To most people, an economist is the chap interviewed in newspapers or on the television uttering acronym-laced incantations about 0.3 per cent this or 10 per cent that. He is usually a man, rarely stylish, mysteriously confident, and a bit dull.
Could these same people really be crude misogynists? A research paper by an American undergraduate student, Alice Wu (recently brought to wider attention by economist Justin Wolfers
), looked at the words most often used to describe men and women by contributors to an online forum popular with graduate students, Economics Job Market Rumors. The language applied to describe women was frequently sexual and derogatory. The words used to describe men were mainly appropriately work-related (with the exception of “homosexual” and “homo”).