Women create fewer online petitions than men — but they’re more successful
ANALYSIS | And they have different policy priorities
In a new research study, recently published by the Kennedy School, researchers ask whether women participate as much as men in online petitions — a new and important way of organizing online.
Women do not participate as much as men in many forms of offline politics
- There is some evidence that women in advanced industrial democracies are more likely than men to engage in “thin” forms of participation — such as voting — yet are less likely to engage in “thick” forms — such as donating money or running for office.
- Lower levels of “thick” participation mean that fewer women are elected to legislatures, which means that policy is plausibly less likely to reflect women’s interests.
- In the United States, for instance, women vote regularly in congressional elections, yet only 19.4 percent of congressional members are women.
New online resources might be changing the balance
This might be changing in at least one dimension: online participation.
New research that asks whether online participation will follow the pattern of offline thick participation, or make it worse, or alternatively help close the gap in participation and representation between women and men. To figure this out, researchers looked at one of the most common types of online participation: online petitioning. Even though online petition sites are enormous, there is not much known about how different demographic groups use them or whose interests these petitions reflect.
Men and women seem to have different priorities for online politics
The study looks at the participation and success of women on Change.org, an online petition website allowing anyone worldwide to create and sign petitions.
Men and women — or at least the ones on Change.org — actually have different policy priorities.
- Women are disproportionately likely to both create and sign petitions in the categories of animal and women’s rights.
- Men are more likely to create and sign petitions in the categories of economic justice and human rights.
- Results also show that online petition signing reproduces the pattern of thin/thick participation seen in representative democracy.
Women are less likely to organize new petitions online. However, they are better at it
- Just as in offline politics, women participate at high rates in the thin form of participation of signing petitions that others have already created.
- They under-participate in petition creation, a thicker form of participation.
What this means for democracy
The most interesting finding is that even if women are less likely to start a petition, their petitions are more likely to be successful.
All other things being equal, when petitions have an impact on, for instance, government policy, the agenda being implemented is much closer to the issues women choose to focus on than the issues that men focus on.
The results provide some support for the idea that “viral engagement” can have positive consequences for democratic politics.
They also suggest that there may be ways in which women’s preferences can have more consequences for politics if they are expressed through online rather than offline politics.
Overall, these findings suggest that understanding the potency of women’s issues could provide numerous opportunities for engaging women in policymaking.
