A NY Times article by Kara Jesella covering the BlogHer Conference and bemoaning the fact that women bloggers are not taken as seriously as men bloggers was consigned to the "Fashion and Style" section. Because, you know, the chicks are all about fashion and style and not about serious writing or reporting or other things like that.
The lead paragraphs are about men's rooms converted for women, "nurturing messages" posted on walls, makeovers and massages. Because any article about women -- whether in business, sports, blogging or whatever -- has to be about this stuff.
Even better is this paragraph, which demonstrates the reporter doesn't really know what she's talking about.
And though women and men are creating blogs in roughly equal numbers, many women at the conference were becoming very Katie Couric about their belief that they are not taken as seriously as their male counterparts at, say, Daily Kos, a political blog site. Nor, they said, were they making much money, even though corporations seem to be making money from them.
The executive editor of Daily Kos is SusanG, and there are six (I think) contributing editors who are women. That's seven of the 18 top writers at Daily Kos who are women.
But women bloggers aren't taken as seriously as Daily Kos even though women are running Daily Kos. Seriously.
Blue Jersey, the largest progressive blog in New Jersey on which I am proud to serve on the Exec Board, is run by Editorial Director Rosi Efthim now that founder Juan Melli has moved on.
Then of course there is Digby, Arianna Huffington and Jane Hamsher are women. So are Pam Spaulding and Amanda Marcotte. And let's not forget Asha Dornfest at Parent Hacks and Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing. Bernice Paglia is one of the finest local bloggers I've ever seen (and I was a pretty good one myself), covering the city of Plainfield and its 60,000 residents on Plainfield Plaintalker.
Of the women mentioned above, only Huffington was mentioned and then in passing as the exception that proves the rule
None of this is to say that women bloggers are not less respected than men bloggers, or that there isn't work to do to achieve equality. Just noting that the New York Times is going with a simplistic argument from a perspective that is a few years old, and then consigns the girls to the section relating to clothing and superficial looks. And that doesn't help the situation.
Maybe the problem isn't the blog world, where we tend to work from anonymity and merit, but with the general unconscious misogyny in the world outside the blogs?