DailyKos, Women, and the Margins

33 thoughts on DailyKos, Women, and the Margins

1. (mmm…..numbers. I like numbers.)

   Thanks Lauren and Sara.

   And color me not so surprised.

2. Sarah’s study is definitely interesting; thanks for the link (I’ve been reading it in another window).

   One thing that bakes my noodle is that it’s not clear how or whether people identify their fellow Kossacks as men or women in advance of commenting in a thread. Most of the handles are gender-neutral, and certainly I’ve never clicked through to find out whether someone is male or female. I imagine (no data to support this) that most people see what’s written and write their response, or not, without finding out much of anything about the original poster.

   So one wonders how a systematic disparity would arise. (I’m not at all saying no such disparity exists, as the statistics are very well-done.) I just wonder about the mechanism, since it’s hard to imagine that the majority of responders in comment have the foggiest idea about the gender of the original commenter.

   Could it be that the story is not one of sexism, but one of some kind of systematically different style in male and female comments — one that might actually indicate that females are contributing more respectably to the forum in question? I know that I tend to be less likely to respond to very thorough and thoughtful comments (because I have little more to say than “me too” or “right on”), and more likely to respond to brief or incomplete ones. To the extent that others behave the same way, a lower comment response rate might be an indication that female commenters tend to be more thorough and complete than males, and that this results in the differing response rate.

   I noticed that Sarah didn’t code for length of comment or any metric of “thoroughness” — perhaps this would be an interesting future direction for the project?

3. As a white man brought up in a middle-class neighborhood in a white state in a white school, I miss a lot of this shit, no matter how much I try to attune myself to these sorts of things.

   An interesting experiment would be to see if using a gender-neutral or -obscure handle changed things. For example, on personal blogs such as this, and really most any other blog I go to, I use my actual first name (or is it?! muahaha)

   When I post on larger sites, sites requiring a handle of some sort for registration, or public message board sort of things, I always opt for my standard handle, “dodongo”. It had never occurred to me that, with that not really marking me as a man (though I suppose the argument could be made that it seems more masculine, especially if you know the background of it), people might be responding to my comments in a different way.

   Are any of the women here willing to take part in that logical extension of this experiment? Try not to change the style in which you post at all; say exactly what you’d normally say, as you’d normally say it, only instead of logging in as, say, “Lauren”, use “college_student_42” or “bookbag_lugger” or something.

   This is a fascinating concept, and despite the relatively small sample, I have to say that what your quoted piece is talking about pretty accurately reflects what I’ve noticed in a latent sort of fashion.

4. I find that I elicit much different responses when I post under gender-neutral nicknames (assumed male, every single time) and when I use “Amanda”. Not so much as it used to be, though, as when I use “Amanda” or usually with my last name as well, people generally know who I am on the blogs.

5. And are more likely to respond therefore.

6. Seems similar to sexism in a classroom setting. It would be interesting to compare kos to a wingnut site… though I doubt we’d be surprised by the response.

   I like to forget that progressives are guilty of isms just like the greater population, but we still carry cultural baggage, but I sometimes hear racist, sexist, homophobic, etc comments from progressives. Sometimes I think we get complacent after surrounding ourselves with like-minded people and stop challenging ourselves.

7. my thanks to sarah’s husband for his good work. i’m dismayed by the results but not surprised.

8. Many people look at my blog name and assume that I am a man. If I am posting alot to a particular person I eventually say something that indicates that I am a woman. Alot of times the tone of the conversation will change. Suddenly I become hysterical, whiney, bitchy, or I’m PMSing. Usually this happens when I disagree the person I’m conversating with.

   I have had two people accuse me of impersonating a man online. I’m still trying to figure that one out. And amazingly I’ve had one person chastise himself for making assumptions based on my blogname. I still talk to him.

9. I should point out that I did not conduct the study – it is the work of my husband. 🙂

   Chuck, as some of the other women have pointed out, i think many of us have participated in online discussions using a gender non-specific name and had a different experience than when we do use a more gender-specific name.

   I think conducting a formal study in the manner that you’ve described because of so much personal involvement. However a similar study looking at other users who are doing this would be interesting.

10. Those results are very similiar to the results for classroom settings , as LS pointed out. They also are basically the same as the results in most general settings, where things said by males are more likely to be commented on and more likely to lead to further conversations. This appears to be a pretty deeply socialized thing, but it does tend to be dependent on topic and setting. I’m not aware of any settings/topics where it goes over 50%, but it does hit about 50% in certain situations.

