One more reason that I’ll never be a hit generating machine. I do have lovely feet–do you think I could corner the foot fetishist, half-eared cat enthusiast market?
Unfortunately, that’s probably what we’ll have to do in order to have our blogs noticed. Wonderful and sadly very true post, Lauren. Shit, I’m starting to wonder what kind of “naughty” pic I’ll have to post in order to have my blog noticed by the “big-whig, old blogger boy network”.
Uppity women
Following Trish’s lead, I’m posting here some links to women who have written on this “women and blogging” phemenon (and related posts) and how it either eludes, mystifies o
I don’t know, you better be careful… Someone who posts a ‘sexy pic’ of themselves on their blog might have a boyfriend who’ll come here and pick on you for this. hehehe.
hi lauren, great blog! i got here by searching for feminist blogs and it is great to see another woman doing what she does not because she is defined by her gender but because she has a brain, lives in the world and has an opinion! – re: the boobs to sell blogs, i have a similiar experience with my blog http://www.missbadger.squarespace.com, i am an artist living in glasgow, scotland, the subject matter of my work being representation of female sexuality and my quest to reclaim the word ‘cunt’ as a positive as opposed to the common, derogatory
use – and of course this brings a whole lot of traffic my way, those that were expecting gratuitous imagery of female genitalia get my art work or my daily ramblings !!!! – oh and thanks for the multitude of amazing links to really good feminist blogs!
Yay! I have a fan club!
Should I be flattered or creeped out? My comments on the recent flareup of the blogger gender wars spurred the gang at Gene Expression to analyze my blogroll for gender bias. I'd thought about doing this myself a while back but geez, you know, I&a…
badgergirl: the word ‘cunt’ is the oldest taboo word in the English language, we’re talking about 7-8 centuries. it isnt even a polite way to refer to the female vagina.
lady bloggerFebruary 23, 2005 at 4:52 pm | Permalink
very funny… but i think the focus on lack of attention on female blogs is getting stale. maybe it’s time to stop putting gender labels on blogs on just seeing them for their content. calling attention to ‘this is my gender. i am empowered’ can be distracting…
“This is my gender. i am empowered” is not the overall goal of calling attention to, or more accurately challenging the repetition of, this issue. We aren’t the ones musing on the lack of political women in blogging because we are and are aware of plenty of political women in blogging. That the top-ranked men don’t see us doesn’t mean that we don’t exist, don’t like a challenge, and aren’t dedicated. It’s that they don’t see us. Period.
The onus is not on us. Thus, the consistent suggestion is that we (i.e. digital women as op-ed writers) should change is not only offensive, but ridiculously stupid.
It is a stale issue? Of course. That’s why we’re pissed off.
The Women Have Been Found
In a follow up to his earlier post despairing over the dearth of women who blog about politics that resulted in a fully predictable response, Kevin Drum wrote a follow up post, saying the whole discussion
Don’t put pictures of your tits, put pictures of goddesses and amazons from ancient art. That would create a lot of different rhetorical statements at once, and cause some head-explosion among the sorts of people who make facile assumptions and blat them out and don’t think about what they’re saying, while avoiding personal embarrassment.
You could also separate the…truly liberated from the pseudo-libs by putting up *male* nudes – after all, FARK doesn’t have male nudes when you get there, but female ones. If *we* fem bloggers posted gorgeous beefcake shots, that too would be a radical meme-breakage, since women are supposed to be sexual *objects* not desiring beings. Any time you find beefcake art, from advertising to nude reviews to film to paintings, it’s assumed to be *homoerotic* – yet no one thinks that *cheesecake* is designed to appeal to that vast purchasing-power majority, the lesbian market!
Another Gender+Blogging Artifact
Here’s a source I used in some earlier work I did on gender and blogging in Fall 2002. It doesn’t exactly fit with the Where are the women? question, but it’s telling nonetheless:
Tom SawyertFebruary 23, 2005 at 7:41 pm | Permalink
Making the Femirounds
What’s up amongst the XX chromosome blogging set today? Good news! Amanda of Mouse Words won the Koufax Award for Best New Blog. Roxanne of Rox Populi has been invited to be the guest speaker at tomorrow night’s meeting of the DC chapter of…
Now all you have to do is lose half your body weight and make a minidress out of the seatcovers from your car and you can make the leap into multimedia
Classical art featured males as the perfection of the human body. Until very recently it was young male adonises that were considered ‘beauty’. In actual fact portraying the female form as the perfection of the human body is really a very recent occurance, and roughly coincided with women’s liberation. When you consider the historical/religious attitudes to the human form, it can be argued that using breasts to sell is actually empowering women.
