A 2006 study showed 56% of blogs are created by women, and this created a a certain amount of buzz about the Internet as a new bastion of women's representation, in contrast to the old boys' club of the mainstream media. But according to a new Technorati report, 67% of bloggers are now men. As Marian Wang of Mother Jones points out, that's a worse imbalance than at American newspapers, where 63% of staffers are male.

So why aren't more women saddling up the WordPress pony? Dr. Melissa Clouthier has some annoying ideas! She writes,

When it comes the arena of ideas, the women who blog are not typical women. Over and over, the women who blog are tougher. Like the shotgun wielding Western expansionists of yore, women bloggers take shots and can shoot back.

I guess I could be flattered that Clouthier thinks I am some kind of Annie Oakley, but I'm more concerned that she thinks women who don't blog are wilting flowers. That said, I do agree with part of her explanation (despite the fact that she's defending conservative ladybloggers from "'enlightened' male liberal commenters and bloggers." She writes that "just about every conservative woman blogger, including me, has endured horrible personal, violent and sexual insults." And, she continues,

Most women simply do not want to put up with this garbage. They feel threatened and they worry about their safety and the safety of their children. Michelle Malkin had to actually move after her personal information was plastered on the web. She is a mother. She has children. There are nutjobs out there and in this business, there is a very real risk to personal safety. It's something guys just don't have to deal with as much.

I'm not a mother (and I do detect an unpleasant whiff of moms-are-special rhetoric in Clouthier's words), but I have felt unsafe as a result of responses to my posts. In general, both commenters and emailers are respectful, but I have been called some nasty names, as have other of this site's staffers. Are female bloggers more vulnerable to this type of harassment than male ones? Certainly men in the media receive plenty of threats, insults, and unconstructive criticism. However, I would wager that they get fewer comments on their looks, their weight, their sex lives and how all these things relate to their opinions. A female blogger, especially a progressive one, always gets a certain number of trolls who tell her she must ugly, lonely, and (horrors!) fat, and you don't have to be some kind of sissy to decide you don't care to subject yourself to this kind of hazing.

After this reasonably fair point, Clouthier goes off the rails into gender essentialism. She says,

In addition, women often don't like the intellectual jousting. Part of it is gender wiring. Men see verbal sparring as a testosterone-fueled challenge. Women see degraded communication and hostility. When they put an idea out there, it seems aggressive when someone rips the point of view to shreds. And, it is aggressive.

Emily Gould would disagree. On More Intelligent Life, the writer and occasional Jezebel contributor writes about becoming "the kind of person I can't bear: the female critic who despises any female writer who doesn't project what she feels is the accurate or ideal vision of modern womanhood." Maybe she just needs to get her "gender wiring" checked, but she writes persuasively about a type of girl-on-girl "intellectual jousting":

This critic believes it is her job to tear down women who are "off-message" because there is only so much publishing space allotted to women, and so more attention for them is less attention for her and other worthy types. This critic lives inside us all, but she is also embodied, occasionally, by real people. One of them, an online "feminist" columnist, once wrote a supposed defense of "women's voices" that dismissed something I'd written because the photos that accompanied the essay were of me lying (rather unprovocatively, to my mind) in bed. She'd said that the question wasn't why my voice was being heard–the implied answer being, presumably, my bed-lying ways–but why others weren't, "in a media landscape in which there are a severely limited number of spaces for women's writing voices."

Gould and Clouthier are alike in one respect: they both conceive of a special status for women's discourse. Clouthier apparently thinks women are naturally nice and non-aggressive (which: bullshit), but Gould's statement is more complicated. She sees the columnist she discusses above (that would be Salon's Rebecca Traister, and if putting feminist in quotes isn't a "joust," I don't know what is) as part of a kind of female representation police, a group that jealously guards a supposedly finite female canon against unworthy interlopers. Do these police exist? Maybe, kind of — but I think Traister's piece is far more than an attempt to kick Gould out of the sandbox. She wraps it up with the line, "So rather than being troubled by the fact that Gould [...] has the spotlight, why not question why so few other versions of femininity are allowed to share it?"

