Digital Paper: Gender and Digital Politics

A new Digital Paper, Gender and Digital Politics, published today by the Hansard Society, examines the online political participation of women and men and concludes that the gender imbalance online is the result of wider political exclusion, not digital exclusion. Gender and Digital Politics examines overall levels of internet access and activity and finds generally similar levels across the genders. However, when it comes to more active online political participation, such as writing blog posts or commenting on blogs, the figures are usually male dominated:

• 80% of MPs' blogs are by men
• 85% of political media blogs are by men
• 93% of councillors' blogs are by men
• 85% of individual blogs in Total Politics Political Blog Awards 2010 were written by men
• 79% of blog posts and 90% of comments on Lib Dem Voice blog (to November 2010) were written by men

The gender pattern in the world of digital politics is similar to the gender composition of Parliament (only 22% of the MPs elected in May 2010 were women), and to the gender balance of candidates standing in the last election (again only 22% were women). However, although the numbers of women MPs are small, their use of online tools is not dissimilar to that of their male counterparts:

• 49% of female Labour MPs and 45% of male Labour MPs use Twitter
• 41% of female Conservative MPs and 30% of male Conservative MPs use Twitter
• 43% of female Liberal Democrat MPs and 56% of male Liberal Democrat MPs use Twitter (there are only seven female Liberal Democrat MPs)
• Across the parties, 55% of new female MPs and 50% of new male MPs use Twitter

Dr Andy Williamson, Director of the Hansard Society's Digital Democracy programme, commented: ‘While writing and commenting on political blogs seems to be dominated by men; it mirrors other offline and non-political activities such as writing letters to newspapers for publication. Overall, the evidence for online politics suggests that the more an activity involves self-promotion, the more likely there is to be a male dominance. Where women are active in politics, they are equally as likely as their male counterparts to be digitally active.'