feminist blogs

• Name: Julia
• Blog: Sisyphus Shrugged
• Tag Line:Lasciate ogni speranza and put your feet up
• Location: NYC

1. How did you start blogging? Why do you keep at it?

Almost completely by accident. I started writing a LiveJournal because we were cut off from IM at work and I was going through typing withdrawal. I told six people where it was. Months later, I was reviewed by a LiveJournal reviewing community and they highlighted a post I'd written about Carter's trip to Cuba, and people started reading for the politics. I've always been a news junkie and politics is one of my major interests, so I went with it. After that it sort of accreted slowly until Jeanne D'Arc, the godmother of female political blogs, linked to a post I wrote and it snowballed.



Why do I keep at it? Well, occasionally it's really hard to keep up with, but it's always been an article of faith with me that a lot of what's wrong with politics in America comes from people just not having the time or the obsessive interest to keep up with the news and track down what's really going on. The "news establishment" doesn't make it any easier by throwing up confetti storms of jargon instead of explaining (my role models are Molly Ivinsand Dean Swift). I try to provide a little bit of context, or point out what the story doesn't say but should, or just say "Do you believe this shit?" I figure if I have a chance to say some of the stuff I think should be said, I should say it. It's sort of a put up or shut up thing (and no one who knows me thinks that's a real choice)..

2. What are your most important issues?

I've got a very broad populist streak. It frustrates me that comparatively few people are making most of the decisions for this country because they get involved and they vote. More power to them, but a lot of people who disagree with them are so dispirited that they don't get involved and they don't vote. I badly want to convince anyone I can reach that they can make a difference. A few votes here, a few votes there, before you know it you got a constituency.

3. What's the nicest recognition you've ever received from the media and/or the blogosphere?

I was on Air America twice, which was exciting, although I was completely terrified. Also, I'm on the sidebars at the Ms. Magazine blog and the Business Week blog, which fills me with glee. On the blog side, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden said I was a good writer, TBogg said I was funny and the Poor Man said I was shrill. Can't beat that.

4. Who is your audience? What is unique about your blog?

I have no idea. I have a terrific Friends List on LiveJournal but I had to screen comments when I started to get a lot of ads for porn sites, and I think it discourages commenting, which is a shame. I usually find out someone's been reading when I get linked (I haunt Technorati. Just for research purposes, of course). I'd like to think people come by for the writing, but mostly I'm just really pleased that they come by.



I really do talk like that, by the way. I have witnesses.

5. Most frustrating aspect of blogging?

Meta. Definitely meta. We have much bigger fish to fry right now. If I could have one wish for the left blogosphere, it would be that everyone with an urge to pronounce on who does and doesn't matter would cross their legs and hold it in until November 4th.

6. What's the one point you'd like a reader to take away from your blog- the one thing for them to really "get"?

I'd like them to know that you don't have to wait for someone to tell you you're qualified to make your own decisions about politics and that you don't have to wait for someone to tell you that your opinions matter. Most of the world's gatekeepers are self-appointed. Once you make it your business to know what's going on, appoint yourself.



Also I would like to point out that I have a seriously cool kid.

• Name: Laura Antoniou
• Blog: But How's the Coffee?
• Location:But How's the Coffee?

1. How did you start blogging? Why do you keep at it?

I started when I realized I was reading more and more blogs and wanted to say things of my own. This would be in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, a turning point for many bloggers.

2. What are your most important issues?

Depends on the day! But overall, I tend to think and write of things that interest me personally. Just try to pain a cohesive picture of who I am, I dare ya. The state of Israel - I am a Zionist who believes in security and safety for the one refuge the world's Jews have. Gay rights - I am a lesbian in a committed relationship who supports the righs of adults to enter into any sort of relationshp they want, as long as it's consensual and harms no third parties. The fight against Islamist and other far-right, radical, hate and fear promoting religious movements, including the wack-a-doodles among Jews and Christians who would like to see people like me marginalized at best, or just slaughtered at worst. I'm a progressive, adult convert to Judiasm who struggles with issues of observance and identity from time to time and still admires and feels pride in my chosen identity, and will talk about it endlessly if you are foolish enough to give me an opening. Free speech and civil rights - I'm a pornographer and a sexuality activist who's been banned in Canada and celebrated throughout the American south. The war - I supported the invasion of Iraq, even though I predicted we'd fuck up the aftermath. Do I regret my support? No. But I regret that no one with more power than me seemed to get the warning signs and actually do something to prove me wrong. Don't you hate that? The odd times when I realize I am agreeing with someone I loathe, or get pissed at someone I admire. The stupid things people pay attention to. And movies. I like movies. And coffee. When the world is headed to hell, just tell me the coffee is OK, and I'll survive the trip.

