Are Men Defying Gender Stereotypes in the Digital World?

by Sam on May 20, 2009

Women and Men As I was browsing through eMarketer collecting information to send to our execs, I came upon an interesting chart that really got me thinking. The chart shows that 12% of US Female Internet Users ages 18-77 participate in status updating activities online, such as Twitter. According to 2008 estimates by the US Census Bureau, there were about 118,026,789 females in the US 18 and older. Even though that includes females over 77, 12% of that number is about 14,163,214…that’s a lot of women.

Hopefully, I haven’t lost you yet, because I’m going to take it a step further. Although it’s interesting that so many women are engaged in status updating, it’s not surprising. Women are generally more apt to share their lives with others than men are. (I realize I’m generalizing here, hence the use of “generally.”) This 12% seems like a pretty substantial number of women, and so I decided to skim through my Twitter and blog lists. Though the majority of my Web 2.0 connections are female, there are a lot of males too. A possible explanation for the female majority is that because I’m female, I connect better with other females (or at least I subconsciously assume I do).

But, it’s pretty amazing how many guys are using the digital world as their platform, their soapbox, and sharing aspects of their lives. Some of the biggest social media innovators and well-known bloggers are men, as are some of my personal favorites. So, what is it about social networking and Web 2.0 that causes men to come out of their shells? Is it the digital separation? Do they feel freer to express themselves when the closest they will get to face-to-face with most of their audience is on Skype with a web cam? Granted, a lot of men, and people in general, use sites like Twitter to promote themselves or their companies, and similarly use blogs to share their expertise or insight on a particular subject. But, nonetheless, they are still putting themselves out there.

I could keep going and expound on my various theories, but I really want to open this up to you. A few more questions: Are the majority of your Web 2.0 connections male or female? Why do you think this is? Have you found that males are more candid and open in the digital arena? How would you explain this behavior? I can’t wait to see what everyone has to say!

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Tagged as: bloggers, Change, society

Elisa

Haha, I thought this would be my case and it ended up being true. My Twitter is 60% male, 30% female (without companies/groups) I'm kinda used to that though, I definitely embrace being the guys' girl. And it has GREAT perks for my friends, since my mind tends to function less on the "girl" level (an analysis of my blog said it is predominantly written from a "male perspective.") Which is funny cause when I don't have writers block I write about this exact topic on it! :)

I think one of the biggest things for guys and girls is the way they analyze data/problems/etc. Women generally tend to enjoy the society of it all. When we have a problem, we like to talk it out with some trusted advisors and friends, sleep on it, talk on it more and finally make a decision (that for me is sadly what I was probably going to decide in the first place.) Guys tend to think on a much more X,Y,Z level. I have problem X, if I implement plan Y I will get to solution Z. They always want to fix things. It isn't even that guys don't care, they care a lot, they just don't necessarily need to see all 100 pieces to figure out the picture on the puzzle.

Social media is great because it caters to BOTH segments. For women, you can have community. You can chatter back and forth with @replies, you can friend and entire militia of "friends," you can share your deepest thoughts and ideas freely with tons of people. It's like a mecca for multi-taskers. For men, you can find a niche to blog about, you can create friendships to share ideas and processes with, and you can even become an MLB/NFL/NBA general manager and be smarter than those guys ever could be. It's like mecca for a focused problem solver.

Granted, as you brilliantly stated, there are always exceptions and a lot of this is generalization. Heck, as I mentioned, I myself am the exception! :)

sameve

Elisa, I loved hearing your point of view. Although my blog tends towards the more "girly," with open, honest, candid posts about life, relationships, etc, I am also somewhat of an exception myself. If you read my post about sports (or check out the About section of my blog), you would know that I'm a big sports fan, and I especially love football (I think we're actually fans of the same teams!) So, I'm kind of an unexpected exception I guess.

You make a great point. Women are big on community, sharing, and taking the time to make educated decisions. But, I like that you emphasize that just because guys do things differently doesn't mean they don't care. I totally agree that they do care.

And yes, social media is great because it caters to both segments, but I think it's also great because it provides the opportunity for exceptions like us to connect with people who share all of our varied interests. Thanks so much for your comments! Hope you hear more from you in the future :)

sameve

Elisa, I loved hearing your point of view. Although my blog tends towards the more "girly," with open, honest, candid posts about life, relationships, etc, I am also somewhat of an exception myself. If you read my post about sports (or check out the About section of my blog), you would know that I'm a big sports fan, and I especially love football. So, I'm kind of an unexpected exception I guess.

