I’m sure that most academics are used to the following: Occasionally I write a scientific paper, an OpEd, or a blog entry in which I wade into some controversy or another, and in the ensuing few days receive some fairly vitriolic messages in my personal inbox. I’m not objecting — after all, it seems that I’ve had my chance to inflict my analysis on others.
But here’s the interesting observation: In all the hundreds of such pieces of hate mail I’ve received, not more than a handful have come from women. (It may even be zero.) And the sample size here is large enough that this is a statistically significant difference.
Moreover, the male dominance of my hate mail holds pretty steadily across both masculine domains (issues like race and the NBA, the death penalty), and more stereotypically feminine topics (happiness, gender, and the family).
Yes, I’m re-discovering that men are more aggressive than women. Duh. But why? Here are a few possibilities:
1. Preferences: Men find writing hate mail to be more enjoyable (or perhaps therapeutic).
2. Hormones: Aggression and testosterone are no strangers. See #1.
3. Cost of time: Typically we think about the wage as a marker of the marginal cost of time, but men have higher wages, which makes this all the more puzzling. Perhaps writing hate mail is crowding out ten minutes of SportsCenter for men, versus something more important (like childcare) for women.
4. Perceived productivity: Men are more likely to believe their missives will be closely read, leading the reader to nod slowly as they realize the error of their ways. Women are a bit more realistic.
5. Overconfidence: When there are competing views, men are often certain that they are right and I am wrong. Again, I would like to say that women are more realistic, but perhaps it is safer to simply say that they are less likely to be overconfident.
6. Value of anonymity: People are very rarely rude to me in person, suggesting that the anonymity of the internet is an important factor. Perhaps this is valued differently by men and women.
Other ideas? I look forward to your responses (vitriolic and otherwise).
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In all seriousness, though this may be marginal, there is also likely a larger male readership of your academic articles/freakonomics blog…for whatever reason, whether it is gender influenced interest in economics/statistics or otherwise. After all, if this is any indication, only 25% of the regular Freakonomics contributors are female.
Although the discrepancy is statistically significant, the sample population breakdown is another key variable.
Setting aside for a second that the readership is likely biased towards med, perhaps it’s just your basic conflict vs collaboration? Men like to compete. Women like to collaborate. Perhaps that’s a different version of #1 & #2, but it strikes me as a bit more precise.
I’ve found that a lot of women will start writing a hateful reply, satisfy their own needs halfway while simultaneously deciding that sending it isn’t worth it, and then just delete the whole thing. So I wonder how many angry replies from women are sitting as half-finished drafts in cyberspace.
Jon, I might have to disagree with you there, about the gender of the Freakonomics blog reader. Have you considered that maybe men just have a need to comment more often than women? I have. This is my first comment on the blog.
I have always drawn analogy between on-line comment boards and road rage. Check out any sports message board and the threads quickly devolve into vitriol, obcenities, and personal insults. The insulation cyberspace offers from personal confrontation is similar to the social armor a car provides. Men are much more prolific road ragers than are women, so I think it extends betond hate mail. The question is then why do men tend to become overly temperamental when offered protection from social contact in general, moreso than women? Women are suppose to be the moody, emotional half of society….
Men just comment more. Scott Adams, on his Dilbert blog, ran a post one day where he specifically tried to encourage new commenters, and especially women. His finding was that, even with the added invitation to comment, the ratio of men to women was still highly skewed toward men. I’ve had no luck finding those posts, unfortunately.
I generally think this world has enough ill-feeling and negativity in it without me adding any more. I would need to think that my hate mail would be a) productive b) useful c) pretty indisputable before sending it, and even then I’d probably try to couch it in terms that would make the reader take my request seriously instead of terms that would just belittle them. Is that hate mail? Or do women just get their points across without the hating?
Have any of the women ever tried to ask you out?