Where Are All The Female Bloggers? Part Three: in which I gently & affectionately patronise the boys

[miss_s_b]

In my relentless carping about how people don't pay attention to female bloggers, one thing I neglected to take full account of is that the cycle of the blokosphere not paying attention to women is largely self-perpetuating. There follow a number of gross generalisations:

• Bloggers, when they first start compiling a reading list, look for bloggers who they like instinctively. This is likely to boil down to someone who appears to think like me
• For male bloggers, this regularly involves randomly adding male bloggers to their list, and skipping over the females, regardless of whether or not the blogger's sex is apparent from their name.
• Sometimes they ask for recs. Their largely male circle recs them largely male blogs
• The cycle continues

The reason that a lot of male bloggers have SOME female bloggers on their lists is that there are some women who write like men. I'm one of them. awesomegore is another.

What can be done about this? Well, boys, I'm going to rec you some female blogs. Regardless of my detestment of positive discrimination (see the post I will be making later today on rules versus guidelines for why this absolutely is not ironic at all, honest guv), it strikes me that you poor little lads can't be expected to go and LOOK for female blogs; you need someone to wave them in your face because your male privilege tells you that if anything is really important, it will be handed to you on a plate. Consider this blog post (and hopefully the comments to it) your plate.

There are more recs in the comments, as well as interesting discussions on the nature of blogging, and boys asserting that they actually do read blogs by women in a not-at-all-predictable way ;)

The List

This list is a by-no-means-exhaustive list of fabulous blogs that I know to be written wholly or mostly by women, currently active and not f-locked, and always interesting. I don't always agree with the content of them, but it's always worth reading. Where I know of it, I have given the Dreamwidth syndicated feed link. Most of these also have syndication on LJ. I present them in alphabetical order for your delectation:

• Alix Mortimer (also available at alix_mortimer_feed)
• the Angry Black Woman (also available at theangryblackwoman_feed)
• But you're a girl! (also available at but_youre_a_girl_feed)
• Charlotte Gore (also available at charlotte_gore_feed and sometimes masquerading as awesomegore)
• Feminist Mums (also available at feminist_mums_feed)
• GeekaChicas (also available at geeka_chicas_feed
• the Hathor Legacy (also available at hathorlegacy_feed)
• innerbrat (also available at innerbrat)
• lizw (also available at lizw)
• nanila
• PC Bloggs (also available at pc_bloggs_feed)
• Penny Red (also available at pennyred_feed
• pickwick (also available at pickwick
• Pink Stinks (also available at pink_stinks_feed)
Sara Bedford (also available at sara_bedford_feed)
• Stephanomics (also available at stephanomics_feed)
• strangefrontier

I'm dead set certain I have left off some important ones, even out of the ones I already read, because my method for selection was to go down my reading list and copy and paste the ones that jumped out. Do feel free to berate me if you are one of those left out, and leave a nicely formatted link for the boys to follow.

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Comments

[burkesworks]

About half my flist is female, and a fair percentage
of my regular political blogroll are written by women.

How would you define "writing like women" then, if that doesn't apply to you or the awesome Gore (or indeed the amazing annajaneclare, who writes like a particularly foul-mouthed fishwife with an English doctorate).

[miss_s_b]

It's not my definition, it's those "test your blog to see what gender you are" things. And you mean annajaneclare, I think, who yes, is awesome.

[(Anonymous)]

who writes like a particularly foul-mouthed fishwife with an English doctorate

This is why I like ms_daisy_cutter, though she doesn't often make posts public.

Blast...

[ginasketch]

That was me.

Re: Blast...

[miss_s_b]

I kinda figured ;)

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Not that I read many blogs, but the majority of the ones I do read are written by female bloggers. But then I'm not a blogger myself, so who cares what the hell I read? LOL

As to this thing about writing like a man, I'm not quite sure how that works. Are there conspicuous differences between the way men and women write? If so, I can't say I've ever noticed. Unless the men are writing about cars, football and boobs, and then their maleness tends to become a bit more obvious.

[miss_s_b]

LOL you so are a blogger. What do you think LJ is, scotch mist?

As to the thing about writing like a man, see comment to burkesworks above.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Pffft! I'm no blogger. To me, blogging is when you use t'internet to air intelligent and thought-proking views on important subjects. And that's about as far from what I do on LJ as...one thing is from something else that's very far away from it.

So what makes you believe these "test your blog to see what gender you are" things can be relied upon? They could have been devised by fools with bizarre ideas about gender.

I've known you online for years now, but I can't remember ever thinking you were a bloke. So there.

[matgb]

Heh To me, blogging is when you use t'internet to air intelligent and thought-proking views on important subjects.

You can redefine the word as much as you like, but that's not what it means.:
# read, write, or edit a shared on-line journal
# web log: a shared on-line journal where people can post diary entries about their personal experiences and hobbies

That's what you do. You sir, are a blogger.

