionately female.
Our personal experience can be a poor guide to general patterns because we and the people we know are often unrepresentative. If you regularly read political blogs such as this one, you and your friends are likely to be much more interested in politics than the average person – male or female. The fact that women on average are less interested in politics than men is perfectly consistent with the existence of many individual women who follow politics closely and an even larger number of men who don’t. Indeed, the statistically average man is very far from being a political junkie. But among those people who do fall into that category, men are significantly more common than women.
UPDATE: In this 2008 post, I commented on the related fact that the vast majority of political bloggers are male, as are about 70-80% of political blog readers.
Steve says:
The gender disparity must be attributable to pervasive discrimination, just as with conservatives in academia. Suggesting that women aren’t as interested in politics makes you sound suspiciously like some old reactionary explaining that blacks don’t really want to go into management because they’re much happier without all the responsibility.
February 15, 2011, 11:36 pmIlya Somin says:
“The gender disparity must be attributable to pervasive discrimination, just as with conservatives in academia.”
In academia, there are gatekeepers who have the power to discriminate on ideology when they make hiring decisions, often at little cost to themselves. By contrast, basic political information is freely available to almost anyone who wants to take the time to learn it. Similarly, there is no evidence that book sellers somehow discriminate against female buyers of political books, and doing so would be against their self-interest.
February 15, 2011, 11:47 pmSteve says:
If you find MacDonald persuasive when she argues that there can’t be pervasive discrimination on Wikipedia because of anonymity, then you ought to be similarly convinced by the fact that the vast, vast majority of teaching candidates do not wear their politics on their sleeve.
February 15, 2011, 11:51 pmBill VOORHIES says:
Evolutionary psychology fully explains this & is so obvious. We are everywhere in denial of our animal nature.
February 15, 2011, 11:56 pmIlya Somin says:
If you find MacDonald persuasive when she argues that there can’t be pervasive discrimination on Wikipedia because of anonymity, then you ought to be similarly convinced by the fact that the vast, vast majority of teaching candidates do not wear their politics on their sleeve.
They don’t have to wear them on their sleeve for hiring committees to be able to figure them out. In my field (and I suspect in most others that address politically charged issues), I can tell whether a candidate is liberal, conservative, or libertarian the vast majority of the time just by looking at their CV, what they write about, and what positions they took in their publications. I suspect most other lawprofs are no less discerning than I am. Some candidates can avoid revealing their views through careful self-censorship (e.g. – by writing only about issues that are not ideologically controversial). But it’s very tough to do, and when this strategy does succeed, it deprives the academy of dissenting views by driving those who might express them “in the closet.”
By contrast, it is much more difficult to tell whether an anonymous Wikipedia writer is male or female.
February 15, 2011, 11:59 pmSenX says:
For example, the Harris survey shows that many more women than men read various genres of fiction than men do (science fiction is an unusual, but predictable exception).
I found those charts interesting (though the “average one book a year” made me pause and think – in my house we go through about 1 book a week each and thats only because we work so much and have kids. One book a year? That would suck).
We fit right in the charts though. I read mostly science fiction mixed with history/philosophy/finance and my wife reads primarily serial killer books with a smattering of true crime and WWII history(don’t ask me where that comes from).
Now I will read her crime books if they are good and really enjoy some of them but I can’t think of a single science fiction book she has read.
February 16, 2011, 12:01 amFreddy Hill says:
I wonder how this correlates to tea party activism. It’s my subjective perception that women are overrepresented (as compared to typical female involvement) both in participation and leadership.
February 16, 2011, 12:38 amSteve says:
The vast, vast majority of academic fields do not center around politically charged issues.
February 16, 2011, 12:49 amDoc Merlin says:
Yes and the ones that are least politically charged and more objectively testable are less likely to be leftist. Hence why Engineering is the most conservative department followed by Natural sciences (excepting biology).
February 16, 2011, 1:22 amOrin Kerr says:
Steve,
I’m curious, do you teach in a field that you would consider part of that vast, vast majority? If you’re willing to say, in what general field do you teach?
February 16, 2011, 1:33 amNo Theory of Jurisprudence says:
Source?
February 16, 2011, 1:34 amDw says:
President Summers, you’re fired.
February 16, 2011, 2:03 amMavis Beacon says:
I would actually theorize that men are more interested in politics because of the competitive dimension. Political coverage and sports coverage have a lot in common.
