The Blogosphere’s Boys Club
July 18th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Women bloggers at Netroots Nation say that even within the often nameless, faceless culture of cyberspace, inequality persists.
At the Women Bloggers caucus Thursday, labor union reps, political activists, campaign managers and stay-at-home moms expressed their collective dissatisfaction with the quiet sexism of the liberal blog world.
“I’m hearing a lot of frustration with the gender double-standard in political campaigns and the blogosphere,” said Darcy Burner, a Netroots-supported congressional candidate. “If we don’t find a way as a community to push back, that standard is going to be very slow to change.”
The mindset that allows for sexist comments in progressive blogs and demeaning comments from media figures (such as Chris Matthews), is almost impossible to penetrate, female bloggers said, because “progressive” males won’t acknowledge their sexism.
“As long as it is OK for people to say things that are fundamentally sexist and get away with it in public, then they are going to think it is OK to believe it in private too,” Burner said.
Women in the progressive blogosphere complain they still find they’re only considered qualified to address issues of traditional importance to females, like abortion, and excluded from male-dominated issues like the economy.
“Working in politics and tech is a boys club,” said caucus moderator Julie Lyn Gibbons. “We need to take ownership of the economic issue,” she said. “But that change has to start at home, at your computer, on your blog,” she told the audience.
In campaign work, the women said, they are paid less than male counterparts, if they’re paid at all, and have limited upward mobility.
“In our campaign, women did a lot of the early organizing and fundraising work as volunteers,” said a Texas Obama campaigner. “Later in the campaign, the men, who I refer to as the ‘mercenaries men,’ took over—and of course, they are paid workers,” she said.
In general, participants said, women volunteer more and don’t insist upon adequate compensation because, in a culture that doesn’t place monetary value on traditional female services, like care-giving, women often don’t value themselves as highly as men do.
“We have to start demanding what we need,” said Marcela Howell, vice president of communications for Advocates for Youth. Howell said that as a campaign manager in California, she demanded her headquarters provide childcare, which not only benefited her, but also allowed other women to work on the campaign.
Gibbons also stressed the need for more training and placement programs that encourage women to expand their political roles, like Emily’s List, Annie’s List and She Should Run. And of course, Gibbons said, one great way to initiate change is to start a public dialog by blogging about these issues.
“The media is paying more and more attention to what we are saying,” she said. “If you haven’t started blogging yet, you should.”
July 18th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I’m so glad this was covered!
“Women in the progressive blogosphere complain they still find they’re only considered qualified to address issues of traditional importance to females, like abortion, and excluded from male-dominated issues like the economy.”
This is particularly important. Issues must not be sorted according to gender, or as soft (family issue) vs hard (war, economy) issues. There are women writing all of these issues and I hope it continues. Ladies, support your female bloggers!