11. Wow, thanks for all the nice feedback on my post; I’m glad people found it interesting and bummed that they didn’t find it surprising.

    Regarding determining gender: in cases where the gender wasn’t fairly obvious (“real names” or indicating the gender directly) I dug through diaries and old comments for clues… which indicates that there isn’t an overt decision to exclude one person or another… the behavior is hidden, normalized. I think this contributes to the defensive “oh, well, if they’d post something interesting I’d respond” argument… which is what we see when male A-List bloggers inexplicably refuse to link to female bloggers, or do so infrequently. I seem to recall Kos bashing people who raised that issue, too.

    I did code for things like length (male posts are longer, both in sentences per post and words per sentence), pronoun use, speech acts, etc. for class assignments, but focused my analysis for the paper (and expanded the analysis to cover the entire thread). If folks are interested, I can dig up slides for you. Drop me an email at pwelsch (at) indiana (dot) edu.

12. People look for any number of bad excuses not to listen to the wisdom in us all. Such people are the lesser for it.

13. I’m male and progressive. I avoid Daily Kos. Personally, the comments there can be somewhat of a circle jerk. I get the feeling I wouldn’t like Kos if I met him in real life.

    That said, the blog is a thread-setter for the left. There are so many of the diaries there that no other blog can compete with the amount of content.

14. Thanks for posting this, having been on mostly male oriented message boards prior to having my own blog what Sarah’s husband discovered is true elsewhere.

    If I had a dollar for every time a male poster made some type of comment like “Are you on the rag or what”, when I use sarcastic humor I’d own my own island by now. I generally thank them for inquiring about my menstrual status then provide some details that usually makes them run. (evil? yes but also effective – lol) Some men seem threatened by a woman that is able to discuss without emotion the facts and provide information to back it up. Generally I have had more problems with those who identify themselves as conservative but it does happen with the more liberal males as well.

    I would state though that I did see a survey on Kos about the percentage of readership of male vs female, at the time I saw it the male readership was much higher than the female which might add to the way the stats for that particular thread ended up. That doesn’t discount the fact that when gender is identifiable I agree with the basis of what Sarah’s husband’s research showed, but felt it was worth pointing out.

15. I have to say that if I had to do it over again, I would use a genderless handle. I know others who do.

16. I would too, Rox. And my site wouldn’t be named anything specifically feminist in nature. I would choose a less peggable site name and handle, in part because I think it’s more effective when addressing fence-sitters and haters.

17. No, I lied.

    I rather like this feminist persona, especially because I seem much more politically neutral in person. This is one place where I can let it all hang out.

18. For what it’s worth, I find that I get much more equal treatment when I’m commenting on the blogs of “academics.”

    On other sites…I can’t remember any I comment on that require a “handle” or special registration. Can’t say what I’d choose for a name, or if I’d choose something gender-neutral or not. Probably not.

    At least…I wouldn’t have before I read this discussion. Now…I might just try it.

19. ladies (and gentlemen), i definitely have been assumed male and treated differently when using a less girlie handle. and when the fact of my gender comes out, here comes the “honey” and “sweetie” brigade.

    that said, and with heavy feminist tomes on my bookshelf, i find myself guilty of mistreating female commenters. two reasons, both stereotypes. first, i assume men need the reassurance of a reply more than women, that they’ll be less forgiving of a snub. second, right or wrong and present company genuinely excepted, i have found that some women when encouraged do go off in directions i’m not interested in, like their boyfriends/husbands/men in general, their cats, clothes, hair, makeup, and periods. there are different places for each of those things. but not everywhere at all times. it happens even more than getting hit on, this “empathize, i bleed” nonsense, and it’s just as awkward to extricate yourself without hurting someone.

    sometimes you just wanna talk about filibusters, you know?

    my second assumption in particular could use numbers to back it up…

20. Thank you Jami….I’ve dealt with that same situation where I go to certain places to discuss politics not the “fluff”, while at times chatting about other things is of course fun there are times when I want a heavy duty political discussion that not only challenges me to know my stuff but I usually learn something new as well.

    Am I serious all the time? No of course not, but if it comes down to discussion about the constitution or “my new lacy bra is itchy”….I’ll take the constitution…..

