I was looking for something over at Feministing and noticed an announcement that the Feministingers were up for a 2007 Weblogs Award. So I went to the link. The 2007 Weblogs Award blog describes itself this way:
The Weblog Awards are the world’s largest blog competition, with over 525,000 votes cast in the 2006 edition for finalists in 45 categories. Nominations for 49 categories ended October 17, 2007 and voting began November 1, 2007. Final results will be announced November 8, 2007 at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas.
Nowhere on the blog, that I could find, is there information about who created the site, whose idea it was to have this contest, or what the “BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas” is all about. Listed in various places are the names of three men who seem somehow involved. The whole thing has the feeling about it of a marketing ploy, a new and improved way to make money out of the blogosphere without actually contributing anything yourself (besides useless, unintelligent flattery and sucking up). Maybe Rich will show up and explain this, he always seems to know about these things!
Anyway, below are the contest categories together with this year’s “winners”:
Do you note the glaring omission of feminist blogs or a “Feminist Blogs” category? Pandagon, Feministing, and Shakesville were nominated under “Liberal Blogs” (and the winner was a white male liberal blogger, of course). There is a “GLBT” category which includes Pam’s House Blend (and the winner was Joe My God, a white gay male blogger, natch). Not only is a “feminist” category glaringly omitted, the nominees and winners are overwhelmingly white and male. Surprise.
Feminism, however, does not seem to exist in its own right for these guys. And, I guess, really, that’s about right. If a whole lot of people had their way — including many self-identified feminists– feminism would be subsumed, erased, hidden by these penultimately male categories, i.e., “liberal” and “GLBT”.
So, how’s about we apply ourselves to creating a REAL blog competition, one that is intelligent and thoughtful and recognizes brilliance, integrity, good writing, dedicated commenters, that is not commercialized or commercial, where nobody is making a buck off of bloggers while failing to actually blog themselves, and where it’s not about sucking up for cash prizes but about raising the bar for blogosphere journalism? It’s so past time.
Heart
I just noticed Echidne of the Snakes won in the Top 1001-1750 blogs, and I then went poking around and saw that Feministe was nominated in the top 501-1000 blogs.
Really though: why a category for GLBT and not Feminism? Why. Because GLBT is the replacement category, and men hope that’s going to fly.
Damn good point. I mean, where are the feminist categories? I suppose some feminists are content with being labeled “liberal”. Settling for less… I think.
It is so high school that the very thought of actually participating in such an elaborate scheme makes me want to hurl myself off a cliff. A few blog categories left out are “Blog with he best smile” and “Blog most likely to expect the entitlement of a prom queen or football captain until the age of 86” and “MILF blog” and “I’m too sexy to blog” and “don’t you want to fuck me blog” and “I’m so powerful because you want to fuck me blog” and “your feminism makes my dick hard blog”……..etc etc etc etc etc……
At least this contest is not pretensing under the guise of “we are hoping unread blogs are popularised.” Yeah right. Then why is it all the nominees are blogs that everyone has heard of? Don’t even get me started on how this contest uses words like “Global” and “world” ending its celebration (pimp convention) in Las Vegas. LAS VEGAS!!!!!! O-M-F-G, the flags and bells should wave and toll with the mention of that town as being the meeting place of something. Giggle, Giggle. Hello Kitty. Glitter. Sparkle. Sparkle…………I’m so represented yall!
I would like the make the category of “I don’t fucking read what you actually wrote but I want to abuse you anyway and blame it on what you wrote.”
HA! That was a world class RANT, Kitty.
AND, what a GREAT IDEA! A spoof on these blog contests! Hell, yeah! Dang, we could get a lot of satisfying mileage out of that. We could use some of those categories! Well, maybe we’d have to tone them down a slight notch.
But hold on to your hat, this just in from the 2007 Weblogs Awards FAQ:
Same couple blogs, say what?
Dang, too funny. Here are some of my categories:
*Blog Posts Most Likely to Arise Out of Desperation for Comments
*Most Consistently Dishonest Award
*Most Anti-Radfem Blog Posts Award
*Blogger with an Anti-Radfem Comment on 98 Percent of All Blogs Everywhere in the Blogosphere Award
*Pot. Kettle. Discuss. Award
*Irony, Discuss Award
*Least Feminist Feminist Blog
*Most Speedy Turnaround from Radical Feminist Blogger to Dedicated Anti-Radfem
*Short Memory Award
*Creative Blog Spamming Award
HA.
There’s no Mommy Blawg category there either, and there are zillions of mommy blawgs.
It’s another face of no-women-on-my-intertubes.
your feminism makes my dick hard blog”……..
I can’t stop laughing here at the office over this one!
I needed that.
“Least Feminist Feminist Blog” Ah, you cut me to the quick my friend. LOL! “private bastion” private bastion is my goal.
-The Oppression Olympics Blog
-The I Can’t Post Without Talking About Someone Else’s Blog Blog
-The Am I Really A Phd Blog
The I Can’t Post Without Talking About Someone Else’s Blog Blog
*The I Can’t Post Without Talking About Bloggers I Claim Never to Read Award
*Most Likely to Be a Stalker in Real Life Award
Arghie, this is too much.
We must have some serious yah-yahs to get out, Kitty!
They Smile In Your Face (While All the Time They’re Tryin’ to Take Your Place) Backstabbers Award
LOL!
The Best Flaunting Sociopath Blog
Most Likely to Close Blog, Flounce Off in a High Dudgeon, and Blog Again the Next Day Award
God. We are so bad.
Most Likely to Borrow Someone Else’s Blogging Material Without Linking Award
Huh.
This could turn into an article about the blogging ethics.
hehehehe, this is good fun….
The Best Evil-Rad-Fems-Were-Mean-To-ME-ME-ME Blog
The Best Disingenuous Outrage Blog
Most Narcissistic Blog
Best ‘I’m Rebelling By Conforming To Patriarchal Standards’ Blog
Best ‘I Love Sexxxay Feminists Who Don’t Question My Privileges Or Counter My Arseholiness’ Blog
Best ‘I Don’t Approve Of Hacking, But They Totally Asked For It (Please Don’t Hurt Me I’m Nice)’ Blog
Best ‘It’s My Freedom To Be Cruel To You and Expect You To Apologise For It’ Blog
Best Blog Written By Privileged Male Pornsick Liberal Wanker
Best Blog In Complete Denial
Best Asskissing The Trendy Bloggers Blog
Out comes Laurelin’s inner 12 yr old, gleefully!
I have many nominations in mind for these wonderful categories….
*Least Feminist Feminist Blog
*Most Speedy Turnaround from Radical Feminist Blogger to Dedicated Anti-Radfem
How to choose?