To be fair, until recently most of LJ was ignored by the rest of blogland, and ignored blogland, but LJ is definitely a blogging platform and you have a blog on it.

In fact, the most successful and useful type of blogging is small interconnected groups of friends talking crap. Only the very small minority of blogs are taking themselves seriously or trying to get noticed.

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

talking crap

Now THAT sounds like what I do on LJ! LOL

[miss_s_b]

But you DO air intelligent and thought-provoking views on important subjects. AND you post your own creative product! Who could forget your marvellous testes?

I know for a fact that the test the gender of your blog things can't be relied upon, because they always peg me as a bloke. However, there must be something about my writing which strikes them as masculine, and which many other female bloggers lack. Or maybe it's some essential femininity that I lack...

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Who could forget your marvellous testes?

Who indeed? ;P

So, it's not that your writing is either masculine or feminine, but that the people who devised the tests falsely associate some writing traits with one gender or the other. The tests must be based on inaccurate stereotypes, and the results should be ignored.

[miss_s_b]

Well, yes and no. They are based on things which are statistically male/female dividers, but which often aren't in the cases of individuals.

[(Anonymous)]

They are normally based on frequency of word use (iirc stuff about personal pronouns and noun/verb frequency), which is correlated with gender. So not strictly stereotypes, though they do show that relying on category/trait correlations to distinguish overlapping distributions is pretty unreliable. I don't actually know anyone who comes up as female on them, ever.

[misfratz.livejournal.com]

So anyway, I hear OpenID has a grudge against me. ^ was I.

[miss_s_b]

LOL

* slaps openID with a wet fish *

I know less people who are "female" than "male", it must be said...

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

I'll have to take one of these tests some time. I'll bet I'd come up as female! LOL

[(Anonymous)]

You appear to have skipped over my dear friend and blogger Caron (carons-musings.blogspot.com)

(Sorry just couldn't resist)

[linlithgow-libdems.blogspot.com]

Drat your black on purple

You appear to have skipped over my dear friend and blogger Caron (http://carons-musings.blogspot.com)

(Sorry just couldn't resist)

[miss_s_b]

But my black on purple affords me such entertainment!

And means that *I* don't hurt my eyes reading it.

As for Caron, I can't believe I forgot her! She was one of the main motive forces behind me writing this post as well. I certainly didn't do it so that I can bump her up the wikio rankings by linking to her blog every time she is mentioned in the comments or anything like that. That would be gaming the system and wrong. Wouldn't it, Caron?

[innerbrat]

Can you add my Livejournal?

And liz_marcs, HeliumFlash, Dr. Isis and Sciencewoman

[miss_s_b]

Heh! I read three of four of those. And yes, I will edit in your LJ.

[andrewhickey.info]

Lynne Featherstone, Living Between Wednesdays (that's a group blog now, but it was originally just Rachelle), Ros Scott, Scarletdemon, Groklaw (one of the most important blogs out there, run by 'PJ' who keeps herself anonymous but is apparently a grandmother called Pamela Jones).

I'd also second the recommendations above of Innerbrat, Penny Red, Helium Flash, Alix Mortimer and Charlotte Gore.

[andrewhickey.info]

There was formatting and stuff in there when I typed it...

[miss_s_b]

There was when I got the email too...

[strangefrontier]

Oh gosh, I now feel the need to hurriedly blog some actual content into addition to my typical somewhat mindless mumblings. Hmmmmmm, looks like it's time for an intro to the Red Queen effect, as my current project involves host-parasite co-speciation. (Gotta love a scientific hypothesis named after a character from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!)

[miss_s_b]

More posting from you is always welcome :D

[el_staplador]

I write like my father. He writes like a drunk.

[awesomegore]

It's true. I write like a man. I go out into a shed, spread my legs wide apart, smoke a pipe and scratch my special glue-on beard that I have for this exact purpose.

[miss_s_b]

LOL best comment EVAR.

[mindrobber.blogspot.com]

The reason that a lot of male bloggers have SOME female bloggers on their lists is that there are some women who write like men. I'm one of them. [info] - personalawesomegore is another.

So if men read you, then that doesn't count, because you count as a man? Except for when you want to complain that people are ignoring you, at which point you count as a woman?

Explain, pls.

[miss_s_b]

I'm female: I'm allowed to be contrary :P

[thescarletribbon]

i reckon you should actually go into this one further, since you've opened up a dialogue on the matter and because you are trying so diligently to get the ball rolling in new directions. it defeats your purpose to dance away from a prompt/question like this.

(you might have begun to notice i've been reading these entries for a while. i just haven't had any constructive input on the lib dem front. :\ the whole jo swinson fiasco, however, appalls me.)

[miss_s_b]

Well, sort of, but I was really busy at the time I typed the comment.

I'm a woman and would add.....

[(Anonymous)]

I think you hit the nail on the head with the main problem everyone comes up against: look for bloggers who they like instinctively , I'm not in a position to be able to say whether female bloggers are more effected, some subjects tend to have more of male interest and it's quite possible that women miss out because of the statement above.