You make a great point. Women are big on community, sharing, and taking the time to make educated decisions. But, I like that you emphasize that just because guys do things differently doesn't mean they don't care. I totally agree that they do care.

And yes, social media is great because it caters to both segments, but I think it's also great because it provides the opportunity for exceptions like us to connect with people who share all of our varied interests. Thanks so much for your comments! Hope you hear more from you in the future :)

Elisa

Haha, I thought this would be my case and it ended up being true. My Twitter is 60% male, 30% female (without companies/groups) I'm kinda used to that though, I definitely embrace being the guys' girl. And it has GREAT perks for my friends, since my mind tends to function less on the "girl" level (an analysis of my blog said it is predominantly written from a "male perspective.") Which is funny cause when I don't have writers block I write about this exact topic on it! :)

I think one of the biggest things for guys and girls is the way they analyze data/problems/etc. Women generally tend to enjoy the society of it all. When we have a problem, we like to talk it out with some trusted advisors and friends, sleep on it, talk on it more and finally make a decision (that for me is sadly what I was probably going to decide in the first place.) Guys tend to think on a much more X,Y,Z level. I have problem X, if I implement plan Y I will get to solution Z. They always want to fix things. It isn't even that guys don't care, they care a lot, they just don't necessarily need to see all 100 pieces to figure out the picture on the puzzle.

Social media is great because it caters to BOTH segments. For women, you can have community. You can chatter back and forth with @replies, you can friend and entire militia of "friends," you can share your deepest thoughts and ideas freely with tons of people. It's like a mecca for multi-taskers. For men, you can find a niche to blog about, you can create friendships to share ideas and processes with, and you can even become an MLB/NFL/NBA general manager and be smarter than those guys ever could be. It's like mecca for a focused problem solver.

Granted, as you brilliantly stated, there are always exceptions and a lot of this is generalization. Heck, as I mentioned, I myself am the exception! :)

heartbot

I think it's also important to consider what the men are talking about: are they talking about their feelings and relationships, or are they going, "Explosions! Action movies! Toilet humor! FUCK YEAH!"? ;) Don't assume that just because they're communicating more, they're communicating about the same things. It's also important to look at what most men use these things for. Are they doing this for socializing, or is this related to their career?

While I think it would be great if the gender divide were crumbling under the pressure of web 2.0, I fear that web 2.0 has just become another frontier in which the gender divide can be reconstituted.

sameve

heartbot: it's definitely important to consider content when we're talking about men online. True, some of them are only talking about things like explosions, but there are also some who write about their lives and their careers. Though I think there's been some change because of web 2.0, I don't think that the gender divide will crumble anytime soon. Like I said to Jaym, definitely check out the guys I linked to in the post. Thanks for your comments!

sameve

heartbot: it's definitely important to consider content when we're talking about men online. True, some of them are only talking about things like explosions, but there are also some who write about their lives and their careers. Though I think there's been some change because of web 2.0, I don't think that the gender divide will crumble anytime soon. Like I said to Jaym, definitely check out the guys I linked to in the post. Thanks for your comments!

sameve

Jaym: I agree with Sam, you do make a lot of good points. The idea of anonymity is still a factor as far as sites like Twitter, but a little harder to pull off with a blog. I think it's great that you are honest and true to yourself. There's nothing wrong with leaving long comments, in fact, it shows that you actually put some thought into what you're writing, and that's a compliment. Like you said though, there are exceptions. Check out the guys I linked to in the post. Thanks for sharing your point of view!

Sam: you're right, it's very easy for the line between reality and cyberspace to become blurred. Unfortunately, that's why we have to be careful when we let our guard down. But, there are also some great people out there in the blogosphere, male and female. Thanks for commenting!

sameve

Ryan, you make some very interesting points. I guess it depends on where you draw the line between being formal and informative and being candid, and perhaps vulnerable. In my opinion, the line is in a different place for men than women just because of where it lies in the non-digital world. As for comments, I don't think the length or depth of the them depends on gender as much as it does on the connection the person feels to the post and what they can contribute to discussion from their own experience.

Back to taking it past a formal relationship, as you put it, writing open and honest blog entries about your life isn't the only way to do this. Reaching out to follow bloggers and making the extra effort to get to know them, or organizing a guest post series are just a couple of ways. So, I think we're looking at the same thing, just from different perspectives. Thanks for your comments!

heartbot

I think it's also important to consider what the men are talking about: are they talking about their feelings and relationships, or are they going, "Explosions! Action movies! Toilet humor! FUCK YEAH!"? ;) Don't assume that just because they're communicating more, they're communicating about the same things. It's also important to look at what most men use these things for. Are they doing this for socializing, or is this related to their career?

