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“And a blog didn’t have to end, as essays do. It simply had to stop.”
—Nora Ephron, Author, Filmmaker, and HuffPost Blogger
I was going to call this post “in conclusion,” but what I have learned from this project is that blogs don’t have a beginning or end in the way that books or newspaper articles do. A blog is not just about one url, but about the entire blogosphere community who absorbs it. Blogs are changing the way that we think about media, the news, and even human interaction. Many people just chance upon Feministing (perhaps, after seeing the link on the Huffington Post homepage) and have their lives shift when they begin to see themselves as a feminist who can enact change. Blogs are so much more than a new news medium. As The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging explains, “A key difference between mainstream journalism and the blogosphere (the community of bloggers on the web) is that blogs are just that: a community.” The readers understand this – that they are the coenzymes that bring the interaction together. Blogs, particularly Feministing, can shape the views of others, who impart that knowledge on even other people, creating an advancing circle of people all influenced by the same blog. Blogs are about the experience and the interaction. Melinda wrote to me: “Unlike most forms of writing, many blogs also give you the option to comment, and to start a dialogue with the writer or even other commenters, rather than just reading something in isolation and processing it for yourself.” Blogs allow discourse to occur that was not possible only a generation ago, and will probably lead the way towards even more advanced media and community.
The fragmentation of cross-generational feminist relationships was one of the few downfalls of a campaign that helped both blogging and feminist communities grow exponentially. Bloggers in particular played a huge role in the most recent election, helping candidates spread their message, as well as calling them out on every small mistake. In the HuffPo Guide, Arianna Huffington points to youth as playing a major part in the surge of politically motivated blogging.
“The 2008 campaign has been the first truly twenty-first century-century presidential race. We have entered the era where candidates routinely announce their candidacy, try out and place campaign ads, and raise hundreds of millions of dollars online. And they are connecting to voters via increasingly interactive websites.
By going online, campaigns are able to engage a whole new generation of young voters who spend so much of their time – and get so much of their information – online. It’s where they get their news; it’s where they share their views (and their pictures, videos, favorite songs, diaries, and more). It’s how they stay connected to their friends – and how they can become connected to candidates. Politics and technology are intersecting like never before.”
In looking at the differences between the 2008 and 2004 presidential elections, one of the main things that people mention is the increased role of technology – including blogging – in 2008. When the “Swift Boat Veterans” aired commercials telling untruths about John Kerry, his supporters had few means to retaliate and set the record straight. In 2008, when rumors spread about Barack Obama (and other candidates), bloggers could immediate respond, often having enough of an impact to be invited on news channels for prime-time interviews. Bloggers could debate and sift through which candidates they supported, having open, public, conversations never before possible. The influence of blogs became incredibly apparent, when, after a contributor to the Silicon Valley Moms Blog wrote a post criticizing Elizabeth Edwards for staying on the campaign trail after being diagnosed with cancer, Edwards herself responded in the comments section only hours later.
Campaigns themselves began to use blogging and social networking as a way of energizing the base and trying to gain supporters. From my own experience with the Obama campaign, I know that we often utilized “MyBO,” the networking component of barackobama.com to target supporters and plan events. One of the most impacting stories, however, is from while I working on the primary campaign in Roseburg, Oregon, a very conservative part of the country. One of our most dedicated volunteers had originally signed up for a MyBO account after reading one of the campaign’s blogs. He had always been a republican, and still identified as one, but when we contacted him after his information was entered in our database, he agreed to go to a townhall with Senator Obama. The experience ended up exciting and moving him so much, that he not only became an ardent supporter, but began to volunteer. This man would ride his motorcycle around his conservative neighborhood, canvassing for the candidate he had connected with. Without the new media involved with the campaign, this never would have happened.
Feministing seized the opportunity that their unique position as a blog afforded them throughout the entire election. Obviously, the contributors continued to report on news – including that which was election related – but they took great efforts to call out racism on the campaign trail, respond to the debates and keep an eye on campaign blogs. Feministing writers helped to clarify ballot initiatives and guided their readers to the votes they preferred. Now that the election is over, they are “highlighting the huge bump in youth energy, engagement and organizing through the Obama campaign and election and inspired by the hope that young people will embark upon a life-long careers in public service.”
