BlogHer - Blogging While Female: NYT, Salon on BlogHer - Comments

Weird ideas about feminism

Nordette — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 12:47:06 -0500

I noticed males and even a few females making comments on the NYT criticism such as "women would be taken seriously if they stopped writing fluff and stopped talking about babies and diapers." Sometimes similar ideas were expressed on covering women's health too, that it's fluffy. Breat cancer and cervical cancer is fluffy? I think not.

As for the women who've made such comments and who call themselves "feminist" I think it's a clear example of misunderstanding feminism to mean women should be more like men and translate that into anything traditionally categorized as female is unimportant. Time for some introspection, ladies.

Just as racial equality does not mean all races should now be like white people, feminism does not mean women should be like men. Being accepted as equal doesn't mean you morph into something else. It means that we accept each other as equals because we are equals no matter our differences. It's about the freedom to be what we are and not be penalized for that.

So, we can see that there's still lots of work to be done to stop the bias against caregiving work being women's work and beliefs that any discussion of women's issues and women's work is unimportant.

I wonder if these people think they'd be better off if their own mothers had left them on the curbside to raise themselves. If their mothers thought taking care of children was unimportant where would these people be today?

Nordette is a Contributing Editor with BlogHer.com whose personal blog is hosted on another site at this link.

There's much that the NYT doesn't get ...

Alanna Kellogg — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 12:20:40 -0500

... not just women bloggers. Ever since the 2004 election, the NYT has been doing features on the Midwest. But as a Midwesterner, it's seemed as if they were trying to "get us" -- hence the coverage at all -- by studying us like specimens in a petrie dish, like animals in a zoo with features on bizarre stuff on the fringe (like a part of a lake in Missouri where there's much breast-baring, like a town in Iowa that has illegal cock-fighting) that furthers the image of backward, unsophisticated ~~critters~~ people in fly-over country.

What it does most, however, is make me question the NYT's authority on any issue, not just two that I happen to be close to and thus know, for myself, many of the nuances.

Alanna Kellogg
Kitchen Parade &
A Veggie Venture

apology accepted and returned

washwords — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 09:44:16 -0500

I need to pause before I time. I lack a censoring reflex. :( No worries, I do appreciate your and everyone's comments. I'm a former journalist so "ALL MEDIA SUCCCCKS" is a button for me (not that you said that, but I hear it so much I start to defend against it even when not there) blush. Thanks for replying so fast and clarifying.

humbly yours, washy.

washy || http://washwords.com/words || washwords.dc@gmail.com

I Apologize - I Was Going For Another Meaning of The Term

Gena Haskett — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 09:17:51 -0500

There is a term or expression about certain parts of life being a "special-ed" class; meaning that as adults when we fail to get the lessons presented in life they are repeated in a more harsh form. Newspapers are going through a transformation and re-definition of the business. Some are slower to catch on than other newspapers.

I've had experience being placed in a childhood special-ed class so I should have known better than to use that term. I meant no disrespect and I do apologize.

I will acknowledge that the paper is trying but if you read some of the other linked provided it may not be just a matter of sexism but how stories are pitched and slanted depending on the relationships with the writer and editor.

The NYT cross-posting to the Tech section was limited, it is now gone.
Gena - Out On The Stoop

cringe

washwords — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 08:43:12 -0500

eek. Sorry Gena, but "special ed class" -- wow, that's offensive on a lot of levels.

Also, I didn't realize the article was cross-posted... being on the front page of ANY section is actually pretty great coverage, considering it was on a Sunday AND cross-posted... I'm not saying I don't hear the valid criticism you and others have but...

Furthermore, wasn't it the NYT who just a month or so ago printed that ridiculousness about former gawker Emily Gould? I couldn't agree more that the blogher convention deserves more coverage and more BUSINESS coverage than "wahhh, i'm 20 and have a NYT magazine piece, wah wah" but wow, that was sooooo much more coverage than at least one female blogger deserved, imho.

washy || http://washwords.com/words || washwords.dc@gmail.com

They Did Cross Post To Tech But Still

Gena Haskett — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:04:54 -0500

The NYT is still in the Special Ed class of contemporary journalism and community. Many of us have brought this issue up to the NYT before. I guess them cross posting the article was their attempt of hearing the great un-testiculars.

They keep getting caught up on the hook - moms, groups of women and sponsors = a very narrow focus. There was politics, there was race relations, there was non-profit activism. Heck, there was me and I'm not a mom!

How Oprah wound up in the article I still don't understand. She wasn't there. If 1,000+ women now equal an Oprah moment then The NYT has got bigger problems than bloggers at the gate.

Le sigh,

Gena - Out On The Stoop

great post - sorry and surprised it's not getting more comments

washwords — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 08:39:42 -0500

Interesting food for thought to be sure. As a former journalist (both business reporter and features/lifestyle writer/editor) I think you raise an important point. While I totally get why it can seem dimunitive/slamming/ patronizing to be forever relegated to the "women's pages," you are 100% right that front page of ANY section, esp. Sunday is better than p. 13 or 27 or Thursday. What is the pinnacle for most writers I know - the NYT or Wash Post magazine. Magazine? Think features, think personal.

I really like what the folks you quote have to say in their comments on the salon piece. Who says non-emotional stuff is what's most important? I've always been a "back of the book" girl - I like the science section, anything social (in the sense of sociological), trends, features. Maybe that's just me but maybe it's more and more of us - that is, maybe the "women's pages" is the best place to be!