Best ‘I Don’t Approve Of Hacking, But They Totally Asked For It (Please Don’t Hurt Me I’m Nice)’ Blog
HA!!!!!!
Blog Most Dedicated To Defending Status Quo While Claiming Itself Marginalised
Best ‘My Feelings And Vanities Are More Important Than The Safety and Integrity Of Women’ Blog
The I’m a feminist – the whip me oxymoron blog.
The If I call women ladies they will respect me but really I’m patronising them blog.
The radical feminists are really right wingers because I’m right wing and in denial blog
“Ladies”, a very funny set of posts. You made me laugh!
On a more serious note . . .
I checked out the conservative blog winner, because I wanted to challenge myself, but didn’t want to have to wade through oceans of muck to find myself an intelligent counterpoint. Very disappointing. No, wait, that’s an understatement. It was disgusting. Why don’t these guys simply call their blogs, games, discussions, places what they are — men’s only space?
The violence was only in words and images, but by the time I finished reading, I couldn’t shake the feeling of filth on my skin and a bad taste in my mouth. I wish a hot shower would clear my head of their sickening confidence, their easy reference to pornography, their reliance on put-downs, insults, and verbal violence to silence critics.
Spare yourselves that sojourn. But if anyone knows of a truly thoughtful conservative blog or two, I’d appreciate the reference. Thanks.
The “I’m so happy my feminism makes your dick hard” blog.
Hey, Twitch, below are some blogs of smart, conservative women from my old world, i.e., they are conservative Christians. Rebecca of Rebecca’s Random Musings is my friend and is a brilliant woman who has occasionally commented to my boards and here over the years. We’ve remained friendly despite my excommunication and all the changes in my life. The rest of the women are women I read on occasion who have interesting and thoughtful things to say and who are, in general, conservative in the way conservative Christian women are.
I honestly cannot recommend a single conservative political blog not written by a woman from my old world to you! But maybe someone else can. They’re all, in my opinion, horrible!
That’s an interesting factoid about conservative Christian women though. Often they are very, very smart. Part of the appeal of fundie-dom to many of them is, believe it or not, the intellectual exercise of mastering the Bible and Christian theology. So long as they stay in their designated roles, they are free to study, debate, write, etc., enjoy the “life of the mind.” But they can’t take center stage, can’t teach over men, etc. Of course not. They would quickly take over and rightly so!
Anyway, a few you might try:
Kyriosity (Valerie’s Blog)
Debbie Maken
Ruthlace
Virginia Postrel
Rebecca’s Random Musings
Since these are Christian women’s blogs, there’s a lot of theology, Christian stuff, etc., but there’s political commentary as well.
Heart
You raise an excellent point.
Have you posted your concerns on the forum for the Weblog Awards?
I’m sure they’d be happy to consider it.
The Blogger Most Addicted To USING CAPITALS THINKING IT MAKES THEIR CRUMMY ARGUMENT BETTER
Yes, butbutbutbut, where are all the women bloggers???Why aren’t there any women bloggers??? Digby knocked them for a loop, but they’re still too stupid to figure it out.
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times labels feminism “dead,” dicks get hard over the sexual fantasy of burying our blogs, yet here we are.
Call me a witch, and thank you very much, but it’s predictable for the “feminist” category to be omitted by male-led blog evaluators, because everybody but feminists of our type want to erase any “feminism” but faux feminism’s flag-waving within the boys’ global system.
Feminists of our type: Whatever words we use (radical feminist, eco-feminist, radical elemental feminist, lesbian feminist, womanist, freedomist, to name a few), we stand for knowing that the male-dominant system is hateful and destructive for harmonious, happy life of conscious and creative beings on our home planet. We don’t want “in,” but out and beyond. We seek a better way. We don’t yet have the tangible reality of a more beneficent world before us, but from wherever we started, we’ve made strides of progress in our own lives and with those around us. We’re the hope for peace. We’re the solution. We rock.
Heart, you get my vote for the blog that holds my fascination among other brilliant fun-time options of sea, sun, heron and familiar cat.
Familiarly yours,
JB
I think the likes of Heart and Twisty can wear their awardlessness with pride, as they say ‘wild horses don’t win rosettes’ .
There is a very good article over at Feral Scholar, Clueless vs Clueless.
Shit, Heart, my blog would win first prize for a hell of a lot of those categories!
*shameface*
Really, though, too true. Popularity contests in general make me wince (not just because I was/am a complete outcast myself)…it’s like, what’s the point of this? Isn’t it the content of a blog that matters, and not how many people read/agree with it?
Add to that the woman-hating/excluding overall tone, and you get a bunch of (white) men masturbating over themselves, as usual.
Anyway, I’m all for a satire of this, in whatever form.
Some categories of my own:
Most Likely To Be Written By A Woman-Hating Robot
Dripping Sarcasm In Every Sentence Award
Biggest Hater Of All Things New And Different, Regardless Of Merit
Least Likely To Be Updated
Most Likely To Be Abandoned in Six Months
Super Acceptable To The Patriarchy In The Name Of Feminism Weirdness Award
Fun with (Intentional) Misreads Honorable Mention
Women, could I go on. And win yet more honors from my own list!
Least Likely To Be Updated
ROFL!!!
HA! CJ, thanks for that early morning laugh! Hee hee.
Well, I don’t think your blog could win all of our sarcastic awards at all!
Helzeph, love it! “Wild roses don’t win rosettes.” We should make that award: “Conscientious Objector to Blog Awards — Wild Roses Don’t Win Rosettes.”
Heart
How about the
‘Wild horses don’t win rosettes’, award-less, award.
Nominees must have
1 A mind that can break free of the patriarchy, jump all of its fences, and hit the ground running on the other side.
2 Not be stained by any evidence of approbation by said institution.
I would like to nominate myself, in the blog most likely never to get started at all, category.
Helzeph,
I would like to nominate myself, in the blog most likely never to get started at all, category.
Hah!
I’ll stand for nomination, too.
Mary, do you think, if we win, we should be entitled, to be officially addressed as, Your Awardlessness.
Ditto, laughter: “Wild horses don’t win rosettes,” and “I would like to nominate myself, in the blog most likely never to get started at all, category.”
At random moments the overwhelming urge to learn the technical stuff necessary to run a blog comes over me. If we all blogged, we could nominate ourselves for the “at least we were nominated” award-less award. Or we could just let Heart do it.
I’m sitting in a public coffee shop with wifi, laughing too LOUD, uppity crone that I am, catching all those disapproving glances that fun is going on.
JB
Yeah, Helzeph! Or the Wild Horses Don’t Win Rosettes Non-Award. Maybe Anti-Award.
Maybe Mary, Helzeph, and JB will start blogging just to get the award, heh heh.
Heart and JB, I am just rolling around.
I think I’ve heard of about two of the winners so I must be out of the loop in the blogsphere. But so many outstanding blogs and female bloggers per usual are ignored, but some how they and us manage to blog just fine regardless.
It’s the connections that are made that most matter and there’s no awards for that and probably shouldn’t be. Blogging about the disappearance of Stacey Peterson, whose married to a police sergeant who’s already had one wife die mysteriously(though her body likely will be exhumed soon because now they don’t think it’s accidental drowning) has led me to other places discussing the same tragedy. It’s a spotlight on what’s happened to her and so many other women in this country and once again asking, how many women can a man “disappear” or kill before anyone calls him on it?
Because apparently, no one can find Stacey’s mom either. It unlocks once more what’s in the world of women facing domestic violence particularly those who are married or partnered or just dating law enforcement officers. The sheer enormity of domestic violence in law enforcement, given that 40% of all law enforcement officers do it, according to a study sheet by the Center for Women and Policing. That’s one example of an issue that women blog on of so many out there in the blogsphere. Issues that the mainstream press even the mainstream bloggers don’t want to touch. Thank goodness for all of us, there are those who do in ways that are brave, fearless and yet vulnerable.
Every blogging experience opens you up to new things, new ideas and new people. It can also unite and reunite people too who are fighting the same battles for justice. It can impassion others to blog too.
There’s no way you can put the price of an award on that.
–Radfem
That’s one example of an issue that women blog on of so many out there in the blogsphere. Issues that the mainstream press even the mainstream bloggers don’t want to touch. Thank goodness for all of us, there are those who do in ways that are brave, fearless and yet vulnerable.
YES. Thank god for us. My sense is that we have to make the most of this moment in history to write about the things no one else will touch. We don’t know how long we will be able to do this as freely as we can today. I look back over my life and remember many times that felt like this, carpe diem moments, and they all passed as quickly as they’d come, though when I was in the midst of those times, I took for granted that things wouldn’t change and those times would continue, but they didn’t, things did change, sometimes very quickly, and in a moment whatever opportunity had presented itself, whatever moment was available to be seized seized, was history.
It’s always good to read you, radfem. I love your new screen name.
Heart
Radfem,
I know you mention that case as an example, but I can’t get it out of my mind.
They ruled that woman’s death an “accidental drowning” and there was no water in the tub!
The hell!
JBSproull, I would love it if you started a blog. You’re a very good, inspiring writer and feminist, and we need as much presence of both on the WWW as possible while it is still a route of free expression. I came to this blog accidentally when Googling the quiverfull movement, which I had just heard mentioned; I was absolutely electrified by Heart and the resources she extends to girls and women. Arriving at this blog literally has given me more hope and purpose, and I have been enriched by searching out the blogs for which Heart gives links. Could anything be better for the recipient or more noble on the part of the woman who provides it than such an lifeline in a hostile world? Bless all of you women.
Heart,
Thanks for the references in post #21.
I declare the whole thing invalid because the one they chose for best Latino/South American (as though that were one category) is truly terrible. They do not have interesting or informed people judging.
Thanks, my old ID got corrupted so I started over.
Gayle, yeah.
There’s also the Wisconsin case where a 20-year-old guy working for two LE agencies killed his ex-girlfriend and five other people.
I was reading the new Ms and they did an article on Pittsburgh Police Department and how five minutes after their court-sanctioned federal consent decree, three out of the four high-ranking officers promoted had serious DV allegations against them either with wives, girlfrends, daughters. They put together a good coalition last June to challenge it.
But it got worse as it turned out 34 officers on the force had protective orders against them for DV.
Heart,
That was a very good explanation of why conservative christian women blog, and how smart they are. They are so incomprehensible to me, and you draw this strange collection of women with such clarity. Women do desire a socially acceptable place, simply to hold adult conversations with one another.
My neighbor with two young children strikes me this way — a woman who wants to talk substance when she is surrounded by unadult minds all day long.
Mary Daly also helped clarify what the difference between theology and philosophy was — theology is stuck with a sacred book, and philosophy is when you are free to follow your own truth, and are not required to stick to a “doctrine.”
So the right wing christian women really are living a life of the mind, but somehow they don’t venture outside this box. They are stuck with a book that was written by men a couple of thousand years ago, and for some reason, they don’t want to update the material. So that is what they are doing in a kind of unconscious way for themselves.
I often think they play an elaborate con game with right wing men; getting the men to think that they are in charge once again.
The right wing women’s blogs and this blog just have a different source of revealed truth.
So we can just continue to expand, so that all the wired radical feminists worldwide can find a place to talk out the issues ignored everywhere else.
This blog gets my “Rossette Award” for most consistently thought provoking and interesting. Also it gets high points for the incredible literacy of the writers. It’s rare on mainstream or liberal feminist blogs to get a grip on the main texts of radical feminism. This type of discussion may only occur in a college classroom, but it is very uncommon out in the world.
Men have been declaring feminism dead for a long time, by the way. It’s wishful thinking, but they keep on doing it.
Radical feminism is either a slow observation of the world around you, or it is a kind of lightning-like insight, that wakes women up suddenly — the way a very vivid dream would.
It is simply to jump awake after a long sleep in creepy illusions, which is what male supremacy is, a very creepy and very long playing illusion.
So let’s keep blogging women, and know that nothing lasts forever. Or as a good friend of mine said so long ago, “the angel has left the room,” when a movement disappears or the passion goes away. Right now, the angel is in this blog room, and it hasn’t left yet.
Satsuma, woman struck with brilliance, I sure hope you are collecting all your writings.
I save your writings by saving these blog threads.
You and Heart each have rare gifts, and share them with us all abundantly. Women will rise. When I read you and Heart, I know that. The most beautiful feeling in the world!
Mary Sunshine,
I take your words as a VERY high compliment! I really am very happy to be here, and to struggle with ideas and concepts to share.
Sometimes you don’t know what you are missing in life. I think this shocking awakening occured when I volunteered to lead a lesbian drop-in discussion group at our local gay and lesbian center.
I’d been out of commission for a long time, dealing with a partner who had a very serious illness for over a decade. She’s getting better, but it really was touch and go for a long time.
This situation of having to deal with attorneys and insurance companies and doctors and treatments, plus running a business was very demanding.
Even though I was in the world, I was missing the time that was going by. This is hard to describe.
At any rate, when I decided that I had a duty to give my best to lesbians coming up in the world — to at least be of service in some small way, it was quite a shocking experience.
They were very angry young women, and had no idea at all of the great legacy of lesbian feminism. If they said the word “feminist” in casual conversation two times in two years, this would have been a lot. Not one woman in two years said the word “goddess”, for example.