Obama would likely not have won without the strong grassroots base of support he enjoyed, which was largely fostered through online communities. People planned events, asked for donations, and organized volunteers both on the official Obama website, as well as private blogs. For the first time, virtual phone banking was available on campaign websites, and canvassing material could be downloaded any time of day. Elections suddenly became participatory and open. People could read daily posts about the happenings of all the daily candidates. Blogging, which started off with a few nerdy kids on old-school computers in their dorm rooms, is now the way in which the president-elect chooses to give his weekly addresses.
Feministing bloggers proudly proclaim their identities as feminists in a time when many people consider it a dirty word, and youth (who, in actuality might agree with feminist tenets) generally shy away from the term. The action that Feministing tries to generate and influence is markedly feminist, as are most of their posts. Yet, the tools and methods they employ seem light years away from what many associate with the Feminist Movement.
I think that it is important to reflect on how the feminist bloggers of today are connected with older feminists and feminists of the past. For me, a personal shift occurred in the way I view the women’s movement when I went to hear Ruth Bade Ginsburg speak at NYU two years ago. The friend who introduced her, Burt Neuborne, had worked with Ginsburg in the early 70’s when she was director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, and he talked about some of the landmark cases she argued during that time. In 1971, she put two names he did not recognize on her brief for Reed v. Reed (an important lawsuit where the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution was extended to women for the first time). He was curious about who these women, Dorothy Kenyon and Pauli Murray, were, so he investigated and found out that both had worked behind the scenes for women’s rights from the 1930’s–60’s. This was Ginsburg’s case. She had tried it, and she had won it, but she still gave credit to two of her predecessors who had not directly contributed in any way. At the beginning of her talk, Justice Ginsburg, reiterated that Murray and Kenyon had worked just as hard as she, but that the world was not yet ready to listen to them. The fact that a woman of such esteem still recognizes the efforts of those who came before her really floored me.
I think that all of the women from the last century (and before) who have worked towards women’s rights are integrally connected like a tower of legos, built one block on top of the other. Had it not been for other activists, the Feministing bloggers might not even have the ability to express their views so freely online. Analiese actually feels like the work of Feministing is not very divergent from past feminist projects, just utilizing a new medium.
“I think that Feministing is very much a part of today’s feminist movement and will be part feminist history. Feministing is our generation’s use of the media for our causes. It’s the monthly pamphlet/newsletter sent out in the past except it’s daily and it’s accessible by anyone with an internet connection.”
One big feature of Feministing is the weekly“Friday Feminist Fuck Yeah” YouTube video series, highlighting positive issues such as Rachel Maddow’s new MSNBC show and the fact that Henry Rollins plugged Feministing, and the “Friday Feminist Fuck You” videos talking about major concerns such as anti-choice pharmacists and Bill O’Reilly’s sexist remarks about Michelle Obama. Admittedly, the video series seems incredibly removed from first wave feminists fighting for women’s suffrage, but it can also be seen as just an updated version of the same tactics. In many ways, the struggles women face are very much the same.
What Feministing does allow for, however, is a reconfiguring of who can be a feminist and get involved. As I’ve said before, the community holds no formal limits. Melinda expounded on this, saying:
“Since technology plays such a big part in bringing people together these days, I think that it is good to have a place like this to stay connected. Past feminist movements have been so fragmented – some of the first were primarily focused on rights for white women, and unfortunately, I feel like there are still divides within the feminist movement based on issues of race, class, etc. I like that Feministing covers stories and areas of the world that are so diverse and that are at different points in developing a feminist ethic; it’s a way of placing importance on every woman’s issues, rather than just those who fall into certain societal classifications. Like I said before, it’s great to see what other people are out there doing; it’s inspiring as well as informative.”
Feministing is not afraid to acknowledge feminists who had an earlier platform, and often try to relate their current work to previous movements, without taking away from their more modern activism. One of Feministing’s other main features is “Thank You Thursdays,” where they often spotlight older feminists or feminists of the past, such as Nancy Pelosi, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Audre Lorde. Recently, over Thanksgiving, Courtney Martin wrote a post about her personal family legacy of feminists, saying “Thank you for the centuries of women who have listened to their own deep wisdom, even when society in various sexist forms tried to drown out their innate knowing.”
Not surprisingly, there have been clashes between Feminist writers and more “traditional” feminists. Last year Jessica Valenti had a very public and vocal disagreement with Marcia Pappas, the president of the New York state chapter of NOW. Pappas wrote a press release saying that Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Barack Obama was the “ultimate betrayal of women,” which Feministing strong disagreed with. The controversy eventually prompted a New York Times article in which Valenti was quoted as being slightly dismissive of past feminists. The article wrote that Valenti “believes the future of feminism lies in online activism, not old-school organizations. Young women today don’t need ‘the iconic leadership of a NOW or a Gloria Steinem,’ she said. With online communities like her own, women have access to vast clearinghouses for information, support, even consciousness-raising. ‘We have each other,’ Ms. Valenti said, ‘and that’s pretty important.’”
The article also discussed the generational splits in the 2008 primaries, which, unfortunately, fractured some of the relationships between older and younger feminists. From my own separate experiences, I think that the energy of the eventual general election Obama campaign helped to heal some of those wounds. In any event, there is a certain irony to Jessica Valenti’s quote: to many she, along with her fellow Feministing contributors, have become Steinem-like icons.
“Blogging catalyzes community, rapidly rebuilds ties between people, and recenters our nation on the people that give it meaning.”
—Jeffrey Feldman, Editor in Chief of Frameshop, and HuffPost Blogger
When discussing the community on Feministing, it is important to follow up with the next obvious question: “what is the point?” It’s hard to believe that so much energy would be put into a community that only exists to create friendships. To me, it seems like these close relationships must be being cultivated as only the first step towards something bigger. In describing the blog, the “About” page on Feministing says: “Young women are rarely given the opportunity to speak on their own behalf on issues that affect their lives and futures. Feministing provides a platform for us to comment, analyze, influence and connect.” We can immediately see that one of the main functions of the Meetup Alliance is to encourage readers to follow up on the blog discussions with real action. Events range from in-person planning sessions to volunteering as a group to going to hear speakers. People who might have never thought to get involved in these activities are roped in by the blog, and then thrust out into the real world to enact change and movement.
Many posts on Feministing are about women-centered news stories of the day, such as this recent entry about the Health and Human Services regulation Bush is hoping to add before he leaves office. Unlike a typical piece of “journalism,” however, Feministing adds instructions on how to take action. Readers don’t need to just get pissed – they can do something about it. The bloggers also regularly post information about events that readers can choose to participate in on their own, such as the upcoming National March For Sex Workers Rights and the Day Without A Gay campaign that organized in response to the passing of Prop 8 in California. Feministing does not exist in an online vacuum, but rather serves as springboard for action. Blogging is about giving a voice to “everyday” people, and Feministing shows that it can also be about giving them the tools necessary to participate in activism that might otherwise be closed to them.
I asked both Analiese and Melinda if Feministing has informed their outside activism, and, interestingly, both of them were reluctant to say that it has. Analiese wrote:
“The majority of my activism is around women’s issues, youth issues, and democratic candidates. So yes, in a way Feministing has informed my outside activism, not necessarily in a direct way, but what I read on Feministing is in the back of my mind and at times contributes to what I do.”
I got a similarly lukewarm response from Melinda:
“I’m actually not much of an activist, per se, though blogs like feministing have made me feel more motivated to actually get out there and do something (I’m trying to find an internship related to women’s issues/gender issues in some way). It is inspiring to see what other people are doing to make change, and I have become so much more aware of exactly how much there is to be done.”
Neither of them saw a direct connection between what they read on Feministing and their personal activism, despite obviously being very involved people. I don’t think, however, that this means Feministing’s mission has failed. Something else Melinda wrote about the blog really struck a chord with me:
“I usually find the stories to be really interesting, and I like seeing different perspectives on feminist issues. The staff and community often post about things that I’m not even aware of, or look at things from a point of view that I hadn’t really considered before. I feel like I have learned so much about how to be a “critical consumer” of my culture from reading Feministing, and that I have gained some insight into other cultures and ways of thinking as well.”