If you consider the banner here at feministe, we have a woman in a cocktail glass showing off her legs – what is the perceived symbology behind that? What is the intended, only Lauren can answer.
If any women wish to be ‘ironic’ and have good looking men (traditionally late teens, muscular, long hair – think the story of Samson, he was emascualted not by references to male genitalia but by the cutting of his hair) on their sites, good for them. I don’t really see anything ironic behind it as men like that are the physical embodiment of human perfection: young, strong and virile.
Monjo, have you *spent* much time in museums? Or are you repeating something you read in a magazine once?
Venus de Milo. Venus Anodyne. Nike of Samothrace. The Elgin Marbles. The Kore of Auxerre. The Wounded Amazon. The Acropolis Caryatids. Athena Lemnia. Venus Callipyge. The “Three Graces.”
This is off the top of my head, mind you, not looking anything up, and covers centuries of classical history from the very early stages of realistic sculpture attempts to the end of the Roman Empire. And we’re not even covering Egypt (Isis, Hathor, in countless representations), or Mesopotamia (Ashera, Inanna), or Asia Minor (Diana Polymastes) and still less going into the far and non-verbal -record-leaving past, where you have both sensitive portraits, majestic nudes, and breasts-onna-stick coming out of the neolithic era.
Most of those societiess used breasts to sell things, (including sex itself) but were not particularly woman-friendly, if I recall my source materials correctly…
As for what the masthead of this blog (which I hadn’t even noticed, it being that dark and imo cluttered a design, until you mentioned it) is supposed to mean, the designer will have to explain.
Monjo, have you *spent* much time in museums? Or are you repeating something you read in a magazine once?
Venus de Milo. Venus Anodyne. Nike of Samothrace. The Elgin Marbles. The Kore of Auxerre. The Wounded Amazon. The Acropolis Caryatids. Athena Lemnia. Venus Callipyge. The “Three Graces.”
This is off the top of my head, mind you, not looking anything up, and covers centuries of classical history from the very early stages of realistic sculpture attempts to the end of the Roman Empire. And we’re not even covering Egypt (Isis, Hathor, in countless representations), or Mesopotamia (Ashera, Inanna), or Asia Minor (Diana Polymastes) and still less going into the far and non-verbal -record-leaving past, where you have both sensitive portraits, majestic nudes, and breasts-onna-stick coming out of the neolithic era.
Most of those societiess used breasts to sell things, (including sex itself) but were not particularly woman-friendly, if I recall my source materials correctly…
Put up male nudes, “Barberini Faun” style, and watch straight (or, more accurately, ambivalent and in denial) men twitch and eventually spaz out in a “My eyes! My eyes!” way. I’ve seen this reaction before, (and I think it’s funny as hell.)
As for what the masthead of this blog (which I hadn’t even noticed, it being that dark and imo cluttered a design, until you mentioned it) is supposed to mean, the designer will have to explain, I don’t have any grounds to start presuming on, and why WAG when the author is present?
Venus de Milo = depicts a Goddess; Venus Anodyne = not sure, probably is a Goddess; Nike of Samothrace = winged Goddess; Elgin Marbles = again depicts Gods and Godesses… spotting a theme?
Barberini Faun = not a God, is a sexual piece of art
Remember art = Depiction + Intention (hence why I asked Lauren of her intentions with the banner art)
To state that these civilisations were anti-woman, is a little silly. You may wish to read about the Minoan goddesses and how Zeus and Hera may have originated.
Still, I shall admit, I do not care much to go to museums or art galleries. You got me there! How would I react to a nude male, I don’t know. Since I was born all depictions of human beauty, perfection, even intelligence, have been thrust upon women. The PM and Monarch for my early childhood were both women – Im in the UK. The sexual organs of both men and women are not aesthetically good, and women have the advantage there that their sexual organ is mostly internal. Frankly I probably would be a little uncomfortable seeing it, but I am not “in denial”.
