Wanted: opinionated women. I think I know some.
This column discusses why it is that about 75 per cent of opinion columnists in Canada are men.
On the one hand, I have a bit of a hard time understanding why women wouldn’t want to express opinions. That’s always been my goal, and I’d love to have a little sketch of my noggin beside a permanent column in a paper somewhere.
On the other hand, I can see why women would stay away. In writing I can be opinionated, controversial. But in debates and on radio, I default to compassion mode. Consensus-building mode. I become easily concerned that perhaps I am too hard-nosed, didn’t see both sides, spoke to quickly–hurt someone’s feelings. Oh dear. Feelings are always hurt in the opinion business. You need a tough shell.
Now you’ll see in this post how I’ve seen both sides–made sure I was fair to opinionated women and those who aren’t. Very fair. Very middle of the road. Yaaaaawn. (Boring is not the hallmark of a great opinion writer.)
If I wanted to really have an opinion, I’d come right out and say this: there are fewer female opinion writers because women have fewer strong opinions that they want to express publicly and hold to, as a point of debate. Perhaps because we don’t have tough shells. Perhaps because women are less… egotistical. You have to have quite an ego in this business. (Witness the raging success of Rush Limbaugh for an extreme example. Whether you like him or not, he is successful at expressing his opinions.)
Just my opinion, anyway. And when you write to disagree, I will feel very bad and try and see things your way.








I can’t help but wonder . . . it seems that whenever there are opinionated women, they get hit pretty hard, and in a VERY different way than men. When people disagree with them, instead of rational arguments or just normal insults (“you’re stupid!”) they tend to get more violent or obscene responses. I’m sure you’ve seen it, “you need to get laid!” or commentary on how ugly the writer must (of course! of course! a writer with such opinions couldn’t possibly be pretty!) be. You see it all the time in comments on news articles and especially on various prominent blogs. It’s probably tough for lots of women to even want to face that. It takes some amount of fortitude, I suppose, that many women don’t have (and that most men don’t even require).
Oh I wouldn’t say that we women are less egotistical . . . I’d just say that we want to APPEAR less egotistical. Ha!
I know speaking from my own experience as a very opinionated and outspoken person, many of my friends ask me how I do it. I think the biggest reason most won’t speak opinions is fear of offending someone. I guess for me there are bigger things to worry about than fear, like my opinion, er, the truth. Same thing. (Wait, oops, what was I saying earlier about wanting to appear less egotistical?)
This isn’t a scientific study, but of the opinionated women I know, if you get to something they’re passionate about, compassion and balance aren’t the first things you notice. Their ferocity is right up there with the prominent men.
I’ve not known women to reserve their opinion. If they have heard about something and have formed an opinion, they’ll usually tell someone. I find a lot of women do blogs for this purpose. I don’t know why that doesn’t translate into the Opinion scene.
Still, I might explain the imbalance of gender in the Opinion scene being due to its hostile nature. I think simply more men are likely to be fighters than women. When your job is to constantly stick your neck out in a hostile environment, it’s best if you’re a fighter, and so perhaps that’s why fewer women are attracted to it. It’s not that they are afraid to fight, but perhaps they prefer to retain the ability to choose their battles.
In response to Deborah, not saying that there isn’t sexism in this field, but I do feel that sometimes female opinion has a qualitatively different attitude that sometimes generates a qualitatively different response. Unfortunately, I can’t pin it down and tell you what it is. I’m not saying it’s warranted, and I’m not saying there isn’t sexism, but I am saying that I think women and men sometimes fight differently.
Am I treading on thin-ice?
Matthew, no thin ice, no worries. I think your observations are very thoughtful. It’s a brave man who will comment on this discussion, in any case, so my hat goes off to you. I’m still thinking about this…in point of fact there are some very good female opinion writers in this country (Margaret Wente, Barbara Kay, Licia Corbella, Naomi Lakritz all jump to mind). I’m not sure why there aren’t more, though. And ultimately, I’m completely unconcerned about the supposed imbalance in female opinions.
Matthew — oh absolutely I agree with you! I think that a good deal of it has to do with the fact that men and women are simply different, in the same way that you find more men in science and math, and that’s fine. But I do know that many women do also shy away from opinion due to fear as well. It’s yet one more added factor on top of it all. At least with math, science, &c. a woman doesn’t really have to worry about facing that intimidation. I was more getting after why it might (possibly, I don’t know the numbers or other contributing factors) be more imbalanced than other male-heavy fields. But you know, you remind me of a video I just watched this evening of Margaret Thatcher arguing about socialism and the first thought that came to mind was “she fights like a MAN! that’s awesome!”
Randomly, would it be possible to add a feature to this blog so that people can check a box to receive an e-mail notification of follow-up comments?
Deborah: Will look into email notification options.
Deborah: Look underneath the comment box. Is that what you had in mind?
Women give us plenty of their opinions when they report the news. Many people just aren’t conscious of it.
When they report on world events like the climate change fraud, the Catholic Church, female crimes, etc., it’s not what they say, but what they leave out or add to the piece that shows their prejudice.