I'd say, rather than being troubled by the fact that women criticize each other, why don't we embrace it? Yes, some girl-on-girl criticism is a form of misguided feminist gatekeeping, and no, we shouldn't expect all women to offer a comforting vision of our gender. But women's criticism of other women is too often discounted as cattiness, as infighting — men's writing of the same stripe would often be said to present "ideological" or "political" objections. I understand that Gould is talking about a very specific form of criticism, but I'd like to be able to participate even in that form — taking to task someone's representation of "women like me," without feeling like I'm committing a special female sin. Women supporting each other is often held up as a solution to their underrepresentation in all spheres, and it's an important one. But we also need the freedom to speak out against each other when we want to, as men have always done. We need the right to be "tough," in Clouthier's words, without second-guessing ourselves — and without holding ourselves to special standards just because we're women. When we have that right, maybe the world of blogging — a very critical one, but productive nonetheless — will be more open to us.

Where Are All The Lady Bloggers? [Mother Jones]
Why There Are Fewer Women Bloggers [Dr. Melissa Clouthier]
What Are Women Fighting About? [More Intelligent Life]

Resnick's article centers around the idea that prominent female bloggers come under tougher criticism from their readers due to the "stud/slut dichotomy of men and women that exists throughout all threads of media thrives on the Web. There are endless examples of female bloggers coming under the knife for being bitches or media whores, while male bloggers' gender is either ignored or heralded."

As someone who gets to see the unapproved comments on this site, I can tell you that this is true: in many cases, we have random people stop by just to drop "You dumb whores should shut the fuck up and go back to the kitchen" comments on various posts. "Feminazi," "stupid bitch," and the ever popular "you're just jealous because Ann Coulter/Sarah Palin is hotter than you'll ever be" comments come along quite often as well. The actual content of the articles is ignored: the focus of these commenters' wrath is gender, appearance, and the notion that women should keep their opinions to themselves, unless these opinions happen to fit in with their worldview.

Yet attempting to paint the entire blogosphere (ugh, that word) as a place where only women get attacked is a bit ridiculous. As Breslin notes: "If there was ever an equal opportunity attack forum, the Internet is it. Mostly upper-middle class, well-educated, by-and-large Caucasian women who seek to publish their words on the Web get what everyone else gets online: a free, uncensored platform with a roving pack of readers who have the right to say whatever they want as part of the "conversation." Get over yourselves, and get on with it, ladies."

The internet, unfortunately, is a rather nasty place. Whenever a blogger of either gender posts something, that work becomes the property of the readers and commenters, who react in ways that are often surprising and sometimes quite upsetting. At this blog, we have a system in place to remove those who can't hold a respectful discourse; we don't expect everyone to love or agree with every article, but we do expect our readers to come back with something a little more clever than "stupid whore." The pieces are a springboard for discussion; often enough, personal stories from the writers will bring out several opposing viewpoints from the commenters, and these discussions are often heated, yet respectful. The "shut up, dumb bitch" comments are disemvoweled as a means to remove unnecessary distractions and keep the discussions on topic.

While I can't deny that I have seen examples of Resnick's article in action, I don't think the overall answer is to paint female blogging as a "dangerous" occupation; that only reinforces the idea that women should be afraid to express their opinions, and only feeds into the notion that our gender restricts us from writing the pieces we need to write, for fear of not being able to back our own words in the face of opposition or internet taunting.

To be honest with you, writing the headline for this article made me feel ridiculous. Is it "perilous" to be a female blogger? In my limited experience, it's a bit nerve-wracking, often exhausting, sometimes upsetting when a particularly nasty comment or email is lobbed your way, and at times a bit scary when you publish something incredibly personal for the world to read (though I do post somewhat anonymously, which is a safety net I suppose many others do not have, in fairness). Yet "perilous" seems a bit much. There are women all over the world working under extremely dangerous conditions to improve the quality of women's lives everywhere. Danger and peril are a true everyday occurrence for them. To put yourself out there on the internet and face the consequences is scary and, as I said, at times quite upsetting, but I'm not sure "peril" and "danger" are appropriate descriptions, 99% of the time.

And yet while my first reaction was "Uh, no. It's perilous to dismantle land mines, not to sit here, eat Pop-Tarts, and wax poetic about Jem," I recognize that the majority my blogging is much more lightweight than the women focused on here; women like the editors of this very site, who openly express their political opinions and share personal experiences with abortions, relationships, sexism, racism, sexuality, rape, and other issues that often elicit strong reactions from readers—both positive and negative—on a daily basis. But I don't believe they do so under some impression that it's "dangerous" as much as it's important and necessary.

There are also certain instances where women are threatened with violence for expressing their opinions; in 2007, the Washington Post reported on several women who were forced to shut down their sites after receiving graphic threats from readers. "Two factors can contribute to the vitriol, experts said: blogging in a male-dominated field, such as technology, and achieving a degree of prominence," wrote Post writer Ellen Nakashima.