Even if Feministing is not always the catalyst for specific actions that can be put into a list, if it begins to mold the way that young feminists think, it might be making an even bigger impact. Professors, journalists, teachers, and authors all try to have an influence on their audience, but there are often too many walls to make that effectively possible. One important aspect of the Feministing community might be its ability to bring people together, not only to go out and do things, but to have discussions that reframe their thinking about all future endeavors. Many hurdles that feminists face with regards to sexism are not the product of evil actions, but of misguided thinking. Perhaps the way to combat that is by using the same tool, but to re-shift the thinking to progressive, innovative, and unprejudiced thought.
“I like the fact that a blog gives the blogger a chance at expression without a publishing deal or a marketing plan and an eleven-city tour. I like that it goes out fast and becomes part of a larger dialogue and discourse. I like how the comments go down their own paths, tangents being commented on that really have no relevance to the original idea, just the free, roving minds of a populace, churning out ideas and more ideas.”
—Jamie Lee Curtis, Actress and HuffPost Blogger (Taken from The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging)
I don’t think its controversial to assume that part of the allure of blogging is that it fosters a type of community never seen before. It’s exciting. People who have never met are able to engage in conversation, debate in real time, and form an intimate bond through the sharing of original ideas. Analiese was quick to tell me that she thinks it is “possible for a ‘community’ to exist in virtual space. With enough consistent communication in any space a community can be possible.” To go back to Bowling Alone, this is completely reshaping what we think of as civic engagement. But can a three pound machine actually become a communal setting and serve as a vehicle towards forming relations? And if it can, should it replace the more typical types of interaction that humans have always known?
Feministing bloggers are quick to recognize that the importance of Feministing is largely driven by the readers who make up the community. On a YouTube video describing her beginnings with Feministing, contributor Courtney Martin says, “Feministing means a tremendous amount to me. I think that its an incredible community of women, both in terms of those of us who write and just this incredible wealth of readership that we have. I go around the country and talk to folks – all over I hear young women tell me how much it means to them, so it just sort of magnifies how much it means to me.” And, as I’ve found out, part of what makes reading the blog special is the discourse that goes on with other readers. This relationship is almost impossible in any kind of real-life social or academic setting.
Classrooms are usually arranged with a teacher in the front of the room, talking down to the pupils. Blogs are structured so that commenters can contradict, curse at, or totally agree with a blogger – and if they want to, write their own post linking back to the original. Even already-famous bloggers seem to expect an equal give-and-take with their readers, which ideally starts to create a supportive online neighborhood. The HuffPo Guide explains, “Like an honest friend, a good blog community will tell you whether you’ve got toilet paper trailing from your shoe.”
One of the other Feministing community members I spoke to is Melinda Canter, a Bryn Mawr sophomore. Although we go to the same tiny school and live in dorms around the corner from each other, we have never met in person. Instead, as with Analiese, my stalking tendencies led me to Melinda on Facebook. I am very interested in learning how Feministing readers perceive the unique community that has formed since the blog’s inception, and Melinda was nice enough to give me her point of view. To help understand Melinda’s relationship with Feministing, it is important to situate her within the blog’s little ecosystem:
“I started reading Feministing sometime earlier this year, or perhaps towards the end of last year. I can’t remember exactly when or how I found it, but now I read it several times a week (if not every day). Admittedly, I often skim a lot of the articles, but sometimes I do spend a good amount of time on the site. I’ve never commented before, I think because I often worry that the things I have to say aren’t as well thought out or as eloquent as the comments other people make, but sometimes I would like to. I’ve often thought about signing up for an account and posting in the community section (I like when they highlight people’s posts – sometimes I think ‘hey, I could have written that myself!’, or I realize that some of the thoughts I have might be interesting for others to read… but again, partly because of lack of confidence or lack of time, I’ve never actually done it. Maybe I should!).
Personally, I like blogging because it allows people to get their ideas out there for others to see without having to go through the process of getting published. It is a way for ‘normal’ people to express themselves and to be heard. This is why I really like the community aspect of Feministing – it’s cool to read the different perspectives of the women on the Feministing staff, but it’s also really nice to read a broader range of opinions and experiences, and to see that the Feministing staff place importance on the thoughts of their readers.”
