Gender & Citation: "I'll Have Her, Please"

While collecting all my citations for the Jack London chapter, I noticed something unusual: I like women.  I really, really like women.  However, this may not be apparent when you first glance at the gender distribution of my citations:

Male: 51
Female: 42

Remove multiple items from the same author and it looks like this:

Male: 28
Female: 39

The steepness of the decline comes from the fact that I quote across the corpus of both London and Herbert Spencer.  So of the 67 individuals I quote in this chapter, 58 percent of them are women.  But things become even more interesting when the primary sources are removed:

Male: 12
Female: 36

The overwhelming majority of contemporary scholarship I cite was written by women.  The disparity seems especially odd considering the lion's share of London scholarship is written by men.  Does this say something about me?  London scholarship?  Men who work on London?  Women who do?  I'm not sure. 

The Mitchell chapter is little help here, since there is so little contemporary work on him.  My paper on eclecticism isn't useful either, since I was forced (by dint of history) to address the major figures, most of whom were men.  I need more evidence, certainly, but  I find it odd that when I select from a deep pool of contemporary scholarship, I gravitate to works written by women. 

I wonder whether I'm alone in this.  Thoughts?

Comments

[R.L.Page]

If you tend to "gravitate" toward women (instead of men) more power to you. I don't think I should say much about that. But, speaking of London, I wonder if you have seen a book called "Jack London and his Daughters" by Joan London (Heyday Books, Berkeley, 1990.)

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

R.L. Page,

I have (and just recently re-read) the Joan London book. Any particular reason you ask?

I don't think I should say much about that.

No, you should. That's why I ended the post with "Thoughts?" I've actually been thinking about this more, and came up with a few non-answers:

1. It is easier for male scholars to criticize female scholars. This can't be true, as I'm writing one of those dissertations in which I don't criticize people. Not because I don't want to be critical, mind you, but because I've been told that it's a behavior peculiar to graduate students. (And I don't want to wear that mark forever.)
2. It is easier for male scholars to build upon the work of female scholars. The obverse of the first idea, and one I think may have some merit ... or would, had I a taxonomy of male/female scholarly behaviors. I'm sure one exists -- and I'm not alone -- but I don't have my ten-foot pole handy, so I've nothing not to touch that issue with.