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Blog of the Week > 9 of 10 women just don't seem interested
9 of 10 women just don't seem interested
...in publicly commenting on the state of the world. This has nothing to do with me, heh heh. 9 out of 10 women are certainly interested in me. Or, at least, that's what the tarot reader told me. And everyone knows how truthful tarot card readers are, right?
No, we're talking about the vacuum of women sharing their opinions about the great global game.
Once upon a time men filled all the positions of authority. Women were not allowed to work, or were discouraged from working, and if they did defy social convention they found their job opportunities to be quite limited. All this was true only a century ago. It was a day when a woman who sat alone in a restaurant would be refused service.
Today, four out of ten newspaper editors are women. Yet only one in ten Opinion of the Editor columns are written by women. Why is this? Do women have nothing to say? Hardly! Any married man will tell you contrary.
It was assumed in many circles that if women had access to a platform from which they might broadcast their opinions, they would do so. They were simply denied these avenues of expression. These positions were held by men, who jealously guarded their turf at the highest levels from the opposite sex.
But woman have broken that barrier and 40% of today's editors are women; they simply farm out the Op-Ed column to a male associate. Or so it seems. Is true equal opportunity lacking, even in the 21st century?
Today, with the gender-blind internet, equal access is available to all. Yet, according the Harp and Tremayne, journalism professors at the University of Texas in Austin, of the top 30 political bloggers only three - one in ten - are written by women.
It could be the subject matter. Would it be sexist to suggest that woman are more interested in fashion than politics? It could be the technology - but the professors say that 43% of all bloggers are women. It could be the pollsters who rank the blogs - maybe they are biased.
One in ten. What is to account for this? Venus and Mars may be equal - but there is no question we are different creatures, with different interests. And as they say, "Viva la difference!" (Did you know that some fish can change sex at will? Yes, they can. Would you, if you could?)