February 16, 2011, 2:06 amCareless says:
It was a pretty sad situation when a comment on brains led to the feminists being able to force a man out of his job over the objections of the actual relevant sciences.
February 16, 2011, 2:13 amLarryA says:
My wife and I fit the same categories. She did enjoy Andre Norton’s Beastmaster series.
February 16, 2011, 3:26 amFrank Drackman says:
Its simple, in junior high when I was learning how to throw a curve ball, memorizing Ron Cey’s career statistics, and the Infield Fly Rule, my sister was banging guys.
In High School when I was learning how to make a bong, memorizing complicated directions to mushroom patches, and umm thats about it, my Sister was busy banging guys.
In College, when I was learning how to grow pot in a closet, memorizing complicated organic chemistry mechanisms, my sister was banging guys.
In Med School when I was learning how to put in chest tubes, memorizing obscure neurologic reflex arcs, and how to grow pot in a basement, my sister was banging guys.
So its only natural I remember Mark Belanger’s uniform number (#7)the plot to every “Brady Bunch” episode and what a Hoffman degradation is while my sister is still banging guys.
Frank
February 16, 2011, 6:44 amMike says:
It has been my experience that women in our culture, for whatever reasons, are less likely to “geek out” over a subject. Whatever the area if interest for guys, there is a strong tendency to pick one or two areas and obsess over them. You have computer nerds, car guys, gun nuts, sports guys, etc. Whereas even in areas that are more female dominated I rarely find the same level of obsession.
I personally think this difference explains a lot of the gender gap in very obsessive or competitive fields. Almost no one goes into computer science, for example, without having obsessed over computers as a hobbyist for their high school years.
I have no idea what the cause for this distinction is – culture, biology, competition, role models – nor do I have a judgment of whether this kind of obsession with details and trivia and facts is healthy. But it has been fairly consistent over most women I have met, and the ones who do end up going into computers or activism are defitely fit, personality wise, as exceptions to the rule.
February 16, 2011, 6:55 amJHW says:
Have you considered cross-national differences in political interest among women? I know there’s a substantial amount of difference in the proportion of women involved in politics across countries, and that might be a very rough proxy.
February 16, 2011, 7:30 amAJ says:
Women are more cooperative; men are more competitive. Politics these days emphasizes the horse-race and who has created political leverage. Due in part because of the evolution of the media, it’s become sport in another form. Just as watching hockey for some is about the fights, politics is in many ways about the gotcha — who’s changed positions, who’s got embarrassing baggage, and who’s tactic failed. If you have ever watched sports with women, you quickly see that they lose interest in the tactics and in the theater of competition pretty quick (on average). The Superbowl is about the commercials and half time!
Oftentimes politics is like conducting an autopsy to try and figure out why something failed (books by Rumsfeld, Palin, etc.). How many women do you know like the idea of an autopsy or tearing something apart to see how it works. Unless there is some incredible behind-the-scenes story, I contend that women lose interest. Obama was a great story about race-healing for many women. Add to that the attractive family and his great “bring everyone together” oratory skills and, bam, you have the interest of women. Fail to live up to the lofty rhetoric and they lose interest. In many ways, this is testosterone versus estrogen.
February 16, 2011, 7:46 amAJ says:
Your sister sounds nice. Many politicians I’m sure would be interested in her, errrr, vote!
February 16, 2011, 7:52 amJacob says:
Is There Anything Good About Men?: How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men by Roy F. Baumeister has some interesting thoughts on why men are more into politics than women. His basic thesis is that men tend to foster numerous and shallow relationships (and thereby, being networkers for government, business, etc.), and women tend to prefer intimate and deep relationships (and thereby orienting them towards such environments where that happens more naturally – family, schools, etc.). Of course that’s not universal, but the sociological tendencies. The factors of why aren’t discussed, but the information is presented in an interesting way that might have some bearing on the question at hand.
February 16, 2011, 7:58 amben says:
Frank wins. No reason for this blog to continue.
February 16, 2011, 8:03 amJoe says:
female dominated I rarely find the same level of obsession
women never obsess about Lady Di, celebrities, child issues, appearance and so forth? to toss out all the stereotypical “women” issues?
February 16, 2011, 8:15 amKL says:
She is sexist too. She said that articles of interest for women are not written. So the name of the second king of Rome or the text of the Constitution of the Consulate or the doppler effect is a male interest?
