Are Women Less Confident than Men ?
Do Men Have More Confidence and Self-Esteem than Women ?
I have mentioned before that there is often a . . .
bit more going on with this site than may immediately meet the eye.
It’s the end of the month so not only do I evaluate how the site has done but it is also time for me to see how my experiment into a basic difference between men and women went . . .
If you are a regular then you may recall these two articles I wrote on August 1st
Am I an Average Man
Am I an Average Woman
There were 3 reasons for writing them.
Firstly, the the survey results were interesting and made a light and airy post for the site, for which many regulars tune in looking for.
Secondly, for SEO reasons - I was targeting key search phrases that would bring people to the site from Google
Thirdly, a social experiment !
Discount the first 2, although the second reason was critical the the success of the third.
I got both pages ranking number one in Google for my targeted phrases and derivatives then I sat back and waited to see which proved the most popular.
My theory was that anybody aspiring to be average, or finding reassurance that they can class themselves as average, must consider themselves decidedly below average and/or have low self-esteem.
After all, you wouldn’t search the internet for reassurance that you were just average if you were feeling good about yourself !
When I write something it gets visitors in the first few days from our regular readers. From then on it requires traffic from search engines primarily for most of the subsequent visits.
The page about the women being average has had 500% more traffic than the one about men
I was expecting a difference but not as large as that and when you look at the search terms it clearly shows an awful lot of women out there are suffering from low self-esteem.
Whether what gets them down is founded or not is not really the issue - my point is than an awful lot more women are bothered about it than men.
It’s also borne out by many other search terms as well - so an interesting experiment which I’m pleased actually worked.
I should also like to thank all the visitors to the site as this month has been a record one and I’ve reached a target I was after.
2 Million Hits in one month.
I’ll be putting the new Top Ten Most Popular Pages up in the sidebar at the right shortly - note Derren Brown - a real success this month - extremely popular
Was my experiment valid ? Am I right or Wrong ?
Confidently Yours
Rod
the dinosaur said,
August 31, 2009 @ 10:19 am
Rod, I find this experiment of yours very interesting. I seem to know so many people who suffer from serious depression, I have a theory that a major reason for this is: we are all programmed from a very early age to expect certain things in life is a right, in reality and especially in the modern world they not all unachievable, leaving many people feeling like a failure. If we can identify ourselves as “normal” which is more realistic, that is some consolation. I think perhaps women have more pressure on them to achieve because they tend to remain in touch with old school friends and be aware of their comparative success, I know one young lady who though living a couple of hundred miles from where she grew up still talks to her old school friends daily on-line, I don’t know any men that would do that! It would be interesting to know whether some of the ladies agree with me.
Rod said,
August 31, 2009 @ 11:15 am
Dino,
pleased you find it of interest - it is fascinating. What shows time and again when looking at the data for search and how people end up here is
Women seem far more negative than men
They also seem to be looking more for an excuse than for a remedy
Take some of the most popular articles on the site.
Tons of men look at the Daniel Craig workout post, they arrive here with search terms about his exercise regimes, how to do it etc - all pro active
Take the how to look like Cheryl Cole post.
That too is very popular but huge mounts of traffic comes from searches such as
Why don’t I look like Cheryl Cole
I wish I looked like . . .
Why is she so thin
Look at the vanity sizing - again huge volume of traffic.
But lots of women want to know
Is it normal to be a size 16
I wear size 14 does that make me fat
etc etc
It seems to me as though it’s all either negative or excuse seeking. You acknowledge being over weight by doing the searches but all you really want is to gain comfort from knowing the average woman in Britain is also fat - that makes it OK then !!!!!
What puzzles me is if you’re bothered enough about an issue to allow it to mentally get you down, even clinically depress you why not try and do something about it.
There is, without doubt, a marked difference in the psychology of men and women when viewed through search statistics and experiments such as this
Cheers
Rod