SadieMAG has an article about that female blogger thing, which includes a nice little Feministe shout-out, as well as links to some of my favorite blogs (Shakespeare’s Sister, Rox Populi, Suburban Guerrilla, Pandagon, Bitch PhD, Majikthise, Culture Cat, Wonkette). The article is interesting, although I take issue with parts of it. Right-wing blogger Kathy is quoted as saying, apparently about Wonkette, “Any woman blogger on the web can use her sexuality to gain readers. But is that what we want?” I’m not sure if Kathy actually reads Wonkette, but (a) much of the blogging there is done by people other than Ana Marie Cox, and (b) while Wonkette makes sex jokes, it’s usually something crude about ass-fucking, and not at all referencing her own life. She definitely doesn’t do the “I’m hot, read me!” Washingtonienne-style blogging (sidenote: Check out this month’s NY Mag for a strange bit on Jessica Cutler).
That said, I do agree with Lindsay Beyerstein:
Yet mainstream media pundits and academics regularly invite the dirty-writing Wonkette to comment on issues of blogging or blogging ethics. She “was invited to represent not only women but the liberal blogs. That [annoyed] the hell out of everyone,” Beyerstein says.
Wonkette is a DC celebrity/entertainment/political blog, the way Gawker is for NYC. Wonkette is a female who blogs, but doesn’t represent female bloggers as a whole — that’s just not what she’s about (and as far as I can tell, it’s other people who seem eager to paste the Woman Blogger sticker onto her; she doesn’t seem to feed into it herself, beyond her possession of a vagina).
Right Wing Sparkle blogger Kathy pretty much got on my last nerve throughout the entirety of the article, as she fed into every possible stereotype about women bloggers:
“Females certainly have a different voice than men when blogging,” says Kathy. “I think that’s why a lot of the big male bloggers ignore us. Women view politics through the same prism that they view life–one that is colored by emotion.”
And
“I think it’s fairly easy to tell if it is a man or woman blogger. We are different, after all, even in the way we write.”
…right.
On the contrary, I’d be willing to bet that once a blogger identifies herself as female, what she writes is perceived differently — if what would be considered righteous anger in a man is “shrill” when it comes from a woman; arguing pointedly is acceptable when the arguer is male, bitchy when they’re female. I don’t blame bloggers who hide their gender, or who ghost as men. It makes sense.
And like Amanda says in the article, blogging rules — like the rules in politics in general, and in the mainstream media — were made by the boys. A blog that focuses on feminism and reproductive rights is “soft” and silly and too narrow, while one that focuses entirely on the Iraq war is perfectly valid and serious. But I ultimately agree with what she adds here:
…as people become more aware that there’s no enforcement of the rules, there’s less inclination to treat the top bloggers as the ultimate authorities on who counts and who doesn’t. Also, as it is becoming more clear that the very blurring of the personal and political, as well as the political with other interests–the very things that were supposedly “feminine” blogging behaviors and therefore somehow unappealing–are in fact exactly the things that bring people back to their favorite blogs.
Anyway, read the whole article. The quotes from Amanda, Lindsay and Clancy, among others, are really great.
UPDATE: Deanna at Alternet makes the point that the term “woman bloggers” really sucks. Right on.
Not at all. Nobody — neither “the boys” nor any other group — made “the blogging rules.” Bloggers make their own rules every time they post.
People always think I’m a guy from my blog.
But that’s just because most of the conservative women bloggers are men.
Thank you, Karol. That was the point I was going to make. It took me a while to get used to Hilzoy and Jesurgislac as women, having convinced myself they were men. Perhaps my default shouldn’t be biased toward maleness but there you have it.
It’s only been in the year that women’s blogs have had as strong as attraction as the guy’s to me. I read Amanda (though I think of her more as a Mouse than a Panda), Majikthise, Talk Left, Obsidian Wings (for Hilzoy and Katherine), and the great firedoglake all the time. I don’t know what the big deal is.
Yeah, ‘most’.
About using the term “women bloggers…” a pet peeve of mine. I posted this on AlterNet this morning: http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/28283
I’ve had quite a few folks assume I’m a guy as well when just basing the determination on my writing (might be something about the gender-neutral name), and I’ve had to correct more than one reference back to my site referring to me as a guy.
That did stop after a few random blog posts about bad haircuts and shoe buying sprees.
I know. I’m such a stereotype.
People don’t care what I am from my blog, so long as I stay 1,000 feet away from elementary schools, churches, and nursing homes.
THE MYTH OF THE BLOGGER MEN
AND THE TALE WAS TOLD among the Uteri. We are bloggers, fair tellers of tales fair and foul here in varied Vaginastan. Are there not men who tell tales told of hearth and home and where they roam perhaps
Jesus H–”women bloggers.” Why not. We’ll add it to woman lawyers, woman doctors, woman violinists, women writers. And if the blogs I read (Daily Kos? This Modern World? Bob Harris? Oliver Willis?) by men aren’t written through a prism of emotion, then I am in fact a man.
Reminds me of “Kevin Drums wayward home for Lefty Sisters. Because we care …but not that much.”
Personally, I prefer “blogeress” to “woman blogger.”
Re: “bloggeress.” It’s still having to add something to make it feminine.
I really can’t stand that ‘woman blogger’ – we don’t have qualifiers for males – male lawyers, male doctors. They are just lawyers.
The best example of this stupid qualifier and the prevalant thought of women coming after and as a result of the man thing is the new show Commander in Chief.
Geena Davis plays a “woman president” not a president who just happens to not have a dick.
Eek! I assumed everyone would realize that I was being sarcastic.
I think that the simple descriptive term “vagina blogger” covers it.
What?
Re: Sally… ah jeez, sorry. I had my humorless-feminist blinders on, haha.
re: Robert. WAAAAHAHAHA. “The Vagina Monoblogs…?”
Identifying bloggers by gender, oh except for manbloggers, it’s pretty much like the chick-flick thing.
We, The Uterati, are set apart from the Penisphere and are thus segregated into Vaginistan.
I blame the patriarchy.
I blame the patriarchy and their vagina-toting sympathizers.