21. it’s just a matter of finding the right spot for the itchy bra discussion. it’s rarely on the main kos pages. feministe, on the other hand, is specifically for talking about woman-related stuff that’s less interesting to posters elsewhere.

22. I read kos sometimes and I have a diary there that I haven’t used yet, I’m new to this particular site, most of my before blog days politicial discussion was on message boards. That’s where the majority of my similar experiences have happened. There is typically not a lot of female participation to begin with on the ones I used to frequent both for national and local issues and the majority of women who do post on them are not really that much into politics. (which I always found ironic they would post on a political board if they were not intrested in politics) This is one of the reasons I decided it was time to branch out more into the blogosphere. So while of course “itchy bras” have there place in the discussion world as well so no insult was intended to any future bra discussers, I do believe the assumptions that I’ve personally come up against reflect in Sarah’s husband’s study as well as some of what you stated as well.

23. we need to figure out what’s driving the reply shortage. we either need to change the way we’re perceived, the way we post, or our expectations for response, best i can tell.

24. Hmm…I just read the study you linked to, and I see a pretty big assumption there that is not addressed. The assumption is that any response, whether positive or negative, is “good,” while the lack of a response is “bad.” In most group discussions, it’s not the most thoughtful or intelligent statements that generate the most response, but simply the most provocative. In fact, thoughtful or accurate statements tend to generate little response because, as someone upthread pointed out, there’s not much to say except to nod in agreement. So, I’m not sure why the lack of response in this instance is automatically interpreted as those people being “ignored.” The implication seems to be that the lack of vocal attention somehow equals rejection, which is not necessarily the case. Since the DailyKos comment boards offer comment ratings, which is sort of a digital way to nod in agreement (or shake one’s head in dismay) without having to post a response, I think it would be more telling to tally the ratings given to male and female commenters, and see if there is a significant difference. Also, male posters to these message boards tend to be more confrontational towards other males than to females, so that’s also going to generate more response.

    I don’t know. It seems to me that you can look at this issue and see anything you want to see. How do we know that Kos readers don’t actually want to encourage female participants, and take it easier on them by not taking them to task for inaccuracies or statements that they disagree with? We don’t, really. Sure, if you go in hoping to find evidence of groups being deliberately excluded, you’re going to find it. How many Asian-Americans post on DailyKos? If I post there as “KoreanDemocrat” and don’t get responses, does that mean Kossacks hate Koreans? My gut feeling is that DailyKos probably is kind of a boy’s club, but I don’t see that feeling supported or disproven by the information I’ve seen so far.

25. to follow up on B2’s point: i was also wondering how different the stuudy might be if it took into account the fact that some folks are regulars on blogs & others are fly-by’s – do folks respond more often to the posters they are familiar with? or vice versa?

    i get asked quite often which sex/gender i am during blog discussions… while i have never actually said that i’m a sex/gender i’m not i confess i have sometimes let some nasty folks run along with their idiotic assumptions just so the wall is that much harder when they smack into it.

    and it is true that many times getting responded to simply means getting piled on or set merrily aflame – tho a blog would get pretty tedious if all the comments were “yeah, baby!” “ditto!” “what she said” “hip hip hooray!” etc…

26. Several commenters have focused on the genderedness of nicknames pointing out the readers, and thereby those that are likely to reply to the comment, are unaware of the gender of the writer if they have gender neutral nicknames. Ahh were that it was true. The very manner in which text is constructed gives clues to the author’s gender. What the average person has been taught to respect as “Good” writing is invariable male style writing, irregardless of the gender of the producer. As a test take some very obviously male and female produced blog posts and plug them into the GenderGenie (http://www.bookblog.net/gender/genie.html) and see what results you get. One observation before you start – women who have been socialized into predominately male writing environments like medicine or academia (my own curse) write like males. It’s one the prices of success in the environment.

    So for the comments that have not received response I am certain that many are written by women in a woman’s style. So the readers can unconsciously pass them by having identified the comments are “inferior.”

27. Jam – the study includes information on how I coded for the quality of response and the longevity/frequency of a speakers participation… Scoop is really good for this, as it archives comments. Contrary to my hypothesis, the longevity/frequency measures didn’t have an impact on response rate.

