Monday, December 20, 2004

War between the Roses

Kieran digs into the gender issue and asks where the female bloggers are:

This process of association affects content, too. which in turn affects the probability of reading and linking. It may be that explicitly political blogs are more male-oriented because of the confluence of male concerns and linking patterns. For example, earlier this year Matt Yglesias was wondering why women weren't interested in politics. There's a time-demands answer to this, which I'll get to in a minute, but it's also the case that many of the political concerns of women are not well-addressed in mainstream political commentary, or are simply not thought to be political issues at all (e.g., "work/family choices").

Bitch Ph.D. argues that Kieran is missing the point:

The other thing I've been thinking is this. As academics, it is our job--is it not?--to read things and think about them. Not seeing that there is meaning in domesticity, that there is meaning in daily life, that there is meaning and thinking in these silly, diaristic women's blogs, really demonstrates a lack of reading skill.

This process of association affects content, too. which in turn affects the probability of reading and linking. It may be that explicitly political blogs are more male-oriented because of the confluence of male concerns and linking patterns. For example, earlier this year Matt Yglesias was wondering why women weren't interested in politics. There's a time-demands answer to this, which I'll get to in a minute, but it's also the case that many of the political concerns of women are not well-addressed in mainstream political commentary, or are simply not thought to be political issues at all (e.g., "work/family choices").

Bitch Ph.D. argues that Kieran is missing the point:

The other thing I've been thinking is this. As academics, it is our job - is it not? - to read things and think about them. Not seeing that there is meaning in domesticity, that there is meaning in daily life, that there is meaning and thinking in these silly, diaristic women's blogs, really demonstrates a lac