Yes, I have a penis, but you should still read my blog..
Instapundit is looking at a Newsweek column that complains that blogging isn't diverse enough - because there aren't a lot of women or miniorities among the "top bloggers". It includes quotes like this from an African American female blogger:
"My fear is that the overwhelmingly white and male American blogosphere ... will return us to a day where the dialogue about issues was a predominantly white-only one.
This kind of thinking makes a big assumption - that all whites, and all males, think alike (or at least never think about things the same way a black/female does).
To me, this is a typical example of the way the left thinks. Diversity comes only from gender and race, and not from a thousand other things that seperate you from the next guy.
Take a look at the TTLB Ecosystem which ranks the popularity of bloggers by inbound links (as you can tell, I'm not very popular). There are some women and minorities on there, including Michelle Malkin, who is both, at #6. But there is also quite a mix of white males. Just because Andrew Sullivan, James Lileks, and Glenn Reynolds are all white males, they don't think identically. They have independant political views, live in different regions, have different day jobs, and write about different things.
I think the blogosphere is incredibly diverse. It means that if you are, say, a 24 year old helpdesk technician in Baltimore, you can have people all over who otherwise would never hear what you think reading your writings. But if you can't see past gender and race, you miss out on the differences among those in blogosphere.
EDIT: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Aww, my first Instalanche. I guess LaShawn was right about that whole "power of email" thing. I hope you stay and take a look at the rest of my blog, with posts discussing everything from pants to donuts.
posted by mad anthony @ 6:11 PM
4 Comments:
It'd be a scandal, perhaps, if blogs were only available to the white-old-boys network... but for heaven's sake, you can get one for FREE. If not enough of us mid-30s housewives (that's me), people living in war zones, fortyish Birk-wearing activists, elders who love hostels, elders who hate hostels, teenagers who finish their homework fast, whatever, want to blog, how is that the blogosphere's problem?
All right, I'll concede there's an education issue; my mother-in-law can't even check email, much less figure out how to start a blog. But getting people over that hump is generally not too hard if they're interested. And I talk about blogs everywhere, doing my part to raise the interest level, so with luck I'll spark something in an underrepresented community one of these days.
Happy to be the first in an Instalanche, I remain faithfully yours,
Jamie
While I wouldn't call it a scandal, I do find it interesting that the majority of the people who write things I'm interested in on political blogs, happen to be men. Most of the women on my blogroll are fellow Mormon bloggers (as are two of the men, and two of the group blogs -- both male dominated; they're also Mormon dominated and lawyer-dominated, so.) I hate to get all affirmative action about it, but it feels weird to me, especially given the huge numbers of women in my political science classes. I've resisted the urge to put anyone on my blogroll for any reason other than "I really like this person's blog," but it's tempting sometimes. On the other hand, the two female political bloggers I do have (Alice Bacini, Virginia Postrel) are quite good -- some of the male writers are far more variable in quality.
There are differences between men and women, after all (I certainly think that a "feminine" perspective exists, in a nebulous form at least) -- but ordinarily you expect women to dominate most any kind of "let's talk about stuff" medium (indeed, I bet that overall, more women than men own blogs -- most people on LiveJournal seem to be female.) I mean, really. Why is it that almost all of the fanfiction sites out there are dominated by women, but the political blogs dominated by men? I think it's a legitimate question to ask, at least.
My personal reason for not tipping the balance and becoming an All Politics, All The Time blogger of female persuasion? I like writing about all kinds of stuff, and I'm insufficiently disciplined to keep updating a strictly political blog (I haven't updated my strictly Russian blog in about a year.) Of course, this also means there's one less quasi-Libertarian Mormon Sea Cadet blacklisted Irish Dancer (who loves lining up for Star Wars for weeks on end) political blogger out there, but I feel that's such a small demographic that realistically, no one expects any of us to be a major force in the blogosphere.
Let me be clear about one thing though: the question should be "why aren't women choosing to blog" rather than "how are EVIL MALE PIGS keeping girls from participating properly in this fabulous new form of expression???!!" I don't blame Glenn Reynolds or anyone else for women who don't blog. I blame the women. If the atmosphere is so terrible and intolerable for most women to endure, where are the people working to change it, hmm? ^_^
(yes, I know that Ann Althouse has some suggestions...)
Women, schwomen. It's not the pure number of women or minority bloggers, it's the quality. The good news is the blogosphere has reached and passed critical mass. And now women, blacks, gays, couch potatoes can all post to their heart's content without having to be vetted by the editors or producers of old who owned the info-plantation.
http://muskegonblog.blogspot.com
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