3. What's the nicest recognition you've ever received from the media and/or the blogosphere?

Well...once I commented on a story on MTV and the author contacted me and that was pretty cool. A fan bought me this awesome espresso machine, which of course, fuels my writing nicely.

4. Who is your audience? What is unique about your blog?

The only unique thing about my blog is me. I don't break any important stories, I don't reach that wide an audience, according to my stats. I suspect my regular readers are friends and fans of my porn, who expect me to write more about sex. But you know, I do that for money. The blog I do because I have this need to rant occasionally.

5. Most frustrating aspect of blogging?

Having the time to do it! I wish I had more time. And a wireless connection! Yeah! I need an Air Port for my lap top. After that? Wishing I had more readers for my brilliant, sarcastic and witty posts. It's frustrating not to be famous for my political and social thoughts. But I manage to survive.

6. What's the one point you'd like a reader to take away from your blog- the one thing for them to really "get"?

I can't be that reductive, it hurts my brain. I hope any reader understands how vital a good cup of coffee can be to quality of life. And I hope they understand that hate mail gets sent to their ISPs and the feds. Also, I do keep updating my wish list.

• Name: CE Petro
• Blog: Thoughts of an Average Woman
• Tag Line:Targeting issues and policies that are harmful to women and working families and other rhetoric
• Location:Knoxville, Tennessee

1. How did you start blogging? Why do you keep at it?

I started blogging a few months after completing chemotherapy when I felt I had lost some of my cognitive functions, particularly reading comprehension. When my oncologist and I discussed this, all he could tell me is to try writing and clarifying my thoughts every day. Blogging really started as an exercise in forming and writing a few short sentences focusing on one or two points of a particular article I felt was important to women and working families.



I choose to focus on women in part because of the inequalities and, really, the mysoginist treatment of breast cancer patients (although I don't focus on that narrow issue in my blog). In a broader spectrum, women have had less than equal medical care and treatment in the US and globally. I also feel that the current administration and the ideology of corporations discriminate against the working class in much the same way they discriminate against women.

2. What are your most important issues?

I try to keep the blog politically and socially motivated, and sometimes I get pretty angry. While blogging is still an exercise in some respects, my priorities to continue change. I "see" so much damage being done to the average person, and I don't think many realize exactly how damaging some policies are to them. I base this assumption on what the people I see during the course of a day have to say.



I, like many others, are disgusted by the lies of this administration, not just in the foreign policy, but more particularly in domestic policy, which I don't feel is as well covered by the mainstream media as it should be.

3. What's the nicest recognition you've ever received from the media and/or the blogosphere?

Honestly, I don't know that I want to be recognized by the media, per se. I don't feel that many in the press really understand that bloggers blog for a multitude of different reasons, unlike the press that (allegedly) reports as part of their job. However, when a psuedo-blogger (a reporter that also blogs for their paper) from my local paper asked local bloggers "what is blogging," my answer was chosen by the editor and published in an editorial, although neither my name was used nor a path to my blog was given. (my answer was: blogging is letting loose the voice of the people) That was sort of exciting, but not as exciting as being recognized by other bloggers.



I am more thrilled when my blog is picked up by other bloggers. While having a post recognized by another blogger may not be a "big deal" to some, for me it validates several things for me, 1. I had a concise day, 2. others find the topic important as well, and 3. it confirms or adds to another bloggers perspective. I find the peer-review style in the blogospere to hold more credence and accountability than being recognized by the media.

4. Who is your audience? What is unique about your blog?

Broken down by country, it's predominately Americans. Whether it's mainly women or men, or in what age group, I couldn't tell you.