Wow, things had gotten bad for my sisters, very bad. I was at a loss how to handle them, since I was the facilitator, and they were like a very bad third grade class gone wild.
Their first topic of discussion, — they would choose topics and then all would vote on what they wanted to talk about for the evening was — you ready for this– S & M and B & D. Poor old Victorian me– I can’t even take swear words, and am such a whimp. 40 women were in the room and you would not believe how many young lesbians were into this stuff.
At first, I thought they must be making this up, this can’t be true. But if you had been there to hear the details and the analysis, well you get the picture.
The group needed a lot of love. They were so hostile and awful to the facilitators, that most women who signed up to lead the group would quit within the first 8 weeks.
I’d never seen lesbians behave this badly towards each other and to volunteers in my life! So I’d bring in extra stuff to share with them, and one time, I typed up 38 questions, and put them all in a hat and passed the hat around.
The questions ranged from: “What was your favorite Halloween candy?” to “Do you believe the witchcraze in Europe was the women’s halocaust?” We brought flashlights, handed out candy, and then women could pick a question and read it outloud and then all would jump in and discuss.
It was magical, and they were shocked at their own brilliance Mary Sunshine, they were just stunned at themselves. All I did was ask a ton of good questions, and then I just sat there and listened. Many women were silent, and I intuited this as functional illiteracy. It was biased towards readers, and so I would do other things too in successive weeks and months.
There was such a great need among these young women, and all of them said that the older generation had disappeared for them.
So this blog will help all women come together I think. Lesbian Nation has always had a weak charter, and a loose structure. But there is a very great need still.
I can see this age segregation, and this inability to access all the great literature of our movement, and there’s an irony to this. The Internet has everything, and yet young women can’t get at it often.
They don’t realize how much they gave up when everything became that damnable LGBT — when they lost that women only space, they became lost, and it is our duty to show what that really is like.
Perhaps we are seeing a regathering once again. A regathering of the witches, or the Amazons or the wooley mammouths — my personal favorite extinct creature…
We’ll gather here, we’ll write our best ideas, we’ll learn to correct our grammar online
and that incredible energy will return to women. In the face of the awful assault on our liberties by you know who, and the patriarchy doing everything in its power to lull conservative women to sleep yet again.
You know the famous Margaret Mead quote about small groups changing the world. Well we’re still doing it, but we also have to know that there are thousands of us worldwide.
30,000 hits in one day here — the record Heart reported.
Once, long ago, I published a little eight page feminist magazine — a monthly – and it went to 300 subscribers all over the world. It had a lot of influence, and to this day, it was one of my proudest achievements. It always made a profit; I was determined that no venture I was involved in would ever lose money — just a point of honor to me.
Now we have these blogs, and free speech has once again returned to that glorious movement known as WOMEN.
We certainly are a crabby, difficult bunch. We just are, but that’s what makes it good in my opinion. We tell the truth as best we can, and then struggle with it!
We use words like “oppression” and “hierachies of privlege” and we continue on with the great work of dismanteling patriarchy one brick at a time –
So the right wing christian women really are living a life of the mind, but somehow they don’t venture outside this box. They are stuck with a book that was written by men a couple of thousand years ago, and for some reason, they don’t want to update the material. So that is what they are doing in a kind of unconscious way for themselves.
I often think they play an elaborate con game with right wing men; getting the men to think that they are in charge once again.
You are very close to correct in that last sentence! In my old world/life there was this ongoing issue about women “usurping” their husbands/authorities’/pastors’/”coverings”/elders’ authority. It was often so obvious that the brains of the family was the WOMAN, the person “keeping at home.” This was nowhere more evident than in the house churches we had (there was and still is, I think, a fairly extensive house church movement where fringe-y, totalist Christians, having left the church because it is too “lukewarm,” or compromised somehow or whatever, have house church, i.e., church in their homes. I had church in my house with other families for years.) Anyway, in these meetings, women and girls had to remain silent and the boys and men “taught”, and led (theoretically). Quite often it became VERY obvious that the spiritual leader of the various houses could not have been the man! Based on what these guys “taught” and the way they “contributed”!
Anyway, after our meetings, we’d have potluck supper together and we’d all talk, often about theology, or what the men had “shared” as we called it, and the women would end up doing most of the talking while the men sat there with their teeth in their mouths. HA. So then inevitably, one or some of the men would get sticks up their butt about it and start handing down teachings either directly or through the “brothers” that the men were supposed to be the spiritual heads, women were supposed to be talking about the home and things pertaining to women, and they were not supposed to be teaching doctrine! And they’d get after women who wanted to engage the men about things publicly, saying Paul said women were supposed to ask their husbands at home, not at the meeting, there they were supposed to be quiet.
If the women said, as they often did, that their husbands weren’t that interested and didn’t study the Bible and so could not answer their questions or teach them anything, the response was that the women should pray and not bother her husband about it and not teach him because it is in women’s nature to usurp their husbands’ authority (see: Eve), women are “easily deceived,” and even if their husband is dufusly uneducated and uninterested in anything, they should still be asking him because his inner chromosomal wisdom will still be reliable.
It’s very, very sick.
Conservative Christian women don’t only study the Bible, they study Christian history and the great theologians of their particular branch of the faith as well. When they study all of this, it is to understand what God was trying to communicate through the writers. There are many paradigms for assessing this, many approaches to biblical hermeneutics, as it’s called. And the various theologians and heroes of the faith disagreed with each other all over the place, so there is plenty of room for fairly intense disagreement and debate which Christians do all of the time. And that then leads to more study, more reading, more discussing, a lot of which goes on during the day between Christian women at home, either on the phone or on the internet, while their husbands are at work.
But it’s very true that being in this world allows for women to pursue study and the things of the mind in a way they find few outlets for outside the church, unless they are in academia, unless they are feminists or involved in politics or the arts. If they are just married, going to work everyday, or staying home, and do not have these outside involvements, those are the women I think you are finding to be boring, and I would have to agree in many cases, although sometimes these women get involved in creating things, sewing or pottery or weaving or knitting, and I find this interesting. Or music. Or they are involved with their animals. Or their gardens are to die for. All of this is good, creative, intelligent work that is to be respected, I think, despite its having been stereotyped as “women’s work.” Sometimes you have to poke around, find out where apparently boring women’s hearts are.
If they are involved with television, shopping, their appearance, kids, etc., and that’s it, well, yeah, BORE ING.
!!
But it’s very obvious why so many women end up in totalist religion. It’s for the reason I did: I could pursue the life of the mind, within certain limits, could write, speak, ended up publishing a very successful magazine. You can have ongoing interaction and intimacy with the other women in your community. All the women help each other in all sorts of ways, in raising kids, birthing kids, taking care of each others’ kids, gardening, making stuff, and just being friends. They go on retreats together, have women’s groups, book clubs, etc. They have real community, in other words.
This is what feminism historically has had, and it’s what women need!
As opposed to going to GLBT gatherings filled with males where everybody’s all about SM as a lifestyle, argh. A few years ago I checked out the Lesbian Resource Center here in Seattle, which goes back to the early 70s, one of the earliest Lesbian Resource Centers in the U.S. I was SO disappointed. There was no hint anywhere of any sort of feminist interest, but there were regular meetings for SM people (!!), and then all sorts of recovery stuff, queer stuff, and *of course*, transgender stuff for days.
I’ll be back!
Heart
Living as much outside “the box” as possible, waiting for “the box” of patriarchy (and male-identified blogs) to collapse of hubris, I’ve been amazed at how this topic of feminist blogs has a robust spiral life (more than a room) of it own.
We’re wonderful ^-^ Just by being here, by sharing our authenticity, we’re so very wonderful. It’s a power of conscious movement we spin to bless all of us.
Recently, as an energy worker, interfaith minister (entirely outside man-made walls) and social service activist, I was asked to speak at an interfaith women’s conference held in an Omni Hotel right here in south Texas where most of the attendees wear bible-belts in their all-women’s groups for the reasons of Christian women’s affiliation Heart has described. I accepted the engagement as an experiment, knowing that radical feminism was not anything I had time to explain or discuss in the allotted time about the generic power of “faith” to change lives. For this audience, I used the language of women helping one another (and leaving men to their own devices), because if we don’t help one another, nobody will. We laughed. They all “got it.”
I’m very appreciative of what Level Best (post #38) wrote; and kudos back to you. Also this week, Dani (Allecto), who posts here as another amazing writer among so many talented radical feminist writers — how ’bout an award for Heart’s blog having only good contributing writers? — encouraged me in email about starting a blog.
What follows is what I wrote to Dani:
“About the blog idea: I sometimes mull it over. If I could only figure how (or if) it’s possible to blog from my non-tech head and my stance outside the box of patriarchy where I prefer not to have an ISP but to use free wifi where it’s available over tea/coffee or at the library … I only have a cell-phone these days, and the Earthlink wifi for-profit subscription “war” in Corpus Christi, TX, is a little silly at the moment, but bottom line, even if I paid for a wireless subscription, I’m not sure I could catch a signal from where I live. This may display a huge ignorance, but I’m assuming I’d need a paid internet subscription to have an effective blog (or access to lots of online time, which I don’t have given that I use a laptop and free wifi most of the time outside the late-night and weekend hours that may be needed for a blogger to be effective). Then there’s also the time it takes most of us to “actualize abundance,” aka, be able to pay the rent, etc., while we’re still in this patriarchal time before our living has taken off in new/old, clan-of-choice, land-living, gift cultures.
Live Journal seems like such a great concept, and I signed up; however, and I expect you’ll laugh, I tried to post to your friends page, and found my words being taken up as an addendum to another of your friends’ posts (probably because I hit the wrong key, or something else I couldn’t undo). The greater truth about my computer reluctance is that I love to interact in real time, face to face, and I find computer “stuff” a bit too virtual to bring me great joy, so I’m reluctant to apply myself to learning more about it. Preferring weekend “free” cell-phone minutes for friends within the US, I rarely email anybody outside the relatively few of you [Heart’s blog, mainly] who are representative of the best strength of womankind all around the world.
I’m so naturally empathic, in a world of physical atrocities by men against women and children, finding spiritual joy of an everlasting natural-cosmological Love is vital for my being able to keep going (and for my being able not to disdain the men who are at least trying among themselves to be humane). If I’m meant to have a radfem blog, I trust that the way to do it will present itself by synchronicity. We all have our own ways for being the most help to the forward movement of creative evolution; and the Help/Love/Truth to do things seems to come when it’s right and wise in a particular life, and has been invoked (or at least, that’s been my experience). ”
Strong, Joyous, Powerful Invocation of Love,
JB
What’s so bad, among other things, about this erasure of feminism or its eclipsing by GLBT politics (which are often at odds with feminism and what is good for women) is, we all need feminism so, so much. I got this comment yesterday to the thread about the Haitian woman and her son. The commenter didn’t want me to approve the comment, but just needed to say what she had to say. I don’t think she’ll mind if I post an excerpt without her name:
I think we all often feel this way, so to encounter theoretically progressive people or GLBT activists who seem to be unconcerned, not only about how what they are doing affects women, but who don’t even seem to care about women, or don’t really want to know, ho-hum, another atrocity, another rape/murder, is horrible.
It would be fine for feminism to be subsumed within GLBT if GLBT was feminist! But it is not. In fact, I have encountered many queer-identified, GLBT activists who are in every respect conservative, sexist, misogynist, whose activism encompasses only issues which will directly benefit them, i.e., issues which will benefit gay men, if they are G, or bisexual people if they are B, or transgender people if they are T. Very often my experience is this group of people has virtually no knowledge or understanding of feminist issues or history.
Heart
women are “easily deceived,” and even if their husband is dufusly uneducated and uninterested in anything, they should still be asking him because his inner chromosomal wisdom will still be reliable.
HA! I remember this one. So funny. Enraging, obviously, but really very funny also.
“Moral/theological dilemma a bit beyond your child-like womanly understanding? Be sure to call in your dufusly uneducated and uninterested in anything husband, he can simply consult his, uh, magic 8-balls…and get back to you with just the right proclamation!”
HA! “Magic 8-balls”.
The Apostate has a related link up that is very good. Actually she’s got a bunch of good stuff up right now. I’m adding her to me blogroll.
Heart
There was a post by Heart somewhere out there talking about LGBT and the notable absense of feminism.
Here’s the equation I came up with, inspired by I think one of Mary Sunshine’s math problems that I loved.
LGBT = No feminism at all
Feminism = no lesbian issues at all (except for token “you’re allowed to be here type stuff)
Right wing women = closet feminists
Feminists = hostility to right wing women’s issues
Well, hey I’m trying here. It still isn’t the best math yet.
I sometimes think all women are feminists, but that they are often afraid to fully express themselves openly as thinking women. So straight women have devised all these ways to placate men, and to build up their egos — women “allow” men to be the head of household, or the church leaders, even though they actually know the theology better, and the men can’t talk as articulately about it in an informal setting — this was Heart’s take on her house church experiences.
