internet

I was doing an experiment on cleavage a couple days ago; I put cleavage on my page, to see how much attention I could get. Of course, I got a lot. Friend requests, picture comments, e-mails, etc, and they were all from guys, 15-18.

Before I put it up on the internet I talked to a couple of my friends about it, Katie thought it was a stupid idea even if it was just for All Girl Army, Lisa, Lynn, Brittany, Lindsay and Tonya thought the same, but I did it anyway.

“They only want one thing,” my friend said to me, “’sex’”, she referred to the guy’s commenting and friend requesting me. They didn’t want to be my friend because of my personality or anything—they wanted my body only. That’s all.

I realised something aout blogs today: a lot of political bloggers are men. Why?

Could it be that the blogosphere is a perfect reflection of our offline gender-centered world and that women are more reluctant than men to take a stand in the public sphere and be vocal about opinions? Statistics are ambivalent about the issue, and research seems to say yes and no.

The Pew Internet & American Life project Center recently reported (pdf link) that in September 2005, 25 percent of women were reading blogs, compared to 29 percent of men (11 % of men had already created one, while only 9 % of women had). The survey also reports gender-based differences in terms of usage: men seem to consume information online more aggressively than women, their approach to consulting news can differ greatly: