Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Gender Bender

I drove home last night thinking about whether the blogosphere is male dominated and whether blogs are equally conducive to male and female thought.

Since blogging can be anonymous and profiles can be falsely populated, I imagine it's difficult to conduct research on who blogs what, how many men have blogs, how many women, etc. Having done no research at all and having no right to make this assumption, I'm going to say that bloggers who blog frequently and blogs with heavy traffic are often written/owned by men. I only say this because it has been my experience (as a new blog surfer/lurker) that many of the popular blogs I've seen and many of the blogs featured in news stories I've read are written by men. This is not to say that men greatly outweigh the number of women with blogs, but...I just have a feeling. So that'll have to do for now. Until I can dig up some research (that will probably end up proving me wrong).

Anyway. The point I want to reach is this: I think blogging is an ideal medium for women, and more specifically, for feminism. Blogging is communal; it sparks discussion and new ideas; it can be inspirational or motivational; it can be confessional; it can be political; it's often heated; it can attract attention, both negative and positive; it can be creative. These things are true of feminism as well. The two seem a perfect pair.

More on this, probably, but I'm at work. And besides, there's homework to do.

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Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Future of Feminism

I just found this really interesting article about the large number of people who have blogs (and myspace pages, etc.) and who use the internet regularly, and what that means for feminism.

I like that Gugelmeyer recognizes that the internet is a shifty place, tracking personal information and promoting consumer spending, but also acknowledges that it is a place of connection, of unity. If so many people are using it and communicating through it, then the feminist movement should be actively participating in "social networks, blogs, email and all the tools of the internet."

I wonder how the face of feminism will change in this new century, and what part blogs will play in the change?

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