wow

alicescheshirecat — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:15:37 -0400

I can't believe that someone would have the balls to post assumptions like that involving shopping bags.... serious thats insane.

I'm excited to see that the great women bloggers out there are getting some play. I always ask "and how many women are on that site?" to which the answer is always 1 or 2 and its so disappointing. Thanks so much for writing about this!!
Ally

join the Future Majority

I think there are a few

Zephyr Teachout — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 18:11:34 -0400

I think there may be a few additional dynamics going on here--along with those mentioned.

One is simply path dependency. The first groups of political bloggers, men, developed a network with eachother--all of us are inclined to invite more people like us and imagine more people like us doing what we do, so as it grew, the political blogosphere grew male.

I can imagine another world in which the first political bloggers were female--blogging would have been treated differently, different people would have been invited to early polblog conferences, a different network would have developed. We would have talked of blogging as "soft" perhaps--you know, like nursing--and reporters would look to, quote, and therefore build communities around women blogs.

Also, in this country we tend to associate technology and maleness-see the disproportionate ratio of male software developers in this country compared to S. Korea, e.g., where software is apparently coded more as a "language" than a "technology," and therefore a female and male profession. And we all know that people are more likely to "see" people who fit their stereotypes, and support them.

Related to this, I'm troubled that a new part of political campaiging seems to be less diverse, in general, than political campaigning generally. What I've seen repeatedly is women with the same skill set as men being seen as "implementers" when a man in the same role is a "strategist." Our archetypes are deep, and we have to fight to overcome them--if we don't, the "implementers" will just go get "strategic" jobs in industry, where there are strong incentives to overcome these biases.

On a related note, I was wondering the other day why campaigns didn't have more "mens outreach coordinators." It says something wild about the mindset of a campaign that there is a position for outreaching to half of the country. Does that mean that the rest of the campaign is men's outreach, except for that one position?

Many more thoughts, but thanks for raising these issues.

Women, the Internet and politics: "Trust me, we’re out there."

Morra Aarons — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:18:45 -0400

At the New York Times, Katharine Seelye wrote Monday, "Are more men engaged in politics online than women, and if so, why?" Is it, as commenter Michael writes,

Because men are more interested in wasting time in debating abstract ideas, principles, and other high-sounding but vaporous stuff. Women are more interested in the concrete work of dealing with real people and real relationships...

techPresident - Women, the Internet and politics: "Trust me, we’re out there." - Comments

wow

I think there are a few

Women, the Internet and politics: "Trust me, we’re out there."