Gimme some Feedback...
Hey, Everyone-
I've got a bunch of links and profiles I'll try to get caught up on in the next day or two, so if you sent something in, be patient. Also, I hear there are some duplicates I have to fix. I'll get to it ASAP, but I'm a little overwhelmed right now.
In the mean time, I've gotten some complaint that I'm limiting the scope to liberal politics. Before I enumerate my reasons for setting some limits other than gender, I wanted to open it up for discussion and see what you think. So talk to me!
posted by Morgaine @ 4:30 AM
9 Comments:
Well,
I told you what I think in my post and in my blog (mu.nu site) I think that we need to hear everyone's voices; especially since I also think it rather hard to determine all the time who is or who isn't "liberal" or conservative." People. and the blogs they write, aren't always so easily boxed; besides, if all the blogs have the same voice, isn't it going to become "women bloggers, read one read them all?" Slight exaggeration.
I admire what you are trying to do but I really think you are making a mistake by limiting it to progressive or liberal bloggers; I don't even like the catagories, but they are helpful and I understand the reason. But I like to hear from many different sources; that's why I have Amanda and Michelle on my blogroll.
Well, there are a couple of right-wing blogs already included. Fallible comes to mind. If you want to play all sides of the street, leave them. But in that case, take the "progressive" out of the headlines. Personally, if I want to read right wing women's blogs, I'm sure I can link to them from Anne Coulter.
And Begging to Differ is mostly written it seems by men. Just a comment.
Please do limit What She Said! to political blogs; otherwise there's no point to what you are doing.
And by "political blogs" I mean blogs with content that is 90 percent political; blogs that exist to communicate political opinion. Otherwise your purpose will be diluted.
Whether you limit this site to liberal bloggers depends, IMO, on what your front-page content will be. Are you going to focus on "women in politics" issues, or are you going to feature recent comments by women bloggers, or what?
Barbara O'Brien, The Mahablog
I think this project could be a starting point to show the expansiveness of the blogoshpere, as it pertains to women. Therefore, I believe there could be several arms of this project: To show the numbers of conservative women political bloggers as compared to the numbers of progressive women political bloggers; and the overall numbers of women diarests.
This could mean setting up two more blogs (all three linked together), one to collect, blogroll, and showcase conservative women political bloggers and another to collect, blogroll and showcase women diarests. In the interests of limiting the size of the task, possibly a conservative blogger would "run" that "arm" of the project and a diarest would be willing to "run" their "arm." So, it would end up being a cooperative project.
Nevertheless, I am interested in having an inkling of women political bloggers within the blogoshere, mostly out of curiosity. While the "top" political blogs are run by men, I think there are quite a lot of women political bloggers that are not being recognized for one reason or another, not the least of which is how blogs are ranked (by the number of other bloggers linking to them).
I admire and appreciate this undertaking, even if it's limited to progressive political bloggers.
About Silverstar's point (that Begging to Differ is written mostly by men): I'm in the same boat. I write for Obsidian Wings; I'm one of five people who post there, and the other four are men. Not only that, but only two of us are progressive, part of the point of the site being to debate political issues without either muting our differences or lapsing into incivility. I genuinely do not know whether sites like mine should be included on this list (and wrote as much when I forwarded the link to my site.) On the one hand, if people are trying to find sites where they don't have to scroll through a lot of posts to find progressive female bloggers, then presumably our site is not a good choice. On the other, if they are trying to find progressive women who blog, regardless of their surroundings, then presumably we should be included. One answer might be to have a separate category for women on group blogs that aren't all either female or progressive.
I would also prefer a list of political blogs, and I don't think that there's any real danger that by limiting it to progressive women, you will end up with bloggers who all have the same voice. As far as I can tell, we are a very diverse group of people with very different takes on things, which is (as far as I'm concerned) exactly as it should be.
But I am curious hilzoy, and other's who would agree with you, as to why you would want to limit it to progressive voice? When I say "one voice" I mean one basic view of the world; you are correct that even among progressives there are different views of the same situation (which goes to my second point as to what makes a progressive) but to have everyone have the same basic outlook eliminates many fine women bloggers from the roll---and isn't that the reason for the blog in the first place? To locate all women who are speaking about political issues and highlight them, prove that it isn't just a man's sphere.
There are so many issues where I disagree with a particular blog or person, but the blog makes me think and question and reason. I like that. Maybe it is my personality, but I don't want to just hear from people I would most likely agree with overall.That is nice also; but the challenge adds to my life as well. (and brings me friends with very different perspectives on life).
OK, first up I'm a guy so take my comments with appropriate salt content. I think that the value of a site like What She Said! is finding the right balance of broadbased inclusion and specialized interest. I think if WSS includes *all* women bloggers, it will quickly get beyond easy management. My opinion only. I think that the value of bloggers is the ability to focus on the subjects and perspectives close to the heart. Dedicating WSS to progressive and/or liberal politics by women bloggers is something I like. If it was more broad spectrum, I would like it a bit less. I don't see progressive opinion as being all one voice by any means. Addressing another comment, I also *don't* think WSS has to be really, really strict about deciding who is liberal/progressive and who isn't. "More guidelines than laws." I also think that, if the stricture is really bothersome, a sister site could be set up by interested people to focus on conservative/right political women bloggers. Just my opinion. But whatever, I've got WSS bookmarked, got the RSS feed, and have already written a small entry in my blog for it. Good luck!
The term "progressive" enfolds such a wide range of opinion that it already feels like one of those coalition meetings before the demonstration, when it's 2 a.m. and we can't agree on tactics. Ms. Correct won't rest until a woman of color leads the speakers' list; Ms. Congressional Aide wants to promise the Mayor we'll all volunteer for his breakfast; Ms. Avenger wants to know why we aren't forming an affinity group; Ms. New Age worries about the Vitamin E content of the snacks served.
Given all that, do we really need folks who can't find a way to define their views as "progressive?" (The gray area I see is where Pax Christi or some of the libertarians: those I leave to your discretion.)
Chris L.
http://scrivovivo.typepad.com
I've never visited a conservative blog that I didn't find reactionary, which I think is a disease -- mmmmmm,more like a virus -- and dangerous. If anyone could direct me to thoughtful, undogmatic blogs by conservative women, that would be great.
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