Shelley Powers: women are taught not to put themselves forward

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

[Originally published on a weblog called “What Is Liberalism?”]

Shelley Powers has an interesting bit comparing the different levels of self-promotion that men and women engage in, using Wikipedia as her data source:

Many of the male webloggers I know have an entry in Wikipedia, but most of the women I know, don’t. I brought this up with Rogers and he noticed the same.

Why are there significantly fewer women? I think one reason is that we women are taught not to put ourselves forward. Men are complimented for tooting their own horn; making known their wishes; noting their own accomplishments. Women, however, are expected to be sweet, demure, and most of all, stay ever so slightly in the shadow. Well, unless we’re eye candy, in which case not only should we be in the light, we should be wearing as little as possible so that our ‘assets’ can be fully explored.

Besides, who are we to say we deserve an entry? After all, it’s up to those around us who are required by laws of nature to perceive our goodness and give us the reassurance we need–without our asking (because if we have to ask, it’s not the same). After all, we can’t be expected to have enough confidence in our own abilities and accomplishments that we don’t need external validation. A needy woman is a sexy woman.

Something else to consider: how many women would not want articles up at Wikipedia anyway? It is a rough and tumble world, where people will say nasty things about us. We are, after all, delicate by nature, and easily offended and it’s just oh so distasteful to have to brawl with those nasty people who are so mean.

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Post external references

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    http://weblog.burningbird.net/2005/12/20/ladies-wikipedia-is-ours/
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