Melinda also pointed something out to me that I hadn’t even thought of: maybe the function of blogs is not so much about community, but rather about connections. “Feministing really serves as a way to connect people who are from so many different places and of so many different backgrounds and experiences. It’s a way to connect everyone to what’s going on with issues that are important to them.” It’s possible that the community itself is not any different than what might evolve from a group of women sitting around a Starbucks – it’s the fact that Feministing was able to bring them together in the first place. The Huffington Post book (from here on, just referred to as HuffPo in italics) writes, “What is unique to the Internet is its ability to create a real-time conversation between people who might never have the opportunity to meet each other in person because they can’t afford the same condo in the first place.” Attempts to bring together different groups of people, particularly different socioeconomic groups, often completely break down or eventually fizzle out. This can again be seen with the SDS and the failed ERAP, or Economic Research Action Project – student attempts to organize in impoverished communities were rarely successful. With blogs, everyone is coming to the same forum on common ground, allowing for genuine “communities” to form between all sorts of people.
Of course, just because I like to contradict myself, there is no such thing as a truly unprejudiced meeting place. Melina makes the point that by virtue of being online, Feministing, and other blogs, are inherently discriminatory. She writes:
“While it is possible to build really close relationships over the internet, I do think there is something missing that is present in face-to-face interaction. There is also a question of exactly who is included in the community that is created. Since blogs are so heavily language-based, that can make it difficult for someone to participate who is perhaps not as literate in standard written English, or who for whatever reason may not express him/herself best through the medium of writing. I think that building a community in virtual space is possible, but that because it will be so heavily based on written interaction, the community can seem a bit exclusive or daunting for many (for example, how I feel a little nervous to post to Feministing because I worry that my thoughts won’t be as intelligent or eloquent as those of others).”
One way that Feministing tries to overcome this dilemma is by moving relationships and communities that have fomented over the internet into real space. They utilize Meetup, “an online social networking portal that facilitates offline group meetings” (thanks, Wikipedia!) to bring together their readers. Currently, the Feministing Meetup Alliance has 1,710 members who have gotten together in 52 locations. Feministing community members are able to meet up (go figure) for happy hours, book clubs, holiday parties, rallies, documentary screenings, or just hanging out. As HuffPo says;
“Blogs are part of a virtual community, but sometimes people like to put a face to a screen name and maybe change out of their pajamas for a while…
In the past, our conversations – and our attempts to learn from and understand each other – were mostly limited to the people in our immediate lives. Blogging helps us extend our sphere of influence. It also broadens the community of people we can learn from. Because of this dizzying scope, we’re not worried that Americans are spending too much time hiding in dark rooms with computers, insulting eachother anonymously.”
Blogging is able to bring the fire to the candle, and make the connections that would not have been possible only twenty years ago. Not only is blogging reshaping how personal communities form, but it also is allowing to for activism to be built in a completely new setting.
Because the relationship with the readership is what defines blogging and differentiates it from almost any other form of publication, I think that the natural place to begin is not by talking to one of the contributing writers, but rather to a regular reader. Analiese Eicher is national chair of the College Democrats of America’s Womens Caucus, and I know her through my own involvement with College Dems. Though we have never met in person, Analiese and I are Facebook friends (which, in some ways, permits an even higher level of intimacy) and a little bit of Facebook stalking led me to the fact that she is a member of the official Feministing Facebook group. She was good enough to humor me by answering some questions.
On her background with Feministing:
“I started reading Feministing in 2005 as a Junior in high school. I try to check it every day, it’s in my favorites bar right under CNN and IHT. If I don’t read it for a couple of days I’ll read what I’ve missed that week on Saturday morning when I wake up.
I started reading Feministing as way to feed my desire for knowledge and intelligent commentary from strong women. I still read it for the intelligent commentary from women, but now it’s more out of habit.”
What I found particularly interesting was Analiese’s general skepticism of blogs, something that I have anecdotally found to be very common.
“Reading blogs, for me, is a lot different than reading news articles, even when they cover the same topic. I think that both blogs and articles contain a lot of integrity, but the words are very much different. News articles and opinion articles that published in newspapers or news magazines are more credible and more reliable making the words in blogs not as meaningful in my opinion. Does this mean that I don’t find blogs credible and unworthy of reading, I just think that sources and credibility are important and I take that into account when I choose to read something. Feministing does a good job with sources and letting their readers know where they are getting their information.”