As far as uniqueness, my blog is a compilation of my thoughts on various issues. That, in and of itself, makes it unique.

5. Most frustrating aspect of blogging?

Sometimes I wish people would leave comments. Without comments I wonder if I've been able to clarify my feelings on a particular topic. Yet, I don't want constant validation of my thoughts, either. Some validation is a good thing, too much I feel would lead to complacency for me. So, there are times that I wish someone will post a differing opinion, hoping a discussion would then develop. But, I'm sure that will happen eventually.



My other frustration is that I don't always have enough time to blog. Life is funny that way, and it seems that on days when I'm the busiest are the same days so much happens in the world.

6. What's the one point you'd like a reader to take away from your blog- the one thing for them to really "get"?

Living in an extremely conservative area overall I hope that I can enlighten just one person that not everyone thinks the same way or comes to the same conclusions.

Quote: I'm sorry to say this isn't creative, rather it's become an important part of my continuing life at this time, my motto is to live life one day at a time.



(Editor's Note: seems perfectly creative to me. Keep fighting. --Morgaine)

• Name: shari
• Blog: An old soul...
• Location:http://anoldsoul.blogspot.com

1. How did you start blogging? Why do you keep at it?

Post 9/11, I was so damn frustrated with what was in the papers. I was on a mission to get more info so I went online, only to find the wingnut blogs at first. Ick. Ick. Ick. Hell on earth, let me tell ya. When I found the progressive blogs, I thought I was in heaven.



By this time, I was inundating friends with emails. I'm sure they thought I was nuts. When I started losing track of my emails, I started my own blog so I could have a place to put all the links in one spot.



Funny. In the beginnning, what went on my blog was the same stuff going out in my emails. No more. Now, I send out in my emails the stuff that's all over the blogs. My blog focuses more on just a few of the issues very dear to my heart.



I keep going, even as my life gets busier and I have even less time to be online, because I see education issues presented in a way that really gets me steamed.

2. What are your most important issues?

On my blog: Education. Environment. Issues related to children, parenting, health, problems of corporate influence.



Since my online time is limited, if I see something covered by many others, I don't usually touch it.

3. What's the nicest recognition you've ever received from the media and/or the blogosphere?

Kudos to Kevin Hayden who makes such a great effort to include as many bloggers as possible underneath his umbrella. Natalie Davis, Nurse Ratched and Cyndy Roy were among the first to notice my blog. Meant a lot to me. In turn, I do my best to extend the same hospitality to others.

4. Who is your audience? What is unique about your blog?

Audience? My online pals, of course. Unique? My take on education, which comes from hours and hours of reading policy wonk.

5. Most frustrating aspect of blogging?

Time. Or lack of it. Trying to have balance in my life. Blogging can eat up a huge chunk of time I don't have.

6. What's the one point you'd like a reader to take away from your blog- the one thing for them to really "get"?

Question the meaning of the words that people use, especially words used by the media and by politicians.

Does the speaker/writer come from the same worldview as you? If not, then what do those words really mean?

Education lingo is rife with catch phrases and code words that don't mean what you think.

Quotes I go by:



One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.-- C. J. Jung



The loss of liberty in general would soon follow the supression (sic) of the liberty of the press; for it is an essential branch of liberty, so perhaps it is preservative of the whole. --John Peter Zenger (1697-1746)

• Name: Melanie
• Blog: Just a Bump in the Beltway
• Tag Line: Politics and Culture from the Left Side of the Page
• Location: http://www.node707.com

1. How did you start blogging? Why do you keep at it?

I started reading the blogs a couple of years ago and admired the way they built (or defeated) community and gave voice to the powerless through the comments boxes. I'd been reading the fairly rough lefty political sites for a long time before I got the nerve to begin commenting a little over a year ago. The political blogs are very male dominated and not the friendliest place for a woman with strong views. In the process of becoming a heavy commentor at places like dKos and Atrios, I found a voice I'd never used before and discovered that I'd developed some real expertise at political and cultural commentary that was a new and surprising development for me. And that other people liked it.



Other people liked it so much that I was eventually invited to become a guest blogger at dKos, the first and still only woman ever to accept such an invitation. It was exciting, it was scary and a learned a great deal about myself as a writer, scary because Kos's audience is so huge and they have zero tolerance for mistakes. It was a wild ride and I enjoyed every minute of it, particularly the interaction with the other guest bloggers. I'd had some stylistic difficulties with Markos from the very beginning: I was consciously writing with a more personal woman's voice than had been my habit because I discovered early on that more women commentors would take the plunge and come out from lurking. Eventually, Kos decided that what I was doing stylistically just didn't fit with his "brand" anymore.



A few days after I disappeared from his site, I was contacted by a reader (with whom I'd corresponded briefly) who wondered where I had gone. When she discovered I was blogless, she offered to set up a site for me (which was beyond my technical capabilities at the time.) Within ten days or so, I was live at Just a Bump in the Beltway and a number of readers who liked my work at dKos followed.

2. What are your most important issues?

Bump is still evolving as my interests and those of the readers evolve and the constraints on my time change, but my interest in the intersection of politics, religion and culture hasn't changed much. My perspective is female and occasionally specifically feminist Gender and sexuality (and specific biases about what those words mean) are so much a part of the secular culture that they must be looked at as a prism which sometimes distorts and sometimes illuminates. I hope that I maintain a critical distance from both.



The secular left in this country doesn?t understand that it has a common cause with the religious left and I hope to bring my theological background to bear to help religious lefties find their voices. The vocabulary of the religious right has co-opted nearly all of the traditional language of theology. It is time for us to take it back.

3. What's the nicest recognition you've ever received from the media and/or the blogosphere?

Gosh, there has been so much approbation. My readers are some of the kindest, most generous people on the planet, and that is the recognition that matters to me the most. They've bouyed me through some of the darkest months of my life.



In terms of media recognition, I can't suss that out from my life in the blogosphere. Writing at Bump and The Village Gate has resulted in some magazine commissions from the dead tree media, I've been invited to join the fine stable of writers at The American Street and I received a nomination for a Koufax award last year within a couple of weeks of my first appearance at Bump. All of these things are meaningful, but it is still the readers who really make my heart sing.

4. Who is your audience? What is unique about your blog?

I mix news commentary with editorializing (and the odd rant,) theologizing on popular culture and politics and try to look for context stories that aren't getting much play on the lefty blogs, which can be as much of an echo chamber as the righty ones are. I'm looking for the stories and perspectives that "The Bigs" miss. I'm successful enough that some of my readers are daily visitors.



To the extent that I've got any kind of a handle on who my audience is (commentors and email writers being a small fraction of any blogs audience) I think that a lot of of them are rather a lot like me: older than the typical blog reader, professionals with advanced degrees. I have a lot of lawyers and academics. I also know that I'm frequently read by Washington/US correspondents for outside-DC newspapers and have regular correspondence with several of them. My readership in non-US English speaking countries is not insignificant. This pleases me enormously and it has resulted in some long and very rewarding email relationships.

5. Most frustrating aspect of blogging?

Same as everybody else: not enough time! I wish I had much more time for research.

6. What's the one point you'd like a reader to take away from your blog- the one thing for them to really "get"?

That you don't have to drill too far beneath the traditional media to see how shallow the coverage is that we get in the states, that the popular culture itself is shallow and that we as a people have very tenous roots into the facts of our own existences. The world we live in now is the most superficial of any time in my 50 years on the planet.

Quote:



We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always?

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well and

All manner of thing shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.



"Little Gidding," Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

Hi Morgaine.



I was wondering if you'd pass it around about Susan's upcoming birthday, re:

http://suburbanguerrilla.blogspot.com/2004/09/calling-oprah1.html



From email contact in the past two years, I know she's still overcoming a run of unemployment and is or was a journalist. The quality of her blog reporting has been high as long as I've read her stuff. But I'm poor and not much of a fundraiser, so when I read this tonight, I thought I'd pass it on to you on the chance that you might have an email list that you might utilize to put out an appeal to see if the women (or men) would help Susie get over this bump.



I can say something on my blog, but I'm not sure I can influence enough folks to get much done that way. So I hope you'll consider getting the word out.



Thank you;





--Kevin







Hey, Y'all - give what you can - we've all been there!

Only a mediocre person is always at his best

-- Somerset Maugham