Must: Justin Wolfers: Evidence of a Toxic Environment for Women in Economics
Must-Read: It should not be necessary to say that the “community” of EJMR is not Berkeley—or indeed, is not anywhere IRL. Also: cf.: Griefer.
Do not ignore or dismiss this.
But do note that the only economics professor of any ideology or university I can recall ever praising EJMR is George Borjas of Harvard, who called it “refreshing”:
Justin Wolfers: Evidence of a Toxic Environment for Women in Economics: “Ms. Wu set up her computer to identify whether the subject of each post is a man or a woman… https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/upshot/evidence-of-a-toxic-environment-for-women-in-economics.html
But, again, do not ignore of dismiss this:
…The simplest version involves looking for references to “she,” “her,” “herself” or “he,” “him,” “his” or “himself.” She then adapted machine-learning techniques to ferret out the terms most uniquely associated with posts about men and about women.
The 30 words most uniquely associated with discussions of women… in order… [are]: hotter, lesbian, bb (internet speak for “baby”), sexism, tits, anal, marrying, feminazi, slut, hot, vagina, boobs, pregnant, pregnancy, cute, marry, levy, gorgeous, horny, crush, beautiful, secretary, dump, shopping, date, nonprofit, intentions, sexy, dated and prostitute….
Words about men[: juicy, keys, adviser, bully, prepare, fought, wharton, austrian, checkers, homo, genes, e7ee, mathematician, advisor, burning, pricing, philly, band, kfc, nobel, cmt, amusing, greatest, textbook, goals, irate]….
It includes words that are relevant to economics, such as adviser, Austrian (a school of thought in economics) mathematician, pricing, textbook and Wharton (the University of Pennsylvania business school that is President Trump’s alma mater). More of the words associated with discussions about men have a positive tone, including terms like goals, greatest and Nobel. And to the extent that there is a clearly gendered theme, it is a schoolyard battle for status: The list includes words like bully, burning and fought…