I was 99.9999% convinced that legal scholarship is anything but scholarship and, even when it is, almost no one reads it. Based on my research of legal research it's also clear that almost no one relies on any thing found in law review articles other than to skim off some facts.
But now I am confronted with a study on the citation rate of men and women. I mean, as I understand the question, which gender gets cited more relatively speaking.
I could not understand all of the article but if women are cited more often then men (relatively speaking) there are some very important policy implications that follow. I will list only the top ten.
1. Women write better articles. I am not sure what "better" means but what difference does it make?
2. Women write articles that are more likely to appeal to all genders than men do.
3. Women cite each other more than men do.
4. We should hire only women because they are cited more and this would impress someone somewhere because goodness knows citation is what it is all about.
5. Each man's citation should count 1.000009 and each woman's citation should count as 1 in order to off set the gender bias in citation.
6. Anyone citing someone based on the gender of the author is making an important political statement and, as a minor aside, admitting he or she is an idiot.
7. If I could get more in touch with my feminine side I could get more citations.
8. Men need to get wise and coauthor more articles with women.
9. Further research is needed to determine if citations are also biased by weight, height, time in the 100 meter dash, color of hair, type of car driven, what you had for dinner, or where one teaches or went to school. (Opps, we already know the answers to the last two.)
10. Finally, the last possible topic for anyone in law teaching to write about has been written about and so we are finally done. Close the door, turn out the lights.
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