The Few, the Brave, the Proud: Nick Lewis Tackles the BlogHerSphere
Nick tackles the issue of women and blogging. I'm not sure whether he did this as a personal favor to Kevin Drum so Kevin can return to answering his "fanmail" from the last few times he's raised this subject. ::Cheshire cat grin::
Speaking as one of those women out on the Internet working before most of the country knew that modems existed, I'm not going to argue some of Nick's points on this score because it's correct: everything Internet related under the hood is still 99.2% male; where it's not, women are often not in the branded or high profile areas or have more secondary positions with them. I never did. I've always been right there with the menfolk.
And I'll share a little detail about my former work with the big online services: I was hired because I was a woman. Period. I was female, I had a personality that came across the computer network, and a very smart man at what would become AOL decided that's what was needed. Now, I've become quite a geek by most definitions and now at work on my 30th book project. But I was hired strictly for my gender and knew it. And man, were a few people surprised a brain came with the girl.
But back to blogging, I have some theories why the women folk never get the press or attention of their male peers. I'm not sure how many of them hold up, but they include:
- a) politics especially is seen as "dirty" business and there's still a certain stereotype about women in "dirty" discussions, projects, businesses, etc.
b) Blogging to some extent reflects the traditional newsrooms and women are still frequently treated differently in newsrooms.
c) Men in general are much more apt to give referrals to other men than to women unless the referral area of expertise is something identified more with women than men.
d) Women network, but quite differently than the kind of associations men typically form and use.
e) A (mis)perception - especially on political blogs where you may have almost 50-50 gender readership but where men are more likely to post initially and then maintain a posting relationship - that a blog audience is largely male.
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