To offset this, though I realise there are many blogs completing for attention, yet people don't have to:

a)Place their judgement solely on the first few words of a blog post or how quickly it loads.

b)If you do agree with a post, when you see something you don't completely agree with, what's the big deal? If you just want your opinions echoed, stand in a room and talk to yourself!

c)If people don't post every 2 hours, it doesn't mean they don't post, not everyone is in the position to post full time or continuously over the day.

d)Give a blogger a handful of posts to get some sort of feel for them before judging.

Thanks for bringing up this point Miss s b or Janeway, which ever you'd prefer. I'm going to take this opportunity for shameless self promotion, to add my blog! > Crust Of The Grouch (http://crustofthegrouch.blogspot.com/)

Re: I'm a woman and would add.....

[(Anonymous)]

Might it also have something to do with the fact that female involvement in politics as a whole is a lot lower? Don't blame men for everything; if there were a greater female market then these problems wouldn't exist.

Re: I'm a woman and would add.....

[miss_s_b]

It might do if female involvement in politics WAS lower. Membership of parties is more female than male; but oddly women seem to be made to feel unwelcome from positions of power. Similarly, women who blog about politics tend to blog about other things too, so not get counted as politics blogs.

Re: I'm a woman and would add.....

[(Anonymous)]

"women who blog about politics tend to blog about other things too"

that's true. But isn't that because we're more well-rounded individuals and the lads are all a bit "single issue"?

And I wouldn't normally be so forward, but since others have and I'm a brand newbie at this blogging lark, here's my own dets:

Julia Smith
http://10mh.net

In case that's just rank bad manners, I'd also like to mention Sadie's Tavern: http://sadiestavern.blogspot.com/

Re: I'm a woman and would add.....

[miss_s_b]

LOL I am pretty good at rank bad manners myself ;)

Re: I'm a woman and would add.....

[mindrobber.blogspot.com]

isn't that because we're more well-rounded individuals and the lads are all a bit "single issue"?

Misandry much?

Lots of male political bloggers post about other stuff. Some of them do so on separate blogs, because they know that the readership for one subject isn't always the same as the readership for others. See, for instance, Dale's West Ham blog. But no, I'm sure it's nothing to do with that, I'm sure it's all just that we're far too limited to be "well-rounded individuals", I'm sure that all the men who write about politics are anal weirdo obsessives.

If you want people to read you, a good start is not to insult half your potential readership.

Yes, I realise I'm tired and crabby, but the point still stands.

[asato_muraki]

Hi there, Jennie! I'm coming to this a bit late, but I wanted to thank you for the mention of GeekaChicas! (I'm the webmistress there, slowly learning my way around the blogosphere.)

We are, in fact, entirely written by people with two X chromosomes (though we reserve the right to grant honorary Chica status to to a deserving male, it hasn't come up yet).

When I first showed the blog to to people on a few small forums (ones kindly disposed to me and populated by a variety of web-savvy folk) one complaint I got was "It's too femme-oriented." It came from a fella, bless his heart.

My response was to blink very slowly and say, "Oh, really? And water is wet! Oh, no! Whatever shall do?"

It really seemed -- odd is the word I'm groping for, I guess-- to some of the men that I would intentionally make a website that did not cater to their interests, or specifically target them as part of its audience. But it wasn't an exclusionary thing -- I just wanted to make a website that I'd want to visit, is all. Whether or not men would like it never really mattered one way or the other.

Thanks again for the mention!

[miss_s_b]

Hello! I LOVE GC! When Mark finally gets round to setting up reading filters it will be on my deafault. It's always entertaining and informative, and witty, and... eloquence is failing tonight, but you get the idea.

[asato_muraki]

I'll pass that along to my homegirls! :) I've been really lucky to have so many sharp, witty and plucky friends. If you ever want to guest blog there, let me know!

[miss_s_b]

I think the most suitable thing I did for GC would have been Holly's first trip to the cinema, but that was a bit back now...

[asato_muraki]

Ah, the joy of introducing the next generation to the wonders of Geekdom! I know it well. ;) I didn't mean to pressure you, as I know you're a largely political blogger and we tend to skew a bit pop culture-ish, but I'm trying to get some people to post about their other passions (fencing, sailing, horsemanship events). We've yet to have any beer geekery at GC. I know we'll be hoping for a Brit perspective on things Whovian, and you can't have too much book geekery, ever... I try to avoid telling anyone *what* to write, as long as I'm sure they write well and with passion about their topic. So if anything strikes you, just keep us in mind. You'd be like a guest star, or a visiting dignitary! No pressure, though. ;)

[miss_s_b]

Oh, if you want BEER geekery, I'm your girl! And yes, I will happily volunteer to be a Whorepondent.

[asato_muraki]

Coolness! Whenever you're ready, then. (You can email me at uberwench@geekachicas.com if you don't want to discuss details in public.)

*squee*