Women and blogging - a view from the uncategorised

I have been drawn to the debate kicked off by Jennie about women bloggers and recognition/linking. And, whilst Jennie categorises me in a group all of its own (yay, I'm unique!), perhaps, as one of the small number of bloggers with an alter ego who occasionally blogs, I might make a small, rather humble, contribution.

Firstly, I am puzzled by the concept that feminism, and blogging about it, is not political. For one thing, the idea of campaigning for anything is in itself a political act, to be agreed with or disagreed with, to support or reject, in the same way that, for example, British involvement in Afghanistan might be. Indeed, I would argue that any debate on the role, or treatment, of women is really rather more important, given that it potentially directly impacts on the lives of half of the population and indirectly (and here there is genuine cause for debate) on the other half.

As I have noted in the past, I come from a background where a male was discouraged from taking an involved stance on issues of feminism. I apparently couldn't possibly understand the issues, and any attempt to address them was looked upon with suspicion, verging on hostility. Accordingly, I have tended to avoid the debate to some extent, preferring to support from the sidelines.

Jennie presents evidence to support the contention that blogging is not the province of one or other gender, information that is of interest to an old number cruncher like me. So, I thought that I would do some research myself. Mycouncillor.org.uk lists 375 male Liberal Democrat bloggers and 123 female ones, a 3:1 ratio. This is not that far out of line with the ratio of male councillors to female ones if memory serves, so does the imbalance simply reflect the relative dearth of women in politics?

Mark Pack did attempt, albeit in rather weak fashion, put a contradictory figure into the mix, but I'm going with Jennie on this one. So, one must assume that women blog on other things. Alternatively, they blog on subjects that are not perceived to be political.

The definition of 'political' is, I suspect, as wide as that of 'culture' and, having spent eighteen months at your expense trying (and failing) to define the latter, I am loathe to essay an attempt to do so. However, for the purposes of the exercise, I ought to try. So here goes...

A political blog posting is one that considers how society might or might not be changed to alter the lives of individuals or groups

I think that this is has a fairly wide embrace, and certainly includes topics that would probabaly be perceived as being outside of what the mainstream news media might cover using their political correspondents. Those topics might not impact on many people but might be critical to those who are affected.

It also opens a window to those who are working within their communities, doing volunteer work which might not be party political but might require interaction with politicians or government in order to be effective. They often see themselves as apolitical, but their choices do change their societies in a direct way. Given that many women are engaged in local community volunteering, and that some of them probably blog about it, how are they different from those of us who blog of our work as councillors or council candidates?

I suspect that one other factor is that women appear, from the perspective of this bureaucrat at least, to be more outcome focused and less prone to what I describe as a 'look at me' approach. They also tend to be more family orientated, and I suspect that a lot of 'family life' blogging comes from women.

Ah well, those are my thoughts, and if they encourage people to think outside of the box a little, all well and good...