February 16, 2011, 9:06 amSo no articles on bandanas? who cares? There are 6 pages about Frodo? who cares? You dont use an encyclopedia for things like that.
KL says:
Women are more cooperative; men are more competitive
February 16, 2011, 9:10 amSo thats why there is an study showing that only men music groups do well than only women ones. Rolling Stones playing until the grave and beyond
That is why there are professional male sports teams and not many females
KL says:
Steve is right: Natural sciences( the only real ones) even biology are not politically charged. religion is not a political question. Only, the USA ( in the western world)
February 16, 2011, 9:14 ama allows superstition to damage the teaching of biology( I learned evolution in a catholic school in the third world, we never were told about creationism)
Sk says:
I’m not going to repeat what so many have said:
“Why the difference? The most obvious explanation is that politics was historically a male-dominated sphere from which women were largely excluded. Only in the last few decades has that begun to change in a major way.”
But what many commenters are saying is that this is not the most obvious explanation. different interests, different attitudes towards competition, different levels of obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and so on or some very obvious explanations that most of us who have been alive for a few years would think about.
It is interesting to me that even a non-liberal academic obviously has the ‘sexism/racism explains everything’ disease.
Sk
February 16, 2011, 9:34 amwolfefan says:
Frank Drackman for the humorous win, Mavis Beacon for the more serious win. It’s hard to tell Fox/MSNBC from ESPN in tone, approach, breathless hype of trivia, and overall value. People root for parties instead of teams irrespective of the actual content or affect of those parties’ ideas. Conservative and Liberal are labels like Dodger and Giant, except that Dodger and Giant are labels with more actual meaning in today’s world. Glenn Beck = Jim Rome. (Nobody equals Mr. Tony.)
February 16, 2011, 9:43 amGiant Frog says:
Shhh. There are no patterns here, only uncorrelated accidental circumstances that for no good reason just happened to occur all over the world and throughout history.
Steve is right: Natural sciences( the only real ones) even biology are not politically charged. religion is not a political question.
How wrong you are about biology, and I’m not referring to religion. Denial of biology – by liberals, mostly – is a constant in politics, so perhaps that’s why it’s not noticed.
February 16, 2011, 9:45 amCarl the EconGuy says:
I’d be interested in the gender breakdown of users of Wikipedia. My guess is that it would be less male dominated than the contributorship, probably much less male dominated, maybe even close to fifty-fifty.
If that is true, it poses the question of why women are content to be free riders on Wikipedia. Supposing they’re not dumber, less competent, more ignorant about interesting issues, or less interested in various matters than men, why don’t they contribute to Wikipedia?
Because women are culturally preconditioned by our society to be free riders. Obviously. It begins with the first date. Or even earlier. Someone said this: Whenever a new baby girl first looks up at her smiling daddy’s face from the crib, she gurgles and says to herself, “Hello, sucker!”
Just don’t tell this to my wife (she works, I don’t) or to my daughters (both professionals).
February 16, 2011, 9:46 amLarry King Drackman says:
Men are more competitive, one of the best fights I ever saw in Med School was when one Male student answered a question about another Male students patient on rounds..you just don’t do that…
February 16, 2011, 9:47 amThe Female students didn’ do that, even though they could have, cause you can’t just get all Ike Turner on a female classmate, they just slept with the Attending Physicians…
Tina Trent says:
Frank Drackman does a delightful job of demonstrating why women might choose to avoid the purile barnacalization of some political circles and comment threads, but I’d like to add a personal observation (one that doesn’t involve actionable speech against my siblings): the Tea Party movement is drawing women in droves. Having moved from left to the right, this doesn’t surprise me. I never saw raw sexism like the raw sexism of the Left. And I don’t make that particular accusation lightly. If the average lefty operative behaved the way he behaves towards women on, say, a loading dock, someone would object. By preeningly conflating claims of liberation and civil rights with freewheeling contempt for women, the Left fosters a sad environment for both sexes (their feminists will never confront this). So I’m not surprised to find that there are more politically engaged women on the Right. Of course, there are calcified gatekeepers there too — and an unpleasant degree of nepotism and clubbishness that flies in the face of principles — but at least those principles encourage healthy engagement and the price of admission for females is not masochism (sexual and otherwise). And outside traditional power circles, the surge of female interest in Tea Party politics offers a happy harbinger of what is to come.
February 16, 2011, 9:50 amMike says:
Oh, some do… but it’s a different style of obsession in my experience. Women rarely define themselves by their obsession.