The one area where men still are definitely considered superior is sport. My example to demonstrate this fact is Maria Sharapova vs Roger Federer – only someone who hates tennis (but likes watching good-looking women) could choose to watch Sharapova above federer. But maybe women disagree.
And, of course, sport started with the Olympics and before as a male-only contest in the early years of paternalistic societies: the move to urbanisation changed society. But that is all really a complete essay (book even!) in itself.
Penis evolution
After the recent struggles trying to keep up with the traffic on this site, you wouldn't think I'd feel compelled to go trolling for more visitors, but isn't that the nature of weblogging? The only point to it all is to rack up a bigger …
Herbert BrowneFebruary 27, 2005 at 1:58 am | Permalink
The bra-pics reminded me of early Matt Groening cartoons- each like two persons in burkas carrying on secret conversations- or trying to kiss while wearing gas masks…
^..^
Women’s History Month and Estrogen Week
You wants the womens, you got the womens. March is Women’s History Month. Just like Black History Month, every year it’s a time both to reflect on the oft-ignored parts of history and regret that we still must set aside…
This new feminist anthology about sexual violence features essays by Feministe bloggers Jill & Cara. Support Feministe by buying the book through this link today.
The authors of this website have hand-selected these titles because we believe they may be of interest to a feminist audience.
Consider them for gifts to friends, family, or yourself! We do receive some income if you choose to order these titles based on our recommendations. All funds help support our costs to provide this space.
[...] ine: 23 February 2005 Sex Sells Filed under: General — Rick @ 4:30 pm Lauren is busted. Comments &raq [...]
JUST WOW!
I’d bookmark that blog.
Awesome post, Lauren. Got here by way of Kevin Drum’s thread. Added you to my Bloglines feed.
OK, I had to post again. I am still ROTFLMAO at this wickedly funny post. Billmon move over.
No women political bloggers?
Do we have to post pics of our tits to get noticed around here?
One more reason that I’ll never be a hit generating machine. I do have lovely feet–do you think I could corner the foot fetishist, half-eared cat enthusiast market?
HA!
You’ll never know unless you try, Amanda.
That post says so much, one must leave it untouched.
Can I just say, I’m really happy I wasn’t drinking anything when I got to your graphic? :)
I dunno, that’s not really a great rack. I don’t think I can come here anymore.
The best friggin’ post of the day goes to…
Lauren of Feministe who blogged a response to the question of where the women political bloggers are.
Unfortunately, that’s probably what we’ll have to do in order to have our blogs noticed. Wonderful and sadly very true post, Lauren. Shit, I’m starting to wonder what kind of “naughty” pic I’ll have to post in order to have my blog noticed by the “big-whig, old blogger boy network”.
Uppity women
Following Trish’s lead, I’m posting here some links to women who have written on this “women and blogging” phemenon (and related posts) and how it either eludes, mystifies o
I don’t know, you better be careful… Someone who posts a ‘sexy pic’ of themselves on their blog might have a boyfriend who’ll come here and pick on you for this. hehehe.
hi lauren, great blog! i got here by searching for feminist blogs and it is great to see another woman doing what she does not because she is defined by her gender but because she has a brain, lives in the world and has an opinion! – re: the boobs to sell blogs, i have a similiar experience with my blog http://www.missbadger.squarespace.com, i am an artist living in glasgow, scotland, the subject matter of my work being representation of female sexuality and my quest to reclaim the word ‘cunt’ as a positive as opposed to the common, derogatory
use – and of course this brings a whole lot of traffic my way, those that were expecting gratuitous imagery of female genitalia get my art work or my daily ramblings !!!! – oh and thanks for the multitude of amazing links to really good feminist blogs!
Lauren – you win. That’s even better than flea’s synopsis. ROFLMFAO!
Yay! I have a fan club!
Should I be flattered or creeped out? My comments on the recent flareup of the blogger gender wars spurred the gang at Gene Expression to analyze my blogroll for gender bias. I'd thought about doing this myself a while back but geez, you know, I&a…
Geez, Lauren, that was a riot.