    B2 – You’re right that flattening responses in to a binary relationship is potentially problematic. My thought in designing the study was that I was looking at the degree to which a given participant could be said to have been engaged by the other respondents. Since we’re in an online forum where nods and smiles or other non-verbal cues are impossible (aside from mods, and man, I didn’t wanna go there in a pilot study), and where the social cost of ignoring someone is nil (as opposed to ignoring them in a face to face discussion, where one tends to look rude to onlookers)… welll… response rate seemed like the best way to go. I stand by it, though you’re right to note the issue.

28. I find the hardest thing is getting people to link to my blog. That’s a hint by the way to all readers!! Let me know if you do and I’ll link you back (unless you are F4J.blog or some such). Cru

29. Pete writes: Jam – the study includes information on how I coded for the quality of response and the longevity/frequency of a speakers participation…

    Mr. Pete, you’re very right. color me embarassed.

    let that be a lesson, kids. speed reading kills!

30. I recently left a message board that I had visited for close to 6 years because of this realization. Yes, there were women there, but it was a heavily dominated by men. That generally wasn’t a problem as most of us (the women) that visited the board had many male friends throughout life but few female friends. All of us also shared interests that are commonly thought to be male partly because of the women out there that still insist our interests are stupid.

    The board was mostly political bitching and it was pretty spread on both sides. Diehard conservatives and liberals and whatnot. Because the community had been around for so long, it was rather like a family.

    However, I came to the realization that a very large majority of the men on the board still believed in antiquated stereotypes and felt that bashing on the base of gender was completely okay as long as it was directed at women. Often a female opinion would be reduced to nothing because it came from the female brain or it would be assumed that the poster was hormonal in some sort of way. Which was odd because most of the women there do not follow the common “stereotypes” of women.

    It had gotten to the point that the women were quick to point out that they weren’t like that woman. If anyone posted something that a stupid woman had done (which was not unusual as stupid things were posted about both genders all the time) there would be some women quick to point out that they weren’t stupid like that woman. Yet, none of the men felt the need to justify themselves if a post about a stupid man came up.

    Which I found very telling to the nature the board had eventually developed. Whenever a woman was attacked and accused of being a “woman” more often than not the woman was left to defend herself because the other women were afraid of being accused of being a “woman” along with her. In fact, the other women were usually strangely silent if something like that happened.

    When it finally happened to me I had to take a long hard look at the way the board had grown, or rather not grown. I’m not what many people would call a feminist if only because the definition of feminist for most people has grown to cover only woman issues and I am concerned with the issues of both genders equally. (Yes, I know this is the actual definition of feminism, but that seems to have disappeared in this day and age.) I have very few traits that generally fall under what common society thinks of as female (which is absurd anyway).

    But when an issue I was having and the responses I had to help were reduced to me basically being a stupid woman and then being blasted by a large majority of the men on the community for being a stupid woman, I realized it was time. No other woman commented on the issue and no other woman spoke on the issue, except for the one woman that seems to need almost unhealthy acceptance of men as she takes every possible opportunity to state she’s not like “that” woman. Or any woman.

    I left. Haven’t been back. Didn’t post any goodbyes or anything silly like that. Just left. It wasn’t a healthy environment. I’ve been on male dominated boards where there are two types of female posters. One that flirts all the time and everything is sex. And one who gets into the debates. I’ve been taken seriously as the latter. The former almost never does.

    And I’ve been on boards where gender matters not at all. This was not one of them. It was time to go. I’ve got better things to do with my time.

31. Pete, I was wondering if the topic of the blog might have something to do with the disparity of male/female responses? If the subjuct of the blog post was a women did more women reply? If the subject was male did more men reply?

32. Lois:
    Can you elaborate a bit on what is perceived to be “female” writing style? I’m curious as to what you believe the differences to be. No, seriously. I’m not being confrontational or belligerent; I’m really just curious as to what you have found to be different.

    I have to confess, I’ve been accused of “trying to show how logical (she) is” in a writing assignment. At the time, I just thought the prof. in question was a chauvenistic ass, and was actually too shocked to respond, either on the spot or afterwards to the department. (This was a LONG time ago; these days, we’d have a little chat about sexism in the classroom, and if it ended up in front of a department chair or dean, so be it.) I’ve never considered writing style to be gendered; there are just clear, concise, and well-constructed arguments, and then there are those that are not. Ummm, educated and un-educated styles, perhaps. Formal and less formal. I’ve just never (mentally) assigned gender to the various styles.

    I’ll be interested to hear what you have to say. Feel free to e-mail me directly if you feel this isn’t of enough interest or on topic enough to post here. Thanks!

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