As for the horrific things you cite "Her Bad Mother, wow, just wow. I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope you also get to see the LOTS of supportive men and women out there. I am now - sometimes they seem fewer and farther between but... not always... they're oout there.

washy || http://washwords.wordpress.com || washwords.dc@gmail.com

My biggest beef...

Her Bad Mother — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:15:22 -0500

... was not with the NYT coverage, but with the reaction among a certain class of male bloggers to female bloggers' reactions to the piece, which basically amounted to "shut up idiot women and be glad that anyone reads your stupid drivel at all."

After the MamaPop piece was posted, some of these same bloggers wrote follow-up posts, one of which referred to me as a "brainless, narcissistic, lactating cow."

It's not being put in the Style section that bothers me - as I said in the post, I would rather tech or news or business, but I'll happily take what I can get - but the overt misogyny that dialogue around the piece inspired. We think we've come a long? Maybe - but we're hated (by some) for it.

Blogging Under the Influence of Mood Swings

rebellious thinker — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 15:48:00 -0500

I thought that one of the ideas of blogging was to sidestep the powers that be and create new powers. As long as we can catch the demeaning words and tones, and get our thoughts out there--in blogs--then they have not won. And as long as women keep posting then a dialogue has finally been created.

Laura (www.RebelliousThoughtsofaWoman.com)

Blogging While Female: NYT, Salon on BlogHer

agahran — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:39:17 -0500

(NOTE: I posted this article today on the Poynter Institute's E-Media Tidbits blog, which is read mainly by professional journalists. I'm cross-posting it here because it's relevant to BlogHer.)

On Sunday the New York Times ran a front-page feature on a conference I recently attended: BlogHer 2008, the fourth annual conference for and about female bloggers.

...Well, front page of the Fashion & Style section, that is.

Several bloggers complained that the Times article by Kara Jesella focused too heavily on stereotypically "girly" stuff -- from its lead ("For two days last week, many of the men's bathrooms at the Westin St. Francis Hotel here were turned into women's bathrooms."), to its details ("There was a lactation room, child care, and onesies for sale emblazoned with the words 'my mom is blogging this.'"), to its dismissive jabs ("It has since evolved into a corporate-sponsored Oprah-inflected version of a '60s consciousness-raising group.")

I noticed these flaws when I first read the article. Nevertheless, I still said it was "pretty good." By that, I meant (and should have clarified at the time) "better than I expected from the Times, whose leaders reflexively slam bloggers as barbarians at the gate. Baby steps."

Here are the good points as I see them...

At least Jesella's story recognized the diversity and influence of female bloggers. Also, even though the Times did ghettoize this article by running it in Fashion & Styles, at least they didn't bury it. It was, after all, a front-page story in that section, on a Sunday. Thus it was far more visible to the Times' largest print audience than if it had run on a back page of section A, especially on a weekday. Tradeoffs.

Today, Rebecca Traister wrote in Salon.com's Broadsheet section: "The problem is not simply with the placement of one story, but with a newspaper that does not take 'women's stories' -- in this case one that could have also been about business, technology, politics or gender as a social, economic or professional impediment to success -- seriously enough to give them other, more newsy space in its pages."

She continued, "The tone of Jesella's story -- with its light descriptions of 'flurries of discussion,' its tossed-off reference to sponsorship by General Motors and KY Jelly (har!) and casual reportage about the 'tears' and 'hooting' at some of the more 'emotional' panels -- was certainly constructed on the diminutive model of newspaper conference coverage. No one wrote about the guys at [the concurrent political blogger conference] Netroots standing around urinals, or, for that matter, the women at Netroots applying their makeup, though they surely did that in Austin, too. And that's without question because Netroots was not a gender-specific gathering, and therefore didn't get automatic feminized journalistic treatment..."

Traister went on to critique how some blogs by women, such as Lemonade Life (which is about living with diabetes) are named:

"...The fact is that the people over at Netroots are calling their blogs things like the Plank and the Page and First Read and Hotline, names that scream solidity and self-importance and power. A blog about personal experience and illness certainly needn't be named with an eye to political urgency, but what about starting from a place of self-regard and personal authority and naming it after yourself, like Kos, or Drudge, or one of the women who does get taken seriously online, Arianna Huffington? Think about how much easier it would be to get the respect that some of the BlogHer women crave if they started taking themselves more seriously...

Traister's wrapup included this question:

"'Feminine' climes are where female writing voices are not simply heard but also remunerated and celebrated. Why shouldn't writers pursue the success where they're encouraged, rather than banging their heads until they bleed against the door that continues to bar them from mainstream, and therefore still male, modes of discourse about things like politics, technology, the economy, business or science?"

This post raised points well worth considering. But for me, the comments to Traister's post cut more to the heart of the matter.

For example, Badstoat commented: "Why are politics, technology, the economy, business, and science the 'mainstream' in the first place? Why do we consider the body, illness, the personal, the emotional, and anything pertaining to the realm of home (like motherhood) to be on the margins of society? ...Some of the best political writing I see is on personal blogs, and it's intertwined with personal writing. Because their blogs hybridize the personal and the political (which is how most people actually experience the two), they don't get the attention and respect a blog traditionally in the 'male' realm of 'politics' gets from mainstream media."

And Salon co-founder Scott Rosenberg commented: "I think the most important thing that the BlogHer bloggers -- or any other group that is busy defining itself and presenting its own face to the world via its own media creations -- can do in regard to the Times is stop worrying about what it says. Newspapers are suffering a slow eclipse with all its attendant pains. Bloggers are better off doing their own thing than obsessing over the Times' coverage."

(Thanks to Catherine Dold for the tip on the Salon post.)