While this is entirely conjecture, I would not be surprised if Analiese’s reluctance to place as much trust in blogs as other “news” outlets stems from the fact that our society teaches us that The News – even editorials and opinions – is a formal institution, leaving no room for the dynamism found on blogs. I have to wonder if the increased popularity and visibility of blogs like Huffington Post (which is now engorged with “legitimate” journalists and authors), and even Feministing, will start to change this perception. Arianna Huffington argues that part of the brilliance of blogs is that bloggers don’t have to “show their work,” but can get away with just sharing their experiences. Despite this, she feels strongly that “blogging has been the greatest breakthrough in popular journalism since Tom Paine – and the blogosphere is the most vital news source in our country.”
The issues that Analiese raise also speak to an American obsession with “experts” – we place a huge emphasis on trusting people with the right backgrounds or degrees or knowledge. I often question why many of the community organizing projects in Philadelphia are run by urban planners from halfway across the country, who have the book knowledge to do their job without having a tangible cognition of the city. Would a local resident be better suited to run the projects? While there is certainly a lot of merit to acknowledging expert opinion, what blogging allows for is any type of person – all of the untrained experts – to make their voice heard. Particularly with regards to feminist issues, it is not necessarily the Naral lawyers or the women’s studies professors who have daily encounters with salary discrimination, or a lack of access to reproductive healthcare, or sexual harassment, or any of the other hot button issues.
Feministing has become a hub of female voices, ruminating on these struggles, and trying to enact change. Interestingly, some of the contributing writers started participating as one of said “everyday people,” and through their involvement have gained celebrity as “influential young feminists.” However, as Arianna Huffington explains in the HuffPo book, these type of bloggers differ from real journalists or experts, because “In contrast, bloggers are armed with a far more effective piece of access than a White House press credential: passion. When bloggers decide that something matters, they chomp down hard and refuse to let go.” Blogging is not necessarily about adapting journalism to the internet, but about redefining how news and information should be relayed. The Feministing bloggers often mix opinion, with news, with random crap – but to serve a purpose and make a point. Annaliese talks about coming back to Feministing, despite a general distrust of blogs. The fact that Feministing is able to thrive in spite of public doubt about blogs seems to be a product of its other functions. Even if blogs are not yet regarded as a reliable news source, they can still become centers of activism.
“The blogosphere produces conflict in a writer. It’s a raucous democracy, a global Athens with all kinds of customers striding through the agora. Perverse thoughts intermingle with healthy ones, like bacteria and vaccine in the same syringe. Vituperative cowards snipe from the safety of an anonymous keyboard. Walking psychotics effloresce their symptoms. Yet the temptation is to return again and again.”
—Deepak Chopra, bestselling author and HuffPost blogger (taken from The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging)
I’m not quite sure how to introduce Feministing to people who have never read the blog. I contemplated creating a “Feministing community” blog and presenting my project on the actual Feministing website, but I decided that would be a little bit too exploitative. One of the things that I love about Feministing is the authentic discourse that occurs, and I think that stealing the space for a school project would taint that a little bit. Instead, I am on a Bryn Mawr blog, which feels very isolated from the dynamic community that exists on Feministing. I had to laugh when I chose the incredibly generic template for the site, thinking that I must be lamely channeling TDAR. Although this is a very standard layout, I did find it amusing that the front page is a street scene of Greenwich Village in New York. We often think of the Village as hub of liberal organizing, so in some ways this very generic picture helps to illustrate what blogs have become; a virtual Village, marked by pages of comments, rather than hours spent sitting in a café.
I would highly recommend that people who have never been to the site peruse the archives of Feministing for at least a few minutes. Even a quick glance will give you an idea of what the blog is about. In detailing the history of Feministing, I think it is best to hear it from the source. This is Jessica Valenti on one of the first videos on Feministing’s youtube channel, talking about how Feministing started. (Which I tried relentlessly to embed in the post, but apparently wordpress hates me.)
I think that Jessica’s point at the end of the video is probably more important than any of the specific details.
“I want you to get to know all of us a little bit better, because I feel like we know our readers, and you know us, in this kind of bizarre personal way. Because, we do talk on the blog, and you are part of our lives and you are part of our feminism, and what better way to get to know us than face-to-face. Sort of.