Have you ever noticed how truly bad conversationalists men really are once they are on the ground with no microphones and no power roles? I’ve worked with women for years, and then by chance I might meet the woman and her husband. He is almost always this dull lump of boredom, and it is the woman who is fully socially alive. Women are expected to be the social experts, men can be the dumb lumps of yuck, and that is considered ok socially in hetero situations. It really makes me sick to see this all the time.
Lesbian issues are very different from straight feminist issues, because one of our main issues is just having safe social space. We want to be able to go out to a nice restaurant with our partners and not have rude straight people staring at us, or having to be put at the “lesbian table” next to the kitchen door. This happens all the time to me, by the way.
This basic desire for social space is completely ignored by straight women, who seem to have no awareness of this at all.
How would they know? It never happens to them.
The feminist movement really dropped the ball on lesbian issues long ago, and I think a lot of lesbian feminists just got tired of working all the time on issues that had no consequence for us. You know the usual suspects.
Gays and lesbians united over the AIDS epidemic, and the two groups came together to build gay and lesbian centers in major cities. Since straight feminists were not involved with these projects, that kind of feminism just evaporated from the movement.
I think straight women feel highly ambivilent about lesbians because we are so outside their social structure that I don’t think much connection is really possible. There isn’t enough shared social space devoted to the lives and issues of lesbians. I think this is why I get so mad at straight women all the time — the constant social irritation factor.
Women in general are very afraid of the word “feminism” these days. I never hear it spoken at major women’s events (read straight women celebrating themselves). So I feel very detached at these events, almost indifferent one way or the other.
I don’t see much of a way out for this kind of impasse because the very culture of straight women puts them in harms way of patriarchs up close and at the dinner table, so to speak.
We would not be able to defer to men and play those games even if we wanted to. Radical lesbian feminists kick men’s butts all the time. We have no feeling for our enemies at all, and we keep wondering why straight women put up with the offensive condescention right wing men persistly display towards women in general. Just the tones of voices these “christian men” use around women makes me want to shoot them dead. I don’t think a lot of straight women hear that tone of voice, or they are so used to this life, that they can’t imagine a life without any men at all.
Men will ruin women’s space all the time. There is not one social space where men come that they don’t do damage to women. This is very clear to me, because I have a very separate social and personal life from men, so I really know the difference when I see them at work. They become more alien than ever, but again, straight women really have not had the opportunity to develop this view of just what and who men really are.
I think men live in constant fear that one day women will rise up in the world, and the anger will be so explosive that they will cease to exist on the planet. They know that this could happen, and so they give way when women collectively fight for change. They are good at adapting patriarchy to fool women again and again.
No man would sit in a church where he was called an inferior person from a pulpit — but women listen to men say this publically against them all the time. It’s as if they don’t even know they are being insulted.
I on the other hand hear the insults constantly, and I have become very brutal in counterattacking at every chance I get.
We have a long way to go in terms of straight women and lesbians. I don’t hold out much hope of real connection, because they will always have these enemies in tow. They won’t see the insults, they don’t seem to have the kind of anger I have, or the ablility to fully express it without reservation.
This explosive anger at enemies is the sine qua non of freedom in my opinion.
All of this thread’s posts are so substantive I feel inadequate to comment on a great deal of what has been said. There is a corncucopia of learning, life experience, heritage, and passion here. On one “liberal feminist” blog there is a male commenter who often reverts to “you women like to complain but what are you doing?” arguments. Perhaps that is how a lot of our analyses in this sacred space appears to the patriarchs, but in truth we are comparing thoughts and experiences to try to (1) disentangle women’s truth from the boggling matrix of lies and injustices we are forced to inhabit (2) explain our varied lives, journeys, and perceptions to one another and (3) arrive at understandings between one another that allow us to inspire and help all women. I want to point out to younger readers that despite opposition and the general gutting of women’s presses and bookstores, some of the great thinkers of radical feminism/lesbian separatism are still publishing. For example, Mary Daly has two recent books, Quintessence and Amazon Grace, that discuss the the relationship between quantum physics, alternate realities, and the pockets of past women’s power (prehistoric communities, First Wave American feminism, Second Wave, etc.) that she describes as the feminist foreground. By becoming aware of and focusing our attention on the feminist foreground we may “realize” women’s freedom in times to come. I think some of you are open to this mystical concept, but even the most “brass tack” thinkers among you (hello, Satsuma–what a brain you have!!) have communicated that we must know, pass on, and protect our heritage to inspire each other, younger women, and future women in order to bring about freedom. Ideas precede action. And let us hang together in our common purpose (as our conquering enemies have) and not be alienated from one another. We are our hope.
The Weblog Awards do primarily exist to drive attendance at the BlogWorldExpo in Las Vegas, which this year (confounding my expectations drew a surprisingly large attendance of prominent (and not-so prominent) bloggers.
There were apparently (I didn’t attend) a number of panel discussions on issues like monetizing blogs (not surprising) and raising the general level of blog discourse, particularly along the right-left divide (surprising.) And of course, there was a merchandising mart where bloggers could meet various platform developers, etc. By most accounts, attendees were overall pleased with the event.
Regarding the annointing of category winners, with an open voting system, obviously the higher-trafficked blogs have the edge over lesser-known, but often just as worthy blogs. That’s a pity. I’d like to see something more like a peer-review panel thingy to pick the winners, but then we get into the whole “who gets to be a judge” icky ball of wax.
As for Pam Spaulding losing to a “white gay male” (me), it’s worth noting that the lovely Ms. Pam won for Best LGBT Blog for the last two years. She’s was also kind enough to take the podium on my behalf this year, but she’s classy that way.
I too would like to see a Best Feminist Blog category. Perhaps since feminist bloggers often write (as do I) on a wide category of topics (politics, anti-war, gay rights, etc), the awards administrators had difficulty discerning feminism as a specific niche. No idea on that, really, but from my limited communications with the Weblog Awards guys, they seem to be the sort that would be receptive to adding Best Feminist Blog next year, should they be lobbied to do so.
Come to think of it, perhaps MY blog should go into a new Best Trans Blog category next year, since thanks to ENDA, I’ve written more about transgender rights than anything else for the last few months. Or would I have to be trans to be considered? For that matter, could a man be considered for Best Feminist blogger? I sure wouldn’t want to upset the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival people. I kid, I kid.
Joe.(gay white male tool of the patriarchy)My.God.
Hey Joe My God.
Nice to know that about Pam, she’s good people.
I don’t know about the awards just in general though. I mean, what does it mean to “win” — especially as a progressive/feminist, heck even as a liberal, conservative, whatever! — when FARK wins for “best community”? I commented about this in the Wild Horses thread, quoting Rich over at Adonis Mirror:
Link
I mean, this doesn’t make me want to have my blog in the competition, this makes me want to protest the thing!
Well, I’ll check out what you said about ENDA, nice to meet you.
