Blogging anonymously

I think students might be surprised to learn how many professors blog anonymously. I read a number of such blogs, and thought about this in light of a gaffe yesterday by Dr. Crazy, who inadvertently left a clue about her real identity in a post and didn’t notice it for some time. She then wrote about the dynamics of blogging anonymously. I don’t think I could ever do so, precisely because everything you write potentially tells people who you are, which would take the fun out of it.

Something else struck me—it seems that for academic blogs, more men use their real names, while most (though not all) anonymous blogs are written by women. There are many blogs out there I haven’t read, so maybe there is some sort of selection bias, but that is the trend I’ve noticed. For example, out of all the political science blogs out there (admittedly, a small sample), Michelle Dion’s is the only one I know of written by a woman. If I am wrong, I'd love to learn otherwise.