Am I a Women’s only writer?

I had a very strange observation, which quite surprised me, but eventually made me laugh a lot! And it all started when my dear friend Denis Gorbunov left a response on my article. Denis wondered if I was a lady 😃!!

Refer below snapshot from our conversation:

I immediately laughed that he is a scientist. Scientists do overthink and have a knack for making wrong hypothesis. However, only moments later, I was totally blushing 😊.

This was among the best compliments I have ever received for my writing. That my articles have a feminine touch — there is no way I can take this compliment in any negative manner.

After all, isn’t everything beautiful in this world feminine — the rains, the smiles, the hopes. All gentle, kind and forever loving.

This conversation happened and days went by without me giving it a deeper thought.

A few days ago, I was reading one of my old stories — which is my personal favorite (and also among the least read of my articles 😞!).

https://medium.com/@thesilentmonk/what-a-dying-mice-wished-on-her-death-bed-the-cutest-little-love-story-of-two-mice-5891dd73d79

And to my surprise, all the comments on the story were from ever supporting women!

I thought this is a one of story but it intrigued me to find out more: “Who comments more on my articles: Men or Women?”

Below is what I found out:

➡There are many articles of mine, where all the comments are from women!
➡Most of my articles have more than 50% comments from women, and some even have 80% comments from female readers.
➡My first follower has been the very kind Maria Iliffe-Wood, and the first person to ever tip me for my articles has been the very generous Anusha Chandrasekaran — both very gracious and supporting women of course!
➡I could only find two articles where comments from male readers are more than 50%, and it was about toxic work environments or about death 😲.

Disclaimer — Of course I could not analyze all my articles, and data fishing is pretty common to support our hypothesis. But numbers aside, this is a trend that I have generally observed in my articles — although it may/may not change with time.

Personally, I am super happy if my articles are resonating with all the female readers, yet I am intrigued to find out why is it so!

I. Is this a Medium wide thing — that women respond more to articles they love?

Medium Gods and Top writers can answer this, but I would have expected the opposite. As per data from “Similar Web” for Medium website demographics, male readers are almost twice of the female readers. Hence, just by the law of proportions, the comments from male readers should be more yet it is not the case — and I totally have no complaints in this regard 😃.

II. Is it related to the topics I write which resonate more with women rather than men?

My writing has always been centered around life lessons, fables, philosophy — all things aimed at spreading positivity and broadening our perspective about life. These are the topics that should impact men and women directly, yet they seem to be resonating more with the female readers on Medium.

One possible explanation could be that I do not write about technology which has always been a male dominated industry — and hence would expect a lesser number of male responders.

III. Are women more appreciative and reciprocating in nature than men, and is this how the world works in general?

I never have bought the arguments that men and women are same. Both of them are equally capable of achieving great heights and there should be no place for gender based discriminations at any forum — yet both men and women often have slightly different characteristics which everyone must identify, acknowledge and use that to his/her advantage!

Based upon what I observe, I would like to say that women often spend more time in appreciating and reciprocating.

We as men often read the articles, clap, go away and do not always bother to comment. I must confess, I am guilty of this sometimes 😞!

To my very very few male responders!

Robin Ghosh, Neth Williams, Borut, John Whye, Leonard Tillerman, Denis Gorbunov, Pierre. Autistic & proud.
I just realized how important you all are to me now! You are holding the fort for the entire male readers, and I desperately hope that you don’t go away. It is said that as a woman, you are often alone in the room — but the winds are flowing in the opposite direction here.

But trust me, you are in the company of some great, wonderful, kind and compassionate women!

Let me know if you all want a share of my Medium earnings 😃. After writing for 2 months, I estimated my hourly rate is coming around full 50 cents, and I would totally not mind sharing that with you!

I am thinking of buying you all Ko-fi, but I am worried you would rather spend it on a pint of beer instead, and as a monk I do not support drinking alcohol!

And Denis Gorbunov! You are a great scientist after all. Although your inference was wrong, there was some truth in your observation. Scientists do observe a few things which the monks often overlook — and hence both are required in this world. But I have done all the hard work of gathering all the numbers and data for you. If you ever publish a research paper on this, make sure you correctly attribute it to me 😃.

Tony Stubblebine and Medium Staff — let me know if you ever come up with a tag for Women’s writer — I would wear that with pride!

Keeping all the humor aside, personally I am equally grateful to anyone who reads my articles — be it he/she/they/ze. The stories/articles are always aimed at exploring different perspectives about life and spreading positive vibes only! I know for sure that both men and women are equally capable of appreciating that and imbibing that in their respective lives.

The Silent Monk bows before all the readers for always showering so much love on him. He is getting much more love and support from all the readers than what he truly deserves. And he sincerely hopes that the universe continues to generate stories through him that touch everyone alike— be it men or women!

With lots of love and gratitude,
The Silent Monk

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