Heart
Blogs entertain people at work. It’s nice to pretend they can be something more than that. But they don’t foster community even remotely as well as the forums that used to be the in-thing. Nor do they promote the original research and writing that real journals do: compare the output of the most celebrated portion of the “feminist blogosphere” to, say, the output of Blackcommentator.com. (There is no longer any real feminist equivalent online!) Yeah, Commentator IS THAT much better. They’re also facing a $24,000 shortfall.
Of course, bloggers for the most part don’t face that problem (and if they do, they can sell out to porn like Barry Deutsch; or maybe just accept free trips to Amsterdam like a few other feminist bloggers), we can keep going, no problem. On the other hand, the monetization of blogging doesn’t lead to better content. It sometimes leads to people launching writing careers having never written anything before besides wonky and quirky headlines about a headline that aired a day or so previously in the NY Times. Good for them, we can all be jealous of their success until people wise up to the fact that not all hot-personalities can actually write. But mostly it just makes money for corporations, astro-turfing companies (fake grass roots initiatives), and a few people who make a good showing at all the conventions.
But it doesn’t lead to better content.
Feminism as a “niche” market… Would they say that African American civil rights was a niche market I wonder?
I personally think the win-contest-best in show– stuff out there is kind of distracting. If we are sincere in our political passion, then our ideas alone will provide the connections radical feminists need to thrive on our own territory giving quarter to no man and no patriarchy.
***
“By becoming aware of and focusing our attention on the feminist foreground we may “realize” women’s freedom in times to come.” — That quote by Level Best really sums it up for me.
I have long believed that radical lesbian feminism is a mystical concept as well as a social reality. And I loved Mary Daly’s latest books for that reason as well.
It is the power of women thinking and talking together in a radical feminist community that is the power.
We now know that this will be a minority of feminists worldwide, and yet, its power is in the lack of compromise and the naming of the enemy in no uncertain terms that creates power among women.
This blog is about that dream, and look at the quality of the writing that is the result!
Our lack of tentative natures, and male pleasing idiocy that just about every women’s group I come across feels compeled to engage in speaks for itself.
I agree that we should have the category of BEST FEMINIST BLOG, but I think only women should submit entries to this. I don’t consider men feminists. They never have been they never will be, and we certainly have enough male commentary to flush out a million city sewage systems with.
Womens’ political commentary as women is what is so badly needed on the web. I don’t care if I ever hear another male point of view as long as I live, because my sisters out there are so filled with power and energy right now.
We were powerful when we had this idea initially — consciousness raising groups had no men in them, and we should continue in this tradition now.
When feminism engaged men in groups, that was its destruction in my opinion. When women make the massive shift worldwide to this posture, the world will change over night. If we engage in “male contests” with men possibly “winning” a stacked deck of best feminist blog, well, we’ll fall into that damn trap yet again.
Let’s not go there!
@ Satsuma
Men can’t be feminists? Really? Do you expect to be able to achieve your goals in man-free vacuum, without male allies?
Interesting.
I can’t imagine what cred you’d consider necessary, but what it’s worth, I think of myself as a feminist. Maybe I’m kidding myself.
There are certainly hetero gay activists. Witness P-FLAG, for example. Can the same paradigm not apply here?
For your (probably slight) amusement, here’s a giggle of a conversation from earlier this year on my blog: http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2007/03/homophonics.html
Joe
Thank you Satsuma. There is so much power and inspiration in your words. May many more women hear them.
@ joemygod:
We don’t need you.
You’d make a better “ally” by telling other males that women don’t need them, than by trying to insist to us that we do.
This is just another way that you males make nuisances of yourselves.
Message received.
I won’t return.
I think men can be profeminist, can be allies, can be supportive. I like it when I encounter men who get it and who care about women.
Can men be feminists? My experience is, most men who are allies to women don’t identify as feminists, but as profeminists. Part of that might be, they are sick of all the male misogynists out there who insist (over femininist women’s objections) that they are feminists! Like good ol’ what’s-his-face, the porn video reviewer who used to stalk us all on the Ms boards, eager to describe various scenes out of the XXX porno flicks he’d been watching avidly for decades. His name starts with an S. Hey, pretty cool, I can’t remember his name! Anyway, he would regale us with such gems as that pornography was feminist and pro-woman because it helped him get over his revulsion over women’s genitalia! (He’s het. He just wanted to stick his dick in, he didn’t want to look at it, touch it, and for god’s sake keep it away from his mouth!) When he got called out and told he was no feminist and shut up, please, he would insist we were wrong because he had a NOW card and paid his dues.
In the face of this kind of feminism, a lot of male allies decide on different ways to describe the work they do!
I’m not including you in that latter group Joe My God, I’m speaking generally. I’ve appreciated what you’ve had to say here and will visit your blog.
Heart
Sheldon. That was his name. What a dude.
I surfed over here as Google Blogsearch popped my name up in this thread. I’m sorry to see Joe.My.God treated in a less-than-courteous manner by some. I could have been a sore loser at the Weblog awards, but as he said I’ve won twice, and to me it’s more about building bridges and respect for your fellow bloggers – it’s why it wasn’t a second thought for me to accept the award when he was unable to attend the award.
And of course men can be feminists; my brother is most certainly one, and his wife wouldn’t have it any other way.
Peace to all.
Hey, Pam.
So…
Do you think we’re just being sore losers?
Heart
Well, I don’t think we’re being sore losers.
Here’s what I think. I think that it really doesn’t make sense to have these Weblog awards. It doesn’t work, I don’t think, in the way it wouldn’t work to lump all periodicals together — everything from TIME Magazine, to the Seattle Times, to Women’s Day, to MAD Magazine, to Playboy and Hustler, to the National Review, to the Washington Blade, the Stranger, Christianity Today, Mothering, Sports Illustrated, and so on — and then give out awards in broad categories like “Liberal” and “Conservative” and “GLBT.”
It’s a culture wars kind of a deal, I think. Liberals and Conservatives exist across these many, apparently diverse, categories, for one thing. The Hustler “community” is not a community that can be compared to the Mothering Magazine “community” or to the MAD Magazine “community. We would have to define community.
And that’s really the problem. There are some men somewhere, interested in making money from the blogosphere, establishing these categories without respect *to* these communities, or what the blogs they are categorizing are really all about.
So, I don’t think we’re being sore losers. I think it sucks to be invisible. I think there are legitimate concerns around this kind of contest because all of us, as bloggers, ultimately are affected by these things, so it makes sense to me that we talk about it. I think to have a contest like this work — leaving aside the issue of whether it even is a good idea or not — someone would need to consult bloggers and ask us what we think, *before* creating the contest, creating the conference, soliciting money, etc.
