What if the NYTimes had been even more biased in its coverage? What if the times had "marginalized" Netroots instead? Would this really change the situation on the ground?

What I ultimately believe keeps people coming back to a blog is not the number of sites linking to it, but rather the quality of its content. I've read stellar coverage of blogs in papers or online, only to visit the site and never return. Other sites, that i've stumbled upon accidentally, have become bookmarks.

People will vote with their mice, the NYTimes doesn't decide which bloggers are being taken seriously. How seriously do you think society takes blogging in general? Sure, there are the standouts, but for the most part? My guess is that opinions run the gamut the same way they do with respect to the mainstream media, but that on average people still take the mainstream media more seriously. To the extent that any blogger feels marginalized, I'd start by looking at the content of his site, not blaming society.

I liked seeing this piece in Broadsheet, hopefully it will lead to some interesting thoughts, discussions and introspection. Perhaps Broadsheet will take a new and exciting direction? I'd be lying if I didn't add that the unintended humor was great...like clockwork you have not only the "you're a broadsheet femininazi" chorus, but also feminists calling out broadsheet as a pink ghetto in the letters.

I've long called for more intellectual consistency on these pages. As another poster pointed out, it may be time to revision broadhseet's "mission." If it is to further discussion, why cut off the letters threads? Why have the broadsheet contributors weigh in so infrequently in the discussions? If it's too call attention to major women's issues, why are so many posts fluff, predicated on sensational headlines, or written by a contributor who's not versed in the subject matter? Are we trying to strengthen feminism? Then why do so many pieces dwell on the problems, using language that only alienates outsiders, while so rarely offering solutions or even a first step?

If the goals are page clicks (which is cool, we all got to feed the monkey), to cultivate a confused and tribal readership that loves to talk past each other, and provide us with the sporadic gems that got us here in the first place? Then by all means, carry on.

My name links to one of my favorite "blog" posts of all times and illustrates that it's possible for "bloggers" to take a few steps back, now and again, and see the big picture.

"People will vote with their mice-- btrader"

Well, I agree with you there. I no longer read NYTimes due to their sexism during the last primary.

Disagree with bloggers not making a difference, though. The less polarized the world becomes the better. The more voices out there to be heard, the more diverse the opinions will be and our comprehension of the issues will be that much better rounded. Individuals bring their experience and emotions to a topic, networks are just a company looking for the widest path to money. Most people don't get paid for blogging, they do it to have a voice. Once someone gets paid for it, their integrity is out the window :) but until then, you couldn't have a more pure voice of the people.

"wake society up to EVERYONE'S love and need for femininity.

-- lisecj"

Yeah!!!

that I see several parallel discussions, on various topics ranging from BlogHer to what Patriarchy is (including nods to Irigaray's opinions on family and health as 'feminine' topics!), and even to what Broadsheet is and where it should be. I am also, like the previous poster, happy to see all those things being discussed, I just wished they weren't all in the same thread, and all at the same time.

Take for instance The Jim and jlj's discussion about women reading the front page. It's interesting that neither remarked on the fact that their opinions are not mutually exclusive; they are, in fact, both right. Isn't that so? The Jim says: more men than women read the front page; jlj answers: women do read the front page, and it would be offensive to suggest otherwise. The Jim answers by citing numbers that confirm his opinion: about (correct me if I'm wrong) 70% of front-page readers are male. He is right. But even though female readers are 30%, there still are many women who do that -- how many hundreds of thousands would that be, given the readership of the newspapers in question? So jlj is also right: lots of women read the front page. Where's the problem?

Again, the Clash of Stereotypes. Saying that fewer women read the front page suggests that Woman, that curious abstraction, is 'more frivolous and uninterested in serious questions' -- despite the hundreds of thousands of actual women who are sufficiently interested to read front page material. Of course this is not true. Still The Jim's claim -- that more men read the front page than women -- may very well be true. What can we do?

Consider now the question of BlogHer deserving or not deserving more attention and coverage. Several people have offered explanations: some say it's discrimination, the patriarchy (e.g. jlj), others (e.g. Allie_) that it's the inclusivity question, others (e.g. The Jim, achilleselbow) that it's the marketplace: where the readership goes, there you have power and therefore attention from the media. Now, notice these explanations are not mutually exclusive: they could very well work in parallel. Allie_'s claim, also made by others, does sound logical: a conference targeted to a specific group should, by this very fact, attract less general attention than a conference not targeted at any specific groups, whatever the topic. The 'readership market' argument also sounds logical: bloggers who want influence should write (and write well) about things that most people want to read about, and things like politics (because they affect us all equally, as another poster put it) top the list, while things like health and personal life (which are different for each of us) do not.

What about discrimination here? Now, this is certainly a possibility, but thus far I must admit it's the one I've seen less evidence for discussed in this thread. Are women bloggers being discriminated against, or is it the case that they are writing less often about topics that attract general interest like politics? I'll second HughAnderson, who said above that it would be more to the point to present and discuss actual evidence of women who blog about such topics and yet get discriminated. How many male and female bloggers write mostly about politics? How much readership do they get? How can we measure the quality of their blogging, and their effect on politics, grass-, netroots or otherwise? Are there concrete cases of good political bloggers who were discriminated against because of being female? (Was that a topic at BlogHer, for example? Any concrete cases, with analyses?) Is the situation the same in the tradional news media -- newspapers, TV, etc. -- or are there blog-specific differences?

I fear the Clash of Stereotypes may also be at play here. For if the numbers are not presented, it may be that we're jumping to the conclusion that female political bloggers are being discriminated just because they're fewer. Without further evidence, this would not be a necessary conclusion; there could be other explanations, say, the simple fact women started blogging after men and haven't had enough time to catch up with them yet.

I'll try to make now a few claims that I think we could pretty much all agree with:

(a) in principle, targetting an event at a specific subgroup (say, BlackBloggers) should make it less intrinsically interesting for the public as a whole than not targetting it;

(b) certain topics (politics, foreign policy, economy, etc.) do attract more attention than others from readers, and thus duly receive a larger and more obvious coverage in the news media;

(c) it would be a good thing if more women started reading and thinking more about these topics;

(d) it would also be a good thing if more women started blogging about these topics, at a high level (involving ideas, quick coverage of new facts, organization of groups, etc.); judging by PunditMom's post (and others by other female bloggers), this good thing may actually be already happening.

Have I got it right? Or do you disagree?