Today's Episode Of...
Where Are The Women Interested in Politics is brought to you by our sponsors Matthew Yglesias and Libertarian Man of Mystery.
I can't speak for where all the women doing politics on op-ed pages are. I'm not in journalism. I know there are plenty of women interested in politics, so I don't think it's a "lack of interest" thing. I know this because there are plenty of women political bloggers. Most of them just don't get noticed. I point out a few of them in the comments of Libertarian Man of Mystery's post, and provide a link to What She Said, run by Morgaine of The Goddess, which has an entire blogroll devoted to women bloggers who blog about politics. Some of the women on the blogroll blog primarily about the political, while others blog about both the political and the personal. I'm willing to bet good money that the fact that there are a lot of women who blog about politics and don't get noticed is correlated with the male skew of political punditry. It's not that the women interested in politics aren't out there. It's that the women interested in politics aren't getting noticed. I'll leave you all to draw your own conclusions as to why that might be.
I will say I find it rather amusing that one of the men asking this question rose to semi-fame in the blogosphere because he initially pretended to be a woman by posting a fake picture of "herself" as an attractive blonde...
Which leads me to wonder - Do you, my faithful 10 readers, think I'd get more notice in the blogosphere if I posted my picture on the front page of the blog? Maybe cropping it above the Blackberry in my hands?
Comments
Eh, I have my picture up on my sidebar and I don't get all that noticed. :)
Lesley, I truly believe that the male bloggers who ask the "where are the women" question (every three months, as Roxanne has observed) don't ever actually make any effort (or have any desire) to find us. Their default assumption is that they're the only ones who matter, women are the auxiliary, and they probably feel they're being magnanimous in bringing up the question of where women are in the first place. When we point out "why don't you just link to us and have done with it" they hem and haw and out come the qualifiers and moving goalposts. There are plenty of female pundits, both in professional journalism and on the blogs; that these men can't or won't see them isn't the women's fault at all.
Posted by: Elayne Riggs | February 20, 2005 11:30 AM
Actually, I don't think it would do me a damn bit of good either, but I am curious to see how the responses might break down. Personally, I think I'd have to either start writing a lot of outrageous posts or start hawking my posts by e-mailing them around. Neither are things I have any great desire to do.
Posted by: Lesley | February 20, 2005 11:57 AM
I think what they're looking for is validation of their belief that a woman's political viewpoint is unique because she is a woman, that somehow the possession of two X chromosomes somehow infuses everything she writes.
Which may be true; but if it is, the possession of the XY pair, I suggest, must similarly imbue everything written by men.
About 40 percent of my blogroll is female; I have no idea what half of them look like, and don't really consider it relevant.
Posted by: CGHill | February 20, 2005 02:28 PM
Depends, wear something a bit cheeky with an expression of wanton lust in your eyes and you would get more attention, but you would have to ask if it's the kind of attention you want.
But really that would only be half the battle, as you mentioned you would also have to adopt some hard ideological stance and be a more then a bit on the obnoxious side about it.
On a side note if you have said cheeky photos feel free to send them to me for "evaluation" :)
Posted by: Rick DeMent | February 20, 2005 03:45 PM
I was always partial to the old "House of Plum" picture sans smile.
Posted by: Just John | February 20, 2005 04:17 PM