The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

More on women, science, and stereotype threat:  A new study published by Psychological Science of undergraduate women majoring in math, science, and engineering found fresh evidence that cues of gender-imbalance negatively affect not only women's performance but their desire to perform. (The study was conducted by Claude Steele and others.) In the study, some women watched a gender-balanced video about an upcoming conference in their field, while others watched a similar video in which male speakers outnumbered female. The participants who watched the latter video "reported a lower sense of belonging and less desire to participate in the conference, than did women who viewed the gender-balanced video." (Men who watched the videos didn't report any differences in their sense of belonging--but those who watched the video with more women expressed more desire to participate in the conference.) Interestingly, the women experiencing stereotype threat also demonstrated more "cognitive vigilance"--that is, they remembered more about the video and the room in which they saw it than did the first group. More analysis here at Inside Higher Ed (scroll down).

I suppose it hardly bolsters the case for (or against) an all-women's blog--but it may have some bearing on the perennial discussions of why there are more male bloggers than female bloggers in fields like politics.

Via Inside Higher Ed.