I've been reading and thinking a lot about Occupy. So I decided to do a bit of gender research on Occupy, and I discovered a few things. Firstly, Occupy protests seem to be made up largely of men, and largely of middle class white men specifically. There have all sorts of justification and interpretations. As the middle class, they presumably may have the financial ability to live in a protest camp for weeks at a time, whereas the lower class may be holding several jobs and simply not have time to engage in a protest. Women are often the ones bridled with the responsibility of children or elders to take care of, which may further explain the disparity, as women would have less time in that sense. Furthermore, in an environment of mostly men in a crowded space, sleeping overnight in co-ed tents, women have to consider the dangers of sexual harassment and rape at protest sites.
Of the Twitter mentions surrounding occupy, only around 25% are by females. Some may say there are no blocks to women participating in the online discussion as there are to them participating in a protest. But there are far more women in the lowest earning percentile of Americans than men, and so maybe some may not be able to afford the resources of computers or the internet. And time is still an issue.
Is there a social element as well - is political discourse on the internet often the realm of men; do do more men participate because of a self propagating discourse (in other words, are the posts men talking to men?) Is there a social block to women entering political discourse? There are far more men in politics than women today. Perhaps it's our social differentiation between men and women continuing to creep into our internet behavior.
I'm not sure. I am still to a large extent stumped. Why are there so many more #OWS mentions on twitter by men than women? What do you guys think?
My source:
A fascinating blog on the subject:
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