Where Are All The Female Bloggers? Part Two

[miss_s_b]

So the blogosphere is alive this weekend with outrage at the mistreatment of Jo Swinson by the Torygraph. EVERYONE is linking to James Graham's masterful post on the matter - as I did myself, yesterday. Which just goes to show that even though female bloggers like myself and Caron have been talking about something for a day or two, it's only REALLY important when one of the blokosphere picks it up. Even when the substance of the story is misogyny. Irony much?

Standard disclaimers for a post about feminism: this is in no way meant as an attack on James who is and always has been a good feminist ally, nor is it an attack on any of the people who have linked to him - there's one in particular who was the focus of my last "where are all the female bloggers" post, who might be feeling a bit picked on at this point. That is absolutely not my intention. All this post is, is a dispirited observation on how the world works.

---

This blog is proudly sponsored by

Comments

[andrewhickey.info]

To be fair here, I'm probably going to link James in my linkblogging today because he's suggesting a lot of things to do about it rather than just saying he's angry (though I'll probably also be linking you). I also think the post in question may have had less impact because it was behind an 'adult content warning'. I don't read Caron, so I don't know what she was saying...

[miss_s_b]

Caron's post was much more measured and much less sweary than mine. I'm not saying James' post was not a good post: it was, or I wouldn't have linked to it myself. But neither he nor anyone who links to him is acknowledging the role of female bloggers in breaking this. To be fair to James, it is probably because he dived straight into posting without reading anyone else; but that doesn't explain everyone else.

[andrewhickey.info]

Ah, right... I've not seen any of the people linking to it, other than on twitter, yet.

[miss_s_b]

Well, here's one that's just appeared on my f-list: http://www.libdemvoice.org/daily-view-2x2-24-may-09-15079.html Note the commentary.

[fabulousblueporcupine.wordpress.com]

Hum. Well, maybe. The thing that made the difference to me and actually made me get off my arse and write the letters was that James provided an image of the print edition. I'd read the online version, and your post, and ground my teeth like everybody else. But the print version complete with "makeover queen" headline and pictures really was something else and that was the first time I'd seen it.

[sassy_scot]

As the one who started the blog ball rolling on this on Thursday night, I think Jennie's and James' postings were absolutely brilliant and definitely brought much more to the debate so I'm not feeling sour about them, but I do feel that Jennie is right. It's not the first time something like this has happened. Women can be marginalised in the blokeosphere - unless they say completely mad things, like Nadine, of course, and can become objects of ridicule.

Andrew, if you want, you can read mine here: http://carons-musings.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-telegraph-goes-too-far.

And if trying to get noticed blogging about politics is bad enough, try being a woman writing about F1:-)

[miss_s_b]

I linked to you twice on today's Netcast to make up for things ;)

[sassy_scot]

Thank you!

[miss_s_b]

No worries ;)

[himmelgartencafe.blogspot.com]

Hopefully I win feminist brownie points for having linked to you and not Graham in the first version of my posting. I've since added on links to Graham, Caron and LDV.

Mind you, I'm sure any brownie points I've gained here have been lost for misdemeanors elsewhere :-(

[himmelgartencafe.blogspot.com]

Not Graham. James. Need coffee.

[miss_s_b]

LOL I never even questioned that - you're commenting on the blog of a person who phoned up The Award-Winning Alix Mortimer the other day and said Mortimer? It's Rigg... as an opening line...

[fabulousblueporcupine.wordpress.com]

Then she said, "YOUR ORDERS ARE TO INITIALISE ZE EVIL MASTER PLAN WITHOUT DELAY. AHAHAHAHA."

[miss_s_b]

YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THAT!!!!

* thwack *

Honestly! You just can't get the henchpeople these days...

[miss_s_b]

* smooch *

It's not a competition, silly goose. Awareness is what I'm aiming for, not a league table.

[mindrobber.blogspot.com]

I suspect that much of the linking to James is a response to his attempts to get a bit of a campaign going, but you certainly have a point more generally about the blokosphere.

Your post has made me consider who I might have linked to if I were doing some linking on the subject. I concluded that I probably would have linked to you, but probably not to Caron, for the simple reason that (and I don't mean this in a mean way, Caron) I don't read Caron's blog on a regular basis. There are plenty of women whose blogs I do read regularly, and plenty of men whose blogs I don't, but... I did start to wonder to myself why it is that I've made some of those decisions. In Caron's case, I'm not completely sure. It may be that I'm being subconsciously a dreadful mysogynist, it may be that none of the posts of Caron's that I've ever read have seemed to be "on my wavelength" enough for me to check in regularly, I don't really know.

Anyway, I hereby commit to make a conscious effort to click through to more female bloggers on LDB in the next week. And link to them (when I link to anyone, which isn't that often). Of course, if you think my readership are going to make up a big effect on anyone's hits, you've got another thing coming...

[miss_s_b]

How do you read blogs? Do you have a feed reader, or do you just use Lib Dem Blogs as a feed reader, or do you visit them all individually?

If you have a feed reader, I am in the process of writing a post with lots of girly blogs which I heartily recommend.

[mindrobber.blogspot.com]

You mean it wasn't wholly directed at me? :p

To be honest, I don't read blogs in anything like a particularly systematic way. Mostly, I have the CSS feed for LDB in Firefox, and I just scan down it for interesting looking titles (thereby removing much of a mechanism for bias - irritatingly, I often get caught out and click through to Irfan. You can't mute people in the RSS feed, to the best of my knowledge...). I also then regularly check Dale, Guido, LDV, LibCon and you. I have a few other blogs in my bookmarks, which I check from time to time. Sometimes, I look at the actual LDB page,

I've been thinking about getting a feedreader set up for a while now. Even went to the hassle of finding one in the Ubuntu repos and installing it. But I'm chronically bad at getting into new habits (Correction: I'm chronically had at getting into new habits I consciously want to get into), so I'm still currently sticking with the process I outlined above. In some ways, I'm a bit dubious that if I went over to a feedreader I would bother to find the time to look more widely for blogs I don't necessarily read on a regular basis.

[miss_s_b]

Yeah, I kind of figured that a lot of Lib Dem bloggers use LDB as a proxy feed reader; this is why the Lib Dem blogosphere is so insular.

I very rarely check Lib Dem Blogs, but when I do, and I find something of interest, I add it to my feeds. This also solves the Irfan problem, although for the occasions that I DO use Lib Dem blogs, I have him (and a few other annoying ones) plus all the ones I already have on my feeds muted. That way I don't get duplication.