February 16, 2011, 9:54 amhappycynic says:
There is no gender gap, there is a gender difference. Men are on average more interested and involved in national politics. Women are on average more interested and invovled in local politics (school boards, civics groups, etc.). At least that’s what I was taught in my poly sci classes about a decade ago.
February 16, 2011, 10:50 amRicardo says:
That’s possible. There is a distinction between men who are actively involved in politics and those who are spectators and males seem to be overrepresented in both. Harvey Mansfield thinks active involvement in politics by men is due to the innate urge to compete with and dominate others. I’m sure there’s a great deal of truth in this.
For politics as spectator sport, though, it may have more to do with geekiness and the fact that it is a trait found more often in men for whatever reason.
February 16, 2011, 10:55 amFrank Drackman says:
Forget Politics, what is it with women and Shoes???
I mean, I dress well, one of the few MDs I know who still wears wingtips, my dead Grandfather’s who was a 1/2 size bigger than me, and was almost burried in them, but who wants to spend eternity wearing uncomfortable shoes?
2 pairs of sneakers, 1 pair Flight Boots, 1 pair combat boots.
and the newest pair of sneakers is my Larry Bird Converse All Stars they don’t make any more, probably cause Larry Bird is 54, yeah they stink.
I’ve got a pair of Roller Blades, but there not really shoes.
My Wifes got at least 300, and not cheap ones either, and none she got free from a dead relative…
Frank
February 16, 2011, 11:06 amRicardo says:
The New York Times/CBS poll of the Tea Partiers pegged it at 59% male. Maybe things are different in the ranks of the activists?
February 16, 2011, 11:12 amMDT says:
Ilya,
The most obvious explanation is that politics was historically a male-dominated sphere from which women were largely excluded. Only in the last few decades has that begun to change in a major way.
But how many women are unaware of the last few decades? What fraction are old enough that their opinions about the political sphere were formed before the last few decades?
I rather resent the implication that women are less likely to be interested in anything if there aren’t sufficient women in it. (In my experience, it’s men who are less likely to be interested in anything if there aren’t sufficient women in it.) But I’m having difficulty coming up with an explanation better than that politics is “guy stuff,” in the same way as, say, tinkering with your car or building model airplanes. (But as a female political geek who has built model airplanes, I’m so far an outlier that I ought not to be commenting on this at all.)
February 16, 2011, 11:59 amFrank Drackman says:
A Chick who builds model airplanes????!!!!
February 16, 2011, 12:14 pmI only did it for the glue.
But do you like the 3 Stooges???
I mean really like them as in laugh out loud even if you’ve seen the episode 400 times.
My favorites the one where they connect the water pipes to the gas main and the Black Cook comes into the kitchen wearing foul weather gear.
I even like the ones with Shemp, but Joe Besser sucked Barney Frank (redacted)
And I’ve slo-Moe’d(get it? “Moe”) the eye gouges, nose wrenches, hammers to the head over and over like they do with the Zapruder film, and I can’t figure out how they did it without being blinded…
Frank
erp says:
Frank, ease up on the meds. :-)
February 16, 2011, 2:14 pmjsl says:
Men are more likely to have spare time to dedicate to pursuits like reading for personal interest – or, say, editing wikipedia.
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2010/JF/feat/schie.htm
It really does come down to this – all of these things are explained by the opportunity cost of spending your (as a gender) free time on menial chores. These are people in similar places in life, with similar educational backgrounds – and women still spend twice as much of their spare time on housework as men. Ev psych or not, it’s hard to assert that when people in the same jobs and thus presumably at the same level of interest in that field (even if women as a whole are evpsychically predisposed to family pursuits, these women are the self-selected portion not of that group) are doing differential things, it isn’t a culturally determined difference.
Wikipedia editing is a free time thing. Men have more of it.
February 16, 2011, 7:50 pmJonathan says:
Hey, here’s a novel idea: Let’s listen to what actual women have to say about the topic! Here’s one for you: Amanda Marcotte!
February 24, 2011, 5:34 amHarley Touring Bikes » Blog Archive » The Next Generation of Libertarians says:
[...] from twenty years ago, when young libertarians were an overwhelmingly male group. Considering that women are on average less interested in politics than men are in general, the percentage of women in SFL is roughly what one would expect in a student political group that [...]
February 26, 2011, 1:52 pm