Feminist Blogs and Bloggers
For the panel tomorrow, I have chosen to “study” feminist blogs and bloggers. I have been a reader of Feministing for well over a year now, and I have learned a lot about what it means to be a feminist, and to be a more informed and critical “consumer” of my own culture. I have also become more aware of issues that affect women in other parts of the world, and have expanded my view of what feminism is, and of what it means for people in other cultures.
There are multiple authors who contribute to the main Feministing site (nine women in their 20’s and early 30’s who identify with different cultures, different sexual orientations, etc.), and they all bring their various interests and viewpoints into the discussion. Recently, Feministing also added a community section to their site, allowing pretty much anyone to post about topics related to feminism. The authors often pull out community posts and feature them on the main part of the site, giving bloggers the chance to have their voices heard by an even wider audience and to engage in discussion about their thoughts.
Feministing describes its mission statement on the website as follows: “Young women are rarely given the opportunity to speak on their own behalf on issues that affect their lives and futures. Feministing provides a platform for us to comment, analyze, influence and connect.” I like the idea of creating a space where feminists (the audience is mainly women, though I have seen a few men post before) can convene and share their thoughts, work, etc. and have it be recognized and celebrated. I also find it interesting to see the ways in which Feministing authors, as well as community members, place importance on both the personal and political, and show that the two are often not so far removed from one another.
But of course, there are numerous feminist blogs out there – Feministing is just the one I have chosen to peruse on a regular basis. Feministing has a huge list of links to other feminist blogs (http://www.feministing.com/links.html#blogs), and I am sure there are even more that aren’t linked. Another that I have looked at on occasion is Jezebel (http://jezebel.com/index.php) which has more of a celebrity/fashion focus. There is also Feministe (http://www.feministe.us/blog/), and a blog I just discovered today but wish I had found earlier called Finally Feminism 101 (http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/). Feel free to comment with any others that you guys might enjoy reading!
As I look at these blogs, I am thinking about who the authors are, what they are aiming to do with their blogs, and essentially, how the technology of blogging has been used by feminists (and women specifically) to reach and inform their audience. I am also curious to think about the place of blogging in the feminist movement, and about how technology is being used to alter the way feminism is understood by our “technophilic” generation. I am thinking about some of the questions that Anne posed in her “head’s up” blog post, especially the ones toward the end of the list, such as how technology has allowed this group to “restore” something that has been taken, and about how social networking plays into the use of this technology. I suppose we’ll see what kinds of working answers I have by class tomorrow!
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I used to read Feministing fairly regularly until it just got a little too *loud* for me. Instead, I read Bitch, Ph.D. and a couple of blogs by female scientists who mostly write about gender issues in their workplaces (though not always). One of the things that been interesting in terms of blogs is the way that they have let women have a voice, but they’ve also reinscribed some of the same gender structures that the offline world has. We’ll be reading some of that material later in the semester. It’s quite a complex issue as sometimes it’s hard to tell what someone’s gender even is.
If I don’t get snowed in–I’m looking forward to hearing what you’ve learned.
Hmm, I would be curious to know exactly what you mean by “loud”… I haven’t really read any other feminist blogs on a regular basis, or Feministing for *that* long, so I don’t have much of a basis for comparison. Do you think that it is loud in terms of what is posted about, or the tone of the postings, or something else?
Hope you make it to class safely!
Hey Melinda, I thought about that term *loud* before I posted it. I’m not sure if it fully fits what I feel sometimes when reading feminist blogs. I’m sensitive to the fact that many feminists get called shrill when they’re discussing controversial issues. I think that some feminist bloggers just sound so angry; they cuss and practically yell at their readers. I get uncomfortable with that sometimes, especially because I’m on their side and they’re yelling at me? I see this with atheists too and it makes me back away. I know there’s good reason to be angry sometimes, but when that becomes the only key they can write in, I start to get turned off.