Monday, January 09, 2006

The Missing Blog Women

The lonely Christine Hurt of Marquette University tackles the subject (H/T: Volokh). An excerpt:
Blogging requires little capital, education, or skills. So, even if women were being denied access to capital or to educational opportunities, women could still blog. Women would not have to petition a dean for money or go to a bank or even ask the dean for research support. Some blogging platforms are free, and most are cheap. The barriers to entry of blogging are as close to zero as one can imagine. The questioners at the panel referred to time, and free time could be seen as a barrier to entry to blogging. However, I have come to believe that we all make time-based choices and we can make time for new activities if we want to do so. I don't piddle; I don't drink coffee or do the NYT crossword except on airplanes. I don't watch TV now that Rome is over and I exercise just enough not to die. This leaves me some time to blog.

I too exercise just enough not to die. Or so I think--at 19 your body can propel itself on Grilled Cheese, Blue Powerade, and the occasional Apple indefinitely.

For those interested in the particular stats, Dan Solove has them. 25% of law bloggers are women. 34% of all law professors are women, but only 25% of tenured ones are. The trend line looks good though--45% of newly hired academics are women.

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