Ellen Goodman, Helpless Little Girl

Oh, looky here. A poor helpless widdle girl is asking where all the female political bloggers are again, and why The Man™ is keeping us down.

Who knows how many women are scared silent.

Project much?

Is it because men raise their hands first in class?

O RLY? They do? Not in my memory, and not in my daughter's class. Maybe poor little Miss Ellen Goodman was afraid, though.

Cooper thinks one reason for the demographics is that educated, economically comfortable men were the early adapters to the technology and took the lead.

Well, duh. Political blogging didn't come first; tech blogging did. Like it or not, there simply *are* more men interested in technology than women. What are you gonna do about it? As for me, my daughter has been raised in a science/math/technology-loving environment, and her interests reflect as much. She's had a blog since she was six years old, and she still writes on her blog. No doubt she'll be among the early adopters of new technology as she grows up, whether she's outnumbered by icky boys or not. I wasn't among the early bloggers or certain other early adopters; I spent most of my adult life doing traditionally female things (damn Patriarchy!) like...oh, wait. I was in the military! And they didn't even make me be a cook! I got to pick what I wanted--can you imagine?! Women actually picking and choosing what they want to do, without a man's help!

See, unlike Ellen Goodman and her ilk, I never really thought about "traditional" gender roles--until I actually MET women like her. And unlike certain others, I didn't have a light bulb go off that said "OMG! The menz are oppressing me!" It's always been a shrug and "whatever" for me, because I don't let others define me. I'm not a freaking victim. I don't have the most highly-trafficked blog on teh internets (shocker!), but it's not because I'm female, fer Chrissakes. (I'm not stupid; I know this blog isn't for everyone--and neither am I). In fact, if the Blogads survey is a reasonably accurate sampling, most of the readers here are men. I would guess the same male/female statistics go for the most-read "female blogger," Michelle Malkin, as well. Maybe that's not the case with the women blogging on the left--I'm sure plenty of dudes are put off by the men suck vibe at blogs like Pandagon. Either way, who freaking cares?

Blogger Adele Stan suggests white male bloggers have a network of "funding, linking, quoting, or bookings on political talk shows." Or maybe we need only count viewers. The typical political blog reader is a 43-year-old man with an $80,000 family income. Is it any surprise that Hillary Clinton gets only 9 percent in most online-activist polls, while garnering more than 40 percent in traditional polls?

ZOMG! The Vast White Male Conspiracy!!1! Conspiring against Hillary! Hey, Ellen, welcome to the blogosphere. You run with the Kos Kidz? Guess what--they aren't Hillary fans; she's too "centrist" for them (LOL). The internet is full of extremists of all stripes, whether the extremists realize they are or not. And here's a news flash: Unscientific online polls do not determine the winner. Online polling for Hillary means the VWMC is hard at work? Please. You fail.

Forgive me for snorting at laughable nonsense like this:

Is it the angry voice -- a netroot norm but a female abnorm? Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos and namesake of the convention, said unabashedly in an ABC News interview last year, "I learned to talk the way I do in the US Army. And we don't mince words. In politics, I don't see it any different. I see it as a battlefield." The American Prospect's Garance Franke-Ruta, who was on the panel notes, wryly, "If you're an angry man you're righteous. If you're an angry woman, you're crazy or a bitch."

LOL. No, Kos is a douchetard asshole, and maybe it's just you, poor little Garance, who's a crazy bitch. I certainly don't mince words, and if someone thinks I'm crazy or a bitch, they haven't said so. Nor would I care. Toughen up, cookie.

And right after that? Another non sequitur, anyone?

Is it harassment? Women have been talking about this since blogger Kathy Sierra was threatened with a picture of her next to a noose.

Oh, like men don't get hate mail, get their websites hacked, get threatened? Good grief. Hey, maybe we should legislate something! Hate crimes against female bloggers!

Convention organizer Gina Cooper has two e-mail addresses, just one carrying her female name. Only "Gina" gets the hate e-mail with sexual threats and such comments as: "I'm going to hunt you down."

Yes, and all male bloggers freely share their real email addresses, as well as their full names. Right.

So in one part of the article, she worries that delicate, oppressed(!) women baby factories are scared away from political blogging because it's too rough.

It's not that women are invisible. There are "women's pages" on the Internet. Technorati counts more than 11,000 "mommy blogs." There are "women's issues" blogs like the funny and bracing Feministing.

("Funny and bracing?" Ahem.) Anyway, so what? Complain to the mommy bloggers about not being political enough, then. Oh wait, aren't we women supposed to be able to pursue our own interests? Guess what: Heather Armstrong/Dooce (who's a better writer than you are), for example, apparently isn't that into politics. Jessica at Feministing and the godawful Amanda at Pandagon write about women-centric issues. Got a problem with that? Tough shit. I'm interested in politics, along with "geeky" computer stuff. Hence, I have a majority-male readership, because they're apparently more interested in politics and whatever else, than in other people's kids and families or in "women's issues," whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. Who's defining gender roles, then, when you call things "women's issues?" I happen to think the right to bear arms is a "women's issue." Do you?

But wait! It's not about the eleven thousand mommy blogs, after all!

But this is not just about counting, not just about diversity-by-the-numbers. It's about the political dialogue -- who gets heard and who sets the agenda. Cooper asks herself: "Are we going to do the same thing we've done all along, but with computers? Or will we create a new institution that allows for marginalized voices?"

Whatever.

Two years ago, after Newsweak started another round of gender wars in the blogosphere, I decided maybe some of these pseudo-feminists needed to open their eyes a little, so I started my own group of bloggers--The Cotillion. A tongue in cheek name, predictably taken literally by the usual leftard morons like Amanda at Pandagon--to which I responded in a polite email that I would think a devout feminist wouldn't be so quick to tear down a group of women who want to raise the visibility of women in the blogosphere. Silly me. Ever read the feminist blogs? It's constant in-fighting with them, about stupid shit like who the more oppressed party is, or who the "real" feminists are. Yeah, they're really interested in increasing women's power. LOL. Maybe Ellen Goodman needs to broaden her horizons beyond the leftardosphere, because we aren't all complaining about The Man™ oppressing us, and it's not because we're tools of the Patriarchy, either. I've written plenty of things here myself that are feminist (not in the angry left-wing feminist vein, though), and I'm not afraid of the word.

So you wonder where the women are? Here's a list of around forty conservative/libertarian female political bloggers, and Baldilocks has a list (and a few words about the scary-bad internets) as well.

Where's your list, Ellen? What have you done for me or any other women lately? Or do you just prefer to wait for men to take care of you?

We don't. We take care of ourselves.

Want to remind people where all the political-blogging women are? Post the blogroll, if you want.

Short version (15 random):

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.php?r=c84dd94cb6a1d8acf6e311436543de96"></script>

Long version (full list):

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://rpc.blogrolling.com/display.php?r=17a5dbb7e39b38ecb1200546d09de0a4"></script>

Not a single "scared silent" woman among us.

[c/p from MVRWC]

Posted by Beth at August 12, 2007 09:31 AM