While I think it would be great if the gender divide were crumbling under the pressure of web 2.0, I fear that web 2.0 has just become another frontier in which the gender divide can be reconstituted.

sam

Jaym makes a lot of extremely good points. I think the idea of anonymity does seduce men a bit more then it does women, with regards to the internet.(again not the case in every situation) Thus allowing that "baller" facade to be put up. The internet is the perfect place for that, being we are all reporting from our own laptops/macs/pc's; the line between reality and cyberspace can be blurred without care.

great post Sam :)

sameve

Jaym: I agree with Sam, you do make a lot of good points. The idea of anonymity is still a factor as far as sites like Twitter, but a little harder to pull off with a blog. I think it's great that you are honest and true to yourself. There's nothing wrong with leaving long comments, in fact, it shows that you actually put some thought into what you're writing, and that's a compliment. Like you said though, there are exceptions. Check out the guys I linked to in the post. Thanks for sharing your point of view!

Sam: you're right, it's very easy for the line between reality and cyberspace to become blurred. Unfortunately, that's why we have to be careful when we let our guard down. But, there are also some great people out there in the blogosphere, male and female. Thanks for commenting!

sameve

Tim, if you love to write and writing makes you happy, that's all the matters.

sam

Jaym makes a lot of extremely good points. I think the idea of anonymity does seduce men a bit more then it does women, with regards to the internet.(again not the case in every situation) Thus allowing that "baller" facade to be put up. The internet is the perfect place for that, being we are all reporting from our own laptops/macs/pc's; the line between reality and cyberspace can be blurred without care.

great post Sam :)

Jaym

I find this topic interesting, because since the Internet became commonly used for social aspects, men, in general, have always entered discussions with bravado provided behind anonymity. Men magically have 10.0 quality girlfriends/wives, make bazillions of dollars in the jobs where they are the defining cog, drive $100,000 cars and so on.

However, being the rebel I am, I have always spoken with complete honesty- because I don't see the point in large groups of people talking/sharing lies online. The reward for my honesty? I've been told to consider suicide by others at least three or four times. Simply for admitting my real problems or beliefs.

I know an issue I have online are length- I refuse to bow to the ADD-Driven "No more than two sentences" philosophy of online discourse... My blog or forum resonses are verbose- but contain only what I need to say. Why should I suppress my opinions, particularly when they are NOT lies, simply because younger generations are too hyper to read something that should take 30 seconds? I find myself attacked by men on this, but never women, who are interested in sharing.

I definitely have more female 2.0 contacts, though that's partially because I don't get along with guys as well- just like I mentioned above, I can't tolerate these "false" boasts. The women are definitely open, sharing more feelings and activity alerts. The men seem to be more about trading barbs back and forth or otherwise joking about. I rarely see true sharing from the men in my social lists- though there are always exceptions.

I think if we did away with anonymity (and I recognize the safety problems with that) people would suddenly be more sharing AND honest.

ryanstephens

Sam -

Again, I want to be careful not to generalize too much here. It's important to note that the following insights are my own perception based on my personal experiences and interactions:

I think there are a lot of men that write in these spaces, but as far as people really letting people in and taking it past a more formal relationship to the point of vulnerability, I still read a LOT more female blogs that go this far. Penelope Trunk, Holly Hoffman are two of the more prominent ones that come to my mind.

While there are a lot of men who open up and write in this space, for me it still seems like they're still on a more surface level with their participation. David Stehle is certainly one exception.

Is this just me? Could we list some other male bloggers who take it to the level of vulnerability and transparency that someone like Penelope and Holly take it. Are we talking about something different all together?

sameve

Ryan, you make some very interesting points. I guess it depends on where you draw the line between being formal and informative and being candid, and perhaps vulnerable. In my opinion, the line is in a different place for men than women just because of where it lies in the non-digital world. As for comments, I don't think the length or depth of the them depends on gender as much as it does on the connection the person feels to the post and what they can contribute to discussion from their own experience.

Back to taking it past a formal relationship, as you put it, writing open and honest blog entries about your life isn't the only way to do this. Reaching out to follow bloggers and making the extra effort to get to know them, or organizing a guest post series are just a couple of ways. So, I think we're looking at the same thing, just from different perspectives. Thanks for your comments!

