In defense of Margaret Wente. Kind of.

To address the “she said women suck at blogging” school of thought following a harsh explanation of her refusal to blog, I will readily admit that Wente’s piece has all the tact of an elephant in a logic shop.

But, I will give her this much - her basis of analysis is correct. Men blog more than women. Moreover, all things being equal, men post more regularly than female bloggers. Further, they tend to express more decisive opinions when blogging than women. I know this because it was my undergraduate thesis. I’ll try not to be too offended that more people read the Globe and Mail than academic journals. Though to my credit, I included pictures! Well… graphs. But in colour!

The problem is that Wente took a factually correct and provable data point, and rather than reference a stat, just threw it out amidst a lot of self-interested, extremist explanation. Note to writers: if your editor asks you to do something, just politely refuse, don’t write a column about the ignorance of the mere suggestion.

It harkens somewhat to the Roy Macgregor piece last week about the difference in web hits versus good journalism. While I found his points valid, the impact was a bit lost on me as it too seemed to be some public defense of self-worth intended for his higher-ups.

So no, I don’t think Wente’s piece was sexist against women bloggers. In fact, the more I think about it, the more Wente’s piece *is* sexist – against men. It is unfair to suggest that the gender blogging differential is due to some male character flaw, without any recognition of the way we as a group socialize men to:

- have all the answers
- be assertive/take charge
- out-alpha other males

In my mind, it’s the equivalent of saying that the problem with women bloggers is that they can’t make a decision, are always changing their minds, or are always trying to take both sides.

First, show me the data behind your theory. Second, if true, show me this is due to an inherent gender-based flaw.

Studies prove that the responses children elicit from adults as infants differ based on gender and subsequently impact brain development from the earliest of months. Then times that by decades and decades of reinforcement.

Wente is taking a self-righteous approach to demean bloggers based on our demographic’s most prominent trait, but hardly – as evidenced by our blog – an all encompassing one.

There are many shortcomings upon which to criticize blogs (certainly fewer of them apply to our whimsical, brilliant forserious.ca, but let’s not get caught up in details). The largest lie in the medium, not the users.

So let’s not have a cow.