This article goes along way to explain why so many think American feminism is a joke. The reason the NYtimes covered the Netroots Nation like it mattered and basically ignored BlogHer is rather basically simple and is the reason why a large chunk of the population ignores feminism. The people behind Netroots Nation actually do shit to make themselves matter while feminist blogs expect to be taken seriously with out doing anything. Yearlykos was able to attract big name politicians because they where able to show that they could influence elections and the news. Daily Kos fought to be taken seriously by the mainstream press by breaking stories and raising a shit load of money in a short amount of time. Politicians and news responds to large sums of money and influence. That is why the Christan Right has had a seat at the table for the last 30 years because they raised money and votes for candidates meaning they could not be ignored. Feminist have not learned this lesson yet. Take Emily's list for example that actually has too much influence based on their results but never the less is not really taken all that seriously because they have a track record of losing when they should be winning see 2006 mid terms.

If the bloggers that attend BlogHer could break stories that matter or actually influence policy in any way they would be taken more seriously, simple as that. Politicians know that they have to win a large number of women in order to get elected so they are not going to ignore a women's group that actually has some power. So if the feminist blogs could raise a half million dollars for a congressional seat in 2 days they will be taken seriously.

Here is another bit of truth. The reason why women issues are placed in the style section is because women, with exceptions, don't read the front page or the world news section. Women again with exceptions read the lifestyle sections if they bother to read the paper, notice when the WSJ wanted to reach more females they added a lifestyle section and more personality type pieces. If women want to be taken seriously by the editors of the large newspapers and have their issues covered more need to put down the US Weekly and pick up the Times or Insert local daily here. Start picking up the economist or mother jones or any other political weekly that will show an increase number of female readers. The papers will follow, hell they will do almost anything at this point to keep up circulation.

To sum it up if you want to be taken seriously you need to be serious and work hard for it don't just expect it to be handed to you.

Good question but don't expect an answer. I am still waiting on why it is evil to even point out that obesity is not healthy or even think that someone obese might not have a rare medical condition but it is ok to call some one like Keria Knightly an evil influence that is killing the children and they should be banned from holding certain jobs.

It was not Parson Jim that said anything about women not reading the front page, that was me, THE JIM. Two completely different people.

I put with exceptions because that is what you are an exception to the general readership of who reads the front page, which is overwhelmingly male. You read the science section great so do I but very few other people do, that is why unless there is a huge science story, mostly of the cosmological variety, it will not appear in the front page. The people have spoken that science is just not that important to the readership of most newspapers if it was the papers would actually hire a science writer that knew what the fuck they were talking about.

I really don't give a shit if you think I am a women hater or not. I know before posting that my name alone is strike one with the radical pomo feminist that make up the readership of broadsheet and I know not buying into feminist theory/patriarchy is strikes 2 though 10 against me.

The reason that family and relationship stories in newspapers are treated as female stories is because that is the primary audience that reads these stories. If it was sales managers and MBAs reading these stories the WSJ would have a dear ____ section long ago.

What you said was looks great on a bumper sticker or greeting card but it is utterly without meaning and does not take reality into question. Yes it is great that we should strive to come together on out common humanity but in the real world different people have different and competing goals that can not be ignored or over come by shared humanity or compromise. It would be wonderful if those times when there is not a zero sum outcome that we could strive together to reach the optima outcome but as soon as one side makes it a zero sum game all the rest of players are basically forced to concede and play by the new rules. Some of us try sometimes better and sometimes to the detriment try to point out these cases or try to show the other players why to improve the game but even here there is an adversarial relationship, and much of the problem occurs here where the zero sum player sees any adversarial relationship as the same instead of one group that wants to play the opposite side on zero sum game and another that just wants to change the outcome of the game.