Heart
From the experience of our hurts, we all have moments when we might feel vindicated (not to mention safer and saner) to circle the wagons of womanhood, yet I’m hopeful for a more creative evolution.
Blogs may or may not be there.
Dream for a moment. Entertain whimsy. What would you want us to be as intelligent creatures if the world could be re-made to your fondest imaginings?
We would not be writing to Heart’s blog if we did not want to be sentient creatures unhindered by the male-dominant war against womankind and other interconnected creatures. Perhaps we could start right now by living as much as possible in our own creative peace, letting pro-feminist men work on their own greater compassion, while working on ourselves to build the community wherever we live that is everything we’d want it to be.
As a focus for dreaming, I like the term, “fauna sapiens,” for evolving out-of-humanity, coined in a Sheri Tepper novel written 15-20 years ago when she had a feminist sensibility before becoming more mainstream sci-fi (and starting to sell better, duh; our loss). She ended one of her books with this philosophical question (paraphrased): “What to become now that we are no longer man?”
For “human beings” all to evolve having wombs, whether or not we use them, might eliminate many of the “war” problems, organically. We might also evolve to procreating more as she-bears do, but parthenogenetically. Maybe wombs will become obsolete in a new way of spinning new life where the organic cauldron lives in the roots of our familiar trees. Everything evolves. New earth-like planets are forming among the star systems as I type. Yes, we live here now, and build the best lives we can, but we might also hold the space for consciousness to weave an end to the male-dominant war against women by creative evolution.
All of my best political activism doesn’t seem to have made a dent in misogyny overall. Nobody else is making a dent, either, in the overall war. This isn’t the fault of talent or motivation among women; it is also not to suggest that activism be ended among women called to do non-violent work (or when a need for compassion presents itself in our daily lives). Still, the ante of woman-hating has been substantially upped in my adult lifetime.
Now I’m a crone, reaching for any way that combines all of the best radical feminism/womanist philosophy, quantum physics, chaos theory and systems biology ideas I’ve ever studied or practiced —- Nature-Spirit-Cosmos-Magic-Mysticism-Metaphysics (Goddess, Christ, Gaia, call it whatever you want, this is the everlasting energy of the Good as a three-year-old’s simplicity might define “Good” — happy, free, creatively alive, affiliative, yet individually resonant. In this “Good,” nobody is the boss of you. (All three-year-olds understand this.)
I hope that together we can join our intention to bring about creative evolution for this and future generations. The baby’s giggle deserves no less, and our grown-up laughter seeks the space of real freedom.
Strong Love,
JB
I was waiting for someone to suggest we were all sore losers! About damn time!
I am a sore loser as it happens. I am very upset that I didn’t receive Best Blogger With A Plantlike Name Beginning With L Who Has A Pen On Her Blog Picture Award. I am very annoyed the category didn’t even come up, because, not to be arrogant, but I would have been a shoe-in! (spelling?)
And then of course there’s Best Princess Martyr Vicious Anti-Sex Misandrist Blog… my name wasn’t even mentioned! Where’s my recognition? Where’s my plaque? Where’s my sparklepony?* Where’s my Sexxay suggestive comment from a right-on pornsick liberal male femanist?
Sore Loser Laurelin, sulking before running off to censor much free speech.
*what the hell is a sparklepony, anyway? I keep hearing the word, but it still doesn’t make any sense to me.
Ahhh, it should have been ’shoo-in’. Duh to me.
Apologies. I am insomniac and in a very funny mood!
For the record — men are not allies at all. They slow my mind down, and they have no intention of giving up any of their power.
Women are half the world, and we need to start acting like it.
I find men useless to the world of uncompromising freedom for women, and why we waste time on alliances with these creatures is beyond me. Geez. Radical lesbian feminism is about the absense of men, and the creation of women’s power communities. We need to stake claim to our own internet, our own political worlds.
Seems simple to me!
I am very upset that I didn’t receive Best Blogger With A Plantlike Name Beginning With L Who Has A Pen On Her Blog Picture Award. I am very annoyed the category didn’t even come up, because, not to be arrogant, but I would have been a shoe-in! (spelling?)
And then of course there’s Best Princess Martyr Vicious Anti-Sex Misandrist Blog…
ROFLMAO!!! HA!
Re sparkle ponies, I think the one and only Ginmar coined that one, and it has something to do, maybe, with My Little Ponies marketed to girls, with all the sparkles and long (pink) hair to comb and long girly eyelashes and princess tiaras and so on.
Or maybe I made that up. :p
And yeah, I definitely agree with you, Satsuma, that we need to carve out our own internet space and make power communities. “Power communities” has a nice ring to it!
Heart
Oh I remember My Little Ponies! I had them when I was young. In fact I’ve still got one somewhere, called Applejack. It would be interesting to see if they’ve got ‘girlier’ over the years… it’s my vague impression that they are sparklier and more elaborate than ‘in my day’, but I could be wrong.
I don’t think Pam inferred anyone was a sore loser…but I can’t tell if anybody really thinks that she did, or if talking about that is just part of the general anti-blog-award joking.
I didn’t know if Pam was inferring that, which is why I asked her about it. But, she didn’t come back and answer. Since I was thinking about it, I wrote about it and as usual, off we went, talking more about it.
I wasn’t meaning to accuse Pam of accusing us of anything. It’s just that I had been expecting someone somewhere to accuse us of being ’sore losers’, and I felt my dumbass jokes couldn’t wait any longer
I think it’s now only fair that I mention some of the nominations for blogs which I would win:
*Blogger Who Reads Blogs By People She Always Disagrees With And Wonders Why She Gets Pissed Off Award.
*Most Pompous When Angered Or Threatened Blog
*Blog Most Over- Using The Words ‘Courage’, ‘Vanity’, ‘Integrity’, ‘Ain’t’ (or, alternatively, ‘Most In Need Of A Damned Thesaurus’ Blog)
*Most Can’t Be Arsed To Fiddle With The Template Blog
*Most Explaining Everything Twenty Zillion Times Blog
*Most Wasting Heart’s Time With Dumbass Jokes On Her Blog Blogger
Thank you to my readers, and everyone else who nominated me. Thank you. I have no acceptance speech, but I am always magnanimous in victory.
HA!! Good idea.
Awards to myself from myself
:
“Most Determined to Push Boulder Uphill Despite Crushed Shoulder and Non-Moving Boulder”
“Unfailingly Optimistic For No Good Reason Award”
“Most Likely to Actually Write Only One or Two Installments of Intended ‘Series’ of Posts”
And sorry, Laurelin, but *I* am the hands down winner of “Most Explaining Everything Twenty Zillion Times Blog”
:p
Heart