What say you, commenters? As readers, do you feel more inclined to criticize writers of your own gender? Or does a writer's gender pale in comparison to their actual words? And do you think blogging is "perilous" for women? Or, perhaps just a platform to express our ideas, in spite of the potential reactions?

Is Blogging While Female Really So Perilous? [XXFactor]
The Perils Of Being A Female Blogger [Austin Chronicle]
Sexual Threats Stifle Some Bloggers [Washington Post]

[Image via Married To The Sea]

Scarlett Lion links to the above photo and a fellow blogger's skepticism about the headline. Ladybrille writes "what counts is you GET OUT AND VOTE! Speak your mind by letting your vote count. DON'T YOU DARE stay indoors on this historical day!" She also interviews Derrick Ashong (aka musician/activist DNA), who says,

Obama represents opportunity in itself because this is a guy that has built an effective ground organization. When he says we are going to make a difference, for the first time in American political history, he has actually got foot soldiers nationwide that can be a part of making that change on a grassroots level, not on an ideological basis. That is a tip of the iceberg of what is possible.

However, he cautions that, "We as Africans gotta do the job for Africans to take care of our own; and no one should be under any illusion that we can relinquish that responsibility or shrug it off to Obama. We can say, 'When Obama gets elected we go chop [eat] more.' NO!"

Over at Black Looks, Ekine takes a harsher view:

Obama talks about bringing 'fundamental change' but the only fundamental change is his colour and when one looks more closely even his colour is not that fundamental afterall. Obama is intrinsically tied to the mainstream, pro-Zionist war mongering American superstructure. Though disappointing it is not so surprising that so many millions all over the world have been drawn in by Obama who panders to black and white notions of a “post racial” America and world. An imaginary world of convenience particularly for the millions of white people who will vote him into the White House.

But it's worth noting (if obvious) that African bloggers have a lot to think about besides our election. Ory Okolloh at Kenyan Pundit recently criticized an official report on Kenya's post-election violence, writing, "Not even a mention of the people who lost their lives! Especially the young people who truly believed they are protesting for a good cause and who were responding to 'mass action.'" Let's hope for a safe and fair election here in the US, and a new administration that remembers we're part of a larger world.

Top 45 Female African Bloggers [Afrigator]

According to the "Libertarian Girl" guy, his blog was totes on the point of taking off when he revealed himself to be a man, and he was amazed by all the Technorati links and shit when people thought he was a girl. Duff says that the internet transvestite had a good run with dressing up like a woman because "libertarianism appeals to men, particularly to male geeks, because it rewards quirkiness, independence and an obsession with economics," in addition to ugly people. Right, goodness knows, no liberal would every be quirky, independent or obsessed with economics, like, ever. Also, the Atlantic's Megan McArdle probably disagrees about the ugly thing and the dude part of it. Not that I agree with Megan all the time or even a lot of the time, but she doesn't have her job because she's pretty, she has her job because she's whip-smart, good at what she does and manages to make libertarianism sound reasonable, which is no small task for the party that embraces Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Mike Gravel.

The thing is, Duff offers no evidence that the Libertarian Girl's authentically male blog was smart, well-reasoned, thoughtful, interesting or unique — which are all important qualities in a blog. By making it about a pretty college student — or, say, two "elderly" women who hate Sarah Palin, for instance — he made it unique in a sea of other blogs without unique content or an interesting point of view. Notably, Libertarian Girl wasn't a woman my age, or his age: she was a cute college girl that liked to drink and look cute. Was that shtick going to work forever? Probably not.

Duff also points to (my friend) Ana Marie Cox's work for (my employer) Nick Denton as an example of a man cashing in on the cute girl blogger phenomenon. Here's where I take issue: Ana Marie wasn't a creation of Nick Denton's; she was a writer (and a talented one) in her own right who found a way to incorporate parts of her actual personality into her work which was itself interesting. She didn't just use foul language to be edgy, she used it because that's how she talks and thinks. And she's not cute, she's downright hot, dammmit.

Anyway, Duff makes an offhand reference near the end to the fact that Libertarian Girl was read, but not respected but he still thinks that women bloggers have it easier despite the "misogyny and condescention [sic] on the Web." Oh, well, if that's all. I mean, I make my living on page views, too, but pretty only gets you so many readers if you don't have anything interesting to say.

The Ultimate Secret To Blogger Success? Pretend To Be A Girl! [Lubbock Avalanche-Journal]
Why Are All The Big Political Bloggers Men? [Glamocracy]