Men are oh so more generous than women about sharing their music, videos and other creative work online, even though men and women are pretty even in terms of content creation, according to a new study from Northwestern University.

“Because sharing information on the Internet today is a form of participating in public culture and contributing to public discourse, that means men’s voices are being disproportionately heard,” says Eszter Hargittai, assistant professor of communication studies at Northwestern University, in a statement.

She co-authored the study (“The Participation Divide: Content Creation and Sharing in the Digital Age”) with Northwestern researcher Gina Walejko

About two-thirds of men said they posted their work online while roughly half the women reported doing so. Creative writing was the work most commonly shared across the board.

As for why there is such a pronounced difference, the researchers suspect women lack confidence in their skills and are concerned about privacy. 

The researchers surveyed 1,060 freshmen at the University of Illinois, Chicago. The study was funded via the Web Use Project funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

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