Oh, that is good. That is REALLY good.
badgergirl: the word ‘cunt’ is the oldest taboo word in the English language, we’re talking about 7-8 centuries. it isnt even a polite way to refer to the female vagina.
nice one!
worthy of the Guerrilla Girls… ;)
Sad but true.
And funny too!
very funny… but i think the focus on lack of attention on female blogs is getting stale. maybe it’s time to stop putting gender labels on blogs on just seeing them for their content. calling attention to ‘this is my gender. i am empowered’ can be distracting…
“This is my gender. i am empowered” is not the overall goal of calling attention to, or more accurately challenging the repetition of, this issue. We aren’t the ones musing on the lack of political women in blogging because we are and are aware of plenty of political women in blogging. That the top-ranked men don’t see us doesn’t mean that we don’t exist, don’t like a challenge, and aren’t dedicated. It’s that they don’t see us. Period.
The onus is not on us. Thus, the consistent suggestion is that we (i.e. digital women as op-ed writers) should change is not only offensive, but ridiculously stupid.
It is a stale issue? Of course. That’s why we’re pissed off.
The Women Have Been Found
In a follow up to his earlier post despairing over the dearth of women who blog about politics that resulted in a fully predictable response, Kevin Drum wrote a follow up post, saying the whole discussion
Lauren, You Bad!
On Women And Blogging Very heavy snark alert.
Don’t put pictures of your tits, put pictures of goddesses and amazons from ancient art. That would create a lot of different rhetorical statements at once, and cause some head-explosion among the sorts of people who make facile assumptions and blat them out and don’t think about what they’re saying, while avoiding personal embarrassment.
You could also separate the…truly liberated from the pseudo-libs by putting up *male* nudes – after all, FARK doesn’t have male nudes when you get there, but female ones. If *we* fem bloggers posted gorgeous beefcake shots, that too would be a radical meme-breakage, since women are supposed to be sexual *objects* not desiring beings. Any time you find beefcake art, from advertising to nude reviews to film to paintings, it’s assumed to be *homoerotic* – yet no one thinks that *cheesecake* is designed to appeal to that vast purchasing-power majority, the lesbian market!
Another Gender+Blogging Artifact
Here’s a source I used in some earlier work I did on gender and blogging in Fall 2002. It doesn’t exactly fit with the Where are the women? question, but it’s telling nonetheless:
Nice rack!
Making the Femirounds
What’s up amongst the XX chromosome blogging set today? Good news! Amanda of Mouse Words won the Koufax Award for Best New Blog. Roxanne of Rox Populi has been invited to be the guest speaker at tomorrow night’s meeting of the DC chapter of…
Oh, really, really amused.
Now all you have to do is lose half your body weight and make a minidress out of the seatcovers from your car and you can make the leap into multimedia
julia
sisyphus shrugged
Blogocracy! Whiskey! Sexy!
Yow!!!! You got next year’s Wampum entry for best post already!!!
What do they use to sell to women? :*
To make it complete, you should also have a sexual related internet nickname like “hornybabe” or “hotlips4u”. haha.
Now you need a tagline reading, “eyes up here.”
Classical art featured males as the perfection of the human body. Until very recently it was young male adonises that were considered ‘beauty’. In actual fact portraying the female form as the perfection of the human body is really a very recent occurance, and roughly coincided with women’s liberation. When you consider the historical/religious attitudes to the human form, it can be argued that using breasts to sell is actually empowering women.
If you consider the banner here at feministe, we have a woman in a cocktail glass showing off her legs – what is the perceived symbology behind that? What is the intended, only Lauren can answer.
If any women wish to be ‘ironic’ and have good looking men (traditionally late teens, muscular, long hair – think the story of Samson, he was emascualted not by references to male genitalia but by the cutting of his hair) on their sites, good for them. I don’t really see anything ironic behind it as men like that are the physical embodiment of human perfection: young, strong and virile.
Monjo, have you *spent* much time in museums? Or are you repeating something you read in a magazine once?
Venus de Milo. Venus Anodyne. Nike of Samothrace. The Elgin Marbles. The Kore of Auxerre. The Wounded Amazon. The Acropolis Caryatids. Athena Lemnia. Venus Callipyge. The “Three Graces.”
