Kevin Drum asks the musical question, “Where da White Women Female Bloggers At?" I suppose that he missed it when I took down his GWB AWOL-musings at his old site. But that was a blog-swarm extraordinaire, so I can’t get too worked up about it.
Actually, Mr. Drum answers the question for himself by taking a gander at the TTLB Ecosystem rankings, only to find that La Shawn, Michelle and Michele are among the bigwigs—so to speak. And that's just on the right side of the political divide.
So what's up? There aren't any institutional barriers in the traditional sense of the word, which means either (a) there are fewer female political bloggers and thus fewer in the top 30, or (b) there are plenty of women who blog about politics but they don't get a lot of traffic or links from high-traffic male bloggers.
My guess is that it's a bit of both, and the proximate reason is that men are more comfortable with the food fight nature of opinion writing — both writing it and reading it. Since I don't wish to suffer the fate of Larry Summers I'll refrain from speculating on deep causes — it might be social, cultural, genetic, or Martian mind rays for all I know — but I imagine that the fundamental viciousness and self aggrandizement inherent in opinion writing turns off a lot of women.Women not vicious? Surely you jest, Mr. Drum. Any woman who has been part of any group comprised solely of women know that women can pull out the sharpest of knives on one of their number should that one commit some sort of offense—real or imagined. (Yes, that happened to me in a civilian workplace.)
Which begs another question: does this mean that women need to change if they want to enter the fray, or does it mean that the fray needs to change in order to attract more women? As usual, probably some of both. Unfortunately, the blogosphere, which ought to be an ideal training ground for finding new voices in nontraditional places, is far more vitriolic than any op-ed page in the country, even the Wall Street Journal's, and therefore probably turns off women far more than it attracts them.Some of the august ladies of the blogosphere are giving Mr. Drum the beat-down for his comments. As you know, I’m not opposed to one of those myself, when warranted, but, this time, it isn't. The only problem I have with his statement is that the blogosphere needs to change to attract others.
Blogs, by their very nature, are the means to vent unedited opinion--polite or otherwise--and politics is an impolite, if entertaining, business. Both practices are for the big boys and girls. Delicate flowers of any genital architecture need not apply. To recommend that blog owner of the political bent “tone it down” is a leopard-spot suggestion.
I submit that to be a widely read political blogger, you need to have three things—along with that most-important ability to put together an idea in a coherent manner—to hang tough in and, dare I say, to enjoy this venue: a big mouth, a big ego and a thick skin. The proportion of each may vary with the individual, but I think all exist in most political bloggers at some level.
(Some of the more amusing comments I’ve received here point to my propensity to rant and my possession of a large ego. It’s like pointing out that I have dark skin. Such comments do make useful blog fodder, however!) :-)
Political bloggers are—for the most part--an excitable lot. Granted, the distaff portion of this group gets called “hysterical,” told that they’re “blowing a fuse and going off on a bizarre tear,” even though the guys rant just as often—more, since there are more of them. Exhibit A. :-P
Stereotype? Hey, we all do it everyday.
Michelle handled this sort of thing well. When Bret Stephens of WSJ dismissed her by saying that she was “suspended somewhere between meltdown and release” regarding the Eason Jordan remarks, she stuck the phrase in her tagline.
Here’s to vitriol and self-aggrandizement.
(Thanks to Ken Summers, who links to me early and often. {{{Ken}}})
UPDATE: I decided to emulate Michelle. Check the new tagline!