Jaym

I find this topic interesting, because since the Internet became commonly used for social aspects, men, in general, have always entered discussions with bravado provided behind anonymity. Men magically have 10.0 quality girlfriends/wives, make bazillions of dollars in the jobs where they are the defining cog, drive $100,000 cars and so on.

However, being the rebel I am, I have always spoken with complete honesty- because I don't see the point in large groups of people talking/sharing lies online. The reward for my honesty? I've been told to consider suicide by others at least three or four times. Simply for admitting my real problems or beliefs.

I know the two issues I have online are length- I refuse to bow to the ADD-Driven "No more than two sentences" philosophy of online discourse... My blog or forum resonses are verbose- but contain only what I need to say. Why should I suppress my opinions, particularly when they are NOT lies, simply because younger generations are too hyper to read something that should take 30 seconds?

I definitely have more female 2.0 contacts, though that's partially because I don't get along with guys as well- just like I mentioned above, I can't tolerate these "false" boasts. The women are definitely open, sharing more feelings and activity alerts. The men seem to be more about trading barbs back and forth or otherwise joking about. I rarely see true sharing from the men in my social lists- though there are always exceptions.

I think if we did away with anonymity (and I recognize the safety problems with that) people would suddenly be more sharing AND honest.

ryanstephens

Sam -

Again, I want to be careful not to generalize too much here. It's important to note that the following insights are my own perception based on my personal experiences and interactions:

I think there are a lot of men that write in these spaces, but as far as people really letting people in and taking it past a more formal relationship to the point of vulnerability, I still read a LOT more female blogs that go this far. Penelope Trunk, Holly Hoffman are two of the more prominent ones that come to my mind.

While there are a lot of men who open up and write in this space, for me it still seems like they're still on a more surface level with their participation. David Stehle is certainly one exception.

Is this just me? Could we list some other male bloggers who take it to the level of vulnerability and transparency that someone like Penelope and Holly take it. Are we talking about something different all together?

Tim Kerrick

I find a lot of times that people tell me the same thing. I don't understand it. I like to write - hell I love it. I am addicted to it.

Matt Cheuvront

I have actually had someone tell me that my writing seems 'feminine' at times - as I man, I could take this as an insult, but I don't because really, what I think it means, is that I'm doing a good job of EXPRESSING myself, like you women are so good at. To your point, the web, blogs, social media, allow me a creative outlet that I don't, at least presently, have in my daily work routine. At heart, I'm a writer and and entrepreneur, and through all of the expression, I am working to incorporate my passions into the daily grind, hopefully until the point that they are fully integrated.

One thing I have noticed when it comes to males/females is that women are more apt to get involved in discussions, leave comments and thoughts on posts, respond to tweets, etc. I think that's why I too have a (larger) number of female 'connections' on the web - because they are more apt to reach out and make that connection in the first place.

Great post Sam.

Tim Kerrick

I find a lot of times that people tell me the same thing. I don't understand it. I like to write - hell I love it. I am addicted to it.

sameve

Tim, if you love to write and writing makes you happy, that's all the matters.

sameve

Matt, I don't think I would call your writing feminine. I think you're a great writer, that's why I linked to your blog in this post. It's interesting what you say about the web being your creative outlet, because it's the same for me. Personally, I think the stigma that goes along with men being creative and expressing themselves is BS. It's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

As far as comments, I think that females tend to leave longer comments, but not always. It really depends on the topic and how the post is written, plus what kind of discussion is already occurring. Thanks for your comments!

sameve

Matt, I don't think I would call your writing feminine. I think you're a great writer, that's why I linked to your blog in this post. It's interesting what you say about the web being your creative outlet, because it's the same for me. Personally, I think the stigma that goes along with men being creative and expressing themselves is BS. It's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

As far as comments, I think that females tend to leave longer comments, but not always. It really depends on the topic and how the post is written, plus what kind of discussion is already occurring. Thanks for your comments!

Matthew

I have actually had someone tell me that my writing seems 'feminine' at times - as I man, I could take this as an insult, but I don't because really, what I think it means, is that I'm doing a good job of EXPRESSING myself, like you women are so good at. To your point, the web, blogs, social media, allow me a creative outlet that I don't, at least presently, have in my daily work routine. At heart, I'm a writer and and entrepreneur, and through all of the expression, I am working to incorporate my passions into the daily grind, hopefully until the point that they are fully integrated.

One thing I have noticed when it comes to males/females is that women are more apt to get involved in discussions, leave comments and thoughts on posts, respond to tweets, etc. I think that's why I too have a (larger) number of female 'connections' on the web - because they are more apt to reach out and make that connection in the first place.

Great post Sam.