I also just checked "Democrat" for the very first time in my life. I filed to change my political party from 18 years of non-party affiliated to Democrat just last week.

Liz Rizzo

I blog at Everyday Goddess and On The Lot.

I'd be curious to see whether the political breakdown of those who vote in this survey reflects the obvious political leanings of those making up the selection committee picking the issues to be voted upon...

The country as a whole is split pretty evenly and while there is a bit of a "gender gap", it's a relatively small one. Yet I didn't see a single conservative issue included in the survey for voters to choose even though there were several different bloggers who suggested some.

Hi Crimson Wife:

We didn't actually "select" issues to include in the poll. We compiled every post and comment we found and then tried to consolidate the list into broad categories. So, for instance, there were a lot of suggestions around education that had various political and partisan spins...all of which we consolidated into "Education Reform."

There were lots of political spins on other issues, but we tried to eliminate the descriptive parts and go for high-level topics like "Economy", "Immigration", "Taxes", "Supreme Court Nominations", "Social Security" without politically positioning the topics. It's quite possible that different groups of bloggers will take on different projects or have different perspectives on the topics.

Many of these are hot-button issues for conservatives, and some of these definitely came from posts with suggestions from conservative bloggers.

The point is to raise awareness and to raise the volume of women's voices on these topics, so there will be room for discussion on what aspects of an issue folks will dedicate themselves to.

If you provide a link to a specific post or comment you feel was omitted I'll check it out, make sure we didn't miss it, and tell you what high-level topic we rolled it into.

Given that BlogHer as an organization is dedicated to staying omnipartisan and provide a forum for all voices, I'm very committed to making sure we didn't omit any such suggestions.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.org

My first reaction to the survey was one of great awe. The issues at first glance appeared overwhelming. Then I strapped on "My Go Girl" cape and got down to business. I believe we can make an impact on any one of those issues. What we do locally has resounding affects across the globe...like a ripple on a pond. I am proud to be a woman in her own mind, in her own space in this time. I want this sense of grounding for women everywhere no matter what their circumstances. Raising awareness today where there was none yesterday is a blessing.

Love,
Babz
www.lovebabz.blogspot.com my personal journal of how I am moving through the world.

I'd have to go back to the other posts, but I can give an example from my own off the top of my head. I wrote:

Respect for human life from conception through natural death. This goes beyond just the "hot-button" issues of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and capital punishment. Poverty, unjust wars, racism, human rights abuses, sexual exploitation, domestic violence, lack of stewardship of the Earth- working to end all these tragedies are part of holding a "consistent life" ethic.

The "liberal" parts of this got picked up- poverty, peace, sexual exploitation, domestic violence, environmental issues. The "conservative" parts did not- abortion, stem cells, euthanasia.

Also, "women's rights" was defined not by working for equal pay for equal work, property rights, voting, driving, etc. but by working for access to birth control, "no-fault" divorce, and same-sex "marriage".