This is off the top of my head, mind you, not looking anything up, and covers centuries of classical history from the very early stages of realistic sculpture attempts to the end of the Roman Empire. And we’re not even covering Egypt (Isis, Hathor, in countless representations), or Mesopotamia (Ashera, Inanna), or Asia Minor (Diana Polymastes) and still less going into the far and non-verbal -record-leaving past, where you have both sensitive portraits, majestic nudes, and breasts-onna-stick coming out of the neolithic era.
Most of those societiess used breasts to sell things, (including sex itself) but were not particularly woman-friendly, if I recall my source materials correctly…
As for what the masthead of this blog (which I hadn’t even noticed, it being that dark and imo cluttered a design, until you mentioned it) is supposed to mean, the designer will have to explain.
Monjo, have you *spent* much time in museums? Or are you repeating something you read in a magazine once?
Venus de Milo. Venus Anodyne. Nike of Samothrace. The Elgin Marbles. The Kore of Auxerre. The Wounded Amazon. The Acropolis Caryatids. Athena Lemnia. Venus Callipyge. The “Three Graces.”
This is off the top of my head, mind you, not looking anything up, and covers centuries of classical history from the very early stages of realistic sculpture attempts to the end of the Roman Empire. And we’re not even covering Egypt (Isis, Hathor, in countless representations), or Mesopotamia (Ashera, Inanna), or Asia Minor (Diana Polymastes) and still less going into the far and non-verbal -record-leaving past, where you have both sensitive portraits, majestic nudes, and breasts-onna-stick coming out of the neolithic era.
Most of those societiess used breasts to sell things, (including sex itself) but were not particularly woman-friendly, if I recall my source materials correctly…
Put up male nudes, “Barberini Faun” style, and watch straight (or, more accurately, ambivalent and in denial) men twitch and eventually spaz out in a “My eyes! My eyes!” way. I’ve seen this reaction before, (and I think it’s funny as hell.)
As for what the masthead of this blog (which I hadn’t even noticed, it being that dark and imo cluttered a design, until you mentioned it) is supposed to mean, the designer will have to explain, I don’t have any grounds to start presuming on, and why WAG when the author is present?
That was freakin’ hysterical.
You know, I have lots of beefcake on my site, just not on my blog. Should I import some? Any of you ladies want to borrow a screen cap for you blogs?
Venus de Milo = depicts a Goddess; Venus Anodyne = not sure, probably is a Goddess; Nike of Samothrace = winged Goddess; Elgin Marbles = again depicts Gods and Godesses… spotting a theme?
Barberini Faun = not a God, is a sexual piece of art
Remember art = Depiction + Intention (hence why I asked Lauren of her intentions with the banner art)
To state that these civilisations were anti-woman, is a little silly. You may wish to read about the Minoan goddesses and how Zeus and Hera may have originated.
Still, I shall admit, I do not care much to go to museums or art galleries. You got me there! How would I react to a nude male, I don’t know. Since I was born all depictions of human beauty, perfection, even intelligence, have been thrust upon women. The PM and Monarch for my early childhood were both women – Im in the UK. The sexual organs of both men and women are not aesthetically good, and women have the advantage there that their sexual organ is mostly internal. Frankly I probably would be a little uncomfortable seeing it, but I am not “in denial”.
The one area where men still are definitely considered superior is sport. My example to demonstrate this fact is Maria Sharapova vs Roger Federer – only someone who hates tennis (but likes watching good-looking women) could choose to watch Sharapova above federer. But maybe women disagree.
And, of course, sport started with the Olympics and before as a male-only contest in the early years of paternalistic societies: the move to urbanisation changed society. But that is all really a complete essay (book even!) in itself.
Penis evolution
After the recent struggles trying to keep up with the traffic on this site, you wouldn't think I'd feel compelled to go trolling for more visitors, but isn't that the nature of weblogging? The only point to it all is to rack up a bigger …
The bra-pics reminded me of early Matt Groening cartoons- each like two persons in burkas carrying on secret conversations- or trying to kiss while wearing gas masks…
^..^
Women’s History Month and Estrogen Week
You wants the womens, you got the womens. March is Women’s History Month. Just like Black History Month, every year it’s a time both to reflect on the oft-ignored parts of history and regret that we still must set aside…