Interesting topic, Eva Luna! I have to warn you that my post on this is going to have about a million disclaimers.
First, I have no idea if there is a higher rate of participation of men in GD (either as it relates to the overall population of men, or the percentage of men on the SDMB in particular), however I would agree that it is my perception that this is the case.
However, another wrench in the works is that I’m often not sure whether a particular poster is male or female. There have been discussions about this in other threads – where people guess the gender of other posters, and there is speculation about whether some names strike us as more masculine or feminine, or certain posting styles come across as masculine or feminine. These threads are usually pretty light-hearted from what I have seen, with a lot of comments like “how funny, I thought so-and-so was a guy, but it turns out “he’s” a girl!” As this relates to gender in GD, this could be feeding on itself, with me assuming people are male based on their posting in GD, which shapes my perception of the number of men in GD, which reinforces my (possibly incorrect) assumptions about the “maleness” of various GD styles.
Now I don’t want to put words in Airman Doors’s mouth, so hopefully he will chime in on this, but I am guessing that his response might be something along the lines of “So if you don’t know, and you know you don’t know, then why are you letting yourself use your admittedly incomplete and possibly inaccurate perception as a basis for further contemplation of this topic?” And I agree, this logic is sound. If we were conducting a scientific study of Secret Formula X, I would be very wary of someone who said “well, since we don’t know very much about it, or what it does, I think the next logical step is to drink it, and see what happens.” Not a good idea, or in the very least, I’ll let someone else drink Secret Formula X.
However, I think women (in general, not all individuals) are often more comfortable than men (in general, not all individuals) with incorporating perceptions into their world view. (**** Make note of that sentence, I have another point that relates back to it!) As far as I know (NB: Most of my scientific knowledge comes from watching Nova and reading Scientific American, my science skills are definintely lay, that’s for sure), even actual scientists are somewhat uncertain as to what extent differences in gender behaviors are hard-wired in our brains as opposed to learned behaviors. And there does seem to be a relationship between the two – a biologically determined potential that is reinforced by learned social behaviors might be developed into a strong ability that manifests itself in adult men and women – for example, men being better map readers, and females having better skills in reading facial expressions and body language (the old “women’s intuition” gig). Even though the SDMB is a written mode of commication, I think the feminine tendency to allow for the fact that what people say is not always what they mean to say comes into play here.
Anyway, as this relates to GD, and society in general, it is my (female) perception that women are less interested in the style of debate offered by GD. This could be because this style was more or less developed by men, so the basis by which we judge “the best” debaters has a strong masculine bias. Back up to my asterisked sentence, I said “I think,” “in general,” and “more comfortable” as a means of expressing my desire to bring everyone on board with the concept that this is one way of looking at the issue, my way in particular, and your way might be different. I have been told by people that it is a “wishy-washy” way of speaking. If I have an opinion, I should declare it boldly – “Women are better than men at incorporating perceptions!” This is rather the foundation of the concept of debate: state an opinion, and back it up with facts. I realize that, and also that my female based skills (possibly hard-wired, certainly reinforced by societal values) for building consensus, promoting inclusion, and allowing room for the perceptions of others – I have to value the perceptions of others since I value my own – are generally not as highly rated within the structure of formal debate, by the very definition of debate.
What bothers me is not that debate has that structure – it is what it is. If I am a baseball player, and I want to play basketball, I need to learn new skills to play the game, I don’t except anyone to change the rules of basketball so that I can hit the ball with a stick. What I don’t like is the assumption that male communication is superior to female communication, that women would be better off if we master the male skill set so that we can compete, or at least engage in, male communication. In some ways, I feel that our society equates “male communication” with “human communication.” I shouldn’t be so sour, I do think we are moving toward more of a system where female communication styles are also valued and men are encouraged to learn to be comfortable in that mode as well – however this seems to cause some discomfort, as many rants against “political correctness” appear to have an underlying resentment of a non-confrontational way of speaking/writing/communication.
Oh, and lest I come off as a total harpy, I do recognize the fact that my own sense of male communication is not always that hot. But I do try to work to remedy this. If I see a bold statement, such as “Men are better at map reading than women!” my first reaction might be “ugh, what a blowhard, I know plenty of men (I married one) who couldn’t find their rear end with a map and a compass while I am the queen of Rand-McNally” and then give myself a time out to say "okay, maybe the qualifers like “in my experience” and “most men” and “tend to be” are implied, and the intent of the comment is probably more along the lines of “this is interesting, wouldn’t it be fun to talk about it?” and less like “you, delphica, personally suck at reading maps.” Cripes, there are way too many quotes in that sentence, but whatever. I try. It’s a two way street.
Okay, I’ll shut up now.
But I do believe that arguing technicalities on non-personal issues (an important distinction) is more of a male trait.
[sup]*Note I didn’t use the “b” word.[/sup][/indent]