The Mother Jones blog recently noted a study of the male-to-female ratio in high-caliber magazine bylines. The average was 3 to 1. Harper’s was the most male-dominated at 7 to 1; the New York Times Magazine was the most egalitarian at 2 to 1. Of course, the presumption is that the discrepancy is due to discrimination alone and that the ideal ratio is 1 to 1.

The blog further contends that, when women do write, it’s often about stereotypically female issues like house and home.

There are a number of problems with this analysis. For one, I don’t read these pretentious magazines all that often, but one writer for The New Yorker (4:1 and specifically accused of letting women write about fluff alone) I do know of is Katherine Boo. She is the poverty reporter, putting herself into the melee of underclass life, challenging government policies and writing fantastically to boot. She may be an exception to the broader trend, but the allegation that female writers who get good stories “approach[es] zero” is pretty hard to believe.

Second, it’s interesting that the focus here is on magazine writing, disproportionately done on a freelance basis. Newspapers and possibly newsweeklies, I suspect, are much more female — in my freshman class at the Medill School of Journalism, women significantly outnumbered men (in 2000 incoming undergrads were 68 percent female; I can’t find the 2002 numbers). Freelancers tend to be men, I would guess, because the freelance lifestyle is incredibly risky and men are more inclined to take risks. You never know what kind of money you’ll be able to pull in next month, and if you want to join the upper echelon of in-demand writers your best bet is to explore child sex slavery or spend some time in a war zone.

I should give MJ credit for noting at least one other possible reason for the divide — men “are more likely to believe that the world is just waiting to hear what they have to say.” Fair enough.

The byline gap is certainly worth quantifying and analyzing. But it is a leap in logic to assume it’s due to irrational discrimination.

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com because you’re just waiting to hear what he has to say.