Arianna Huffington reiterates this point, explaining in the intro to the HuffPo book that:
“Blogs are by nature very personal – an intimate, often ferocious expression of the blogger’s passions. You’re much more intimate w=hen you’re writing a blog than when you’re writing a column, let alone a book – it’s the coversational nature of it, the way that it draws people in and includes them in the dialogue…And this creates a close bond between blogger and audience.”
Blogs help to break down walls and barriers that exist with most other types of writing – including, ironically, the book the above quote comes from. More than anything else, Feministing is a very involved conversation, in a way that only the Web 2.0 era could possibly allow. Just through the course of researching this project, I feel like I’ve gotten to “know” the Feministing bloggers and become an ally in their work.
“Blogging is the only addiction that won’t make you fat, drunk, or stoned.”
—Erica Jong, novelist, HuffPost blogger (taken from The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging)
A quick Wikipedia search will tell you that weblogs evolved from online diaries of the early 90’s. In fact, one of the very first bloggers was a Swarthmore student named Justin Hall who kept his online diary for eleven years. The New York Times calls him “the founding father of personal bloggers,” outlining the intensely personal information that Hall chronicled from his late teens to throughout his twenties. The term “blog” was eventually coined by Peter Merholz, another blogger who shifted the syllables of weblog (named a few years earlier) to we-blog, and ultimately shortening it to blog. Today there are almost as many genres of blogs as there are books – spanning a range from personal blogs to corporate blogs to fashion blogs to travel blogs. Feministing probably straddles the lines over more than one type of blog, but its messages often lay in the political.
One of the best known and most read activist/political blogs is the Huffington Post, who conveniently came out with a book right in time for my project – The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. I am not lost on the irony of reading a book written by bloggers about how blogs are so much better than books, but the information is incredibly relevant to the issues I want to focus on. One of the most interesting aspects of the history of blogging is that the demographics are so different than what one might see with more traditional modes of writing. According to Technorati, just as many women blog as men, and bloggers are less likely to be white than other internet users (but more likely to be Hispanic). In fact, English is not always the most common language for blogs: we are closely tied with Japanese.
What makes blogging so innovative is that for the first time relaying and reading news can be interactive. All previous rules about who “owns” the news need to be thrown out – suddenly anyone can tell a story or voice their opinion, and others are free to offer their critiques. The HuffPo book writes:
“Broadly, we believe that the cause of democracy is served by having more information out there. We believe that democracy is advanced by having more voices included in the conversation. When everyone is a journalist, everyone can serve the journalist’s role of keeping watch on our leaders and sharing stories that outrage or inspire. Blogging also teaches us that we all have the power to determine what is news…People have talked a lot about blogs, but this fundamentally democratic aspect of them is just beginning to be understood.”
The HuffPo Guide to Blogging brings up sociologist Robert Putnam’s 2000 book, Bowling Alone, which I am intimately familiar with, thanks to a slightly obsessive AP government teacher. Putnam argues that Americans are losing social capital and becoming lonely because we no longer join civic groups, clubs, or volunteer organizations. What the HuffPo Guide points out is that civic societies have simply changed, and now exist in the form of social networks weaved together by blogs and comments; “these social networks aren’t as inhibited by our in-person tendencies to meet up with folks of the same race, gender, age, sexual orientation, and disability status. We judge fellow bloggers on their ideas and wit. Personally, we think that’s a much better way to choose compatriors this raucous RSS feed called life.”
Justin Hall created an entire online universe revolving around his personal drama and sexual escapades, but the format Feministing uses to make serious points about modern feminist issues remains the same. And this community is not only about coming together, but taking the collective energy and enacting change in the “real” world.
Welcome to my blog. Project. Project about blogs. Blog posing as a project about blogs. From the beginning, this project has been a little bit out of the ordinary, with its focus and life form changing quite a few times. Once I hit on a topic and a mode of presentation (tacky, but it works) the project was plagued by technical problems a little too stressful to even think about during a week riddled with preparing and studying for finals. For the people reading this who are not a member of my class, this blog is serving as my semester project for a very open-ended assignment – essentially, I had to do something that was somehow sorta related to social justice. Which, at the end of the day, is pretty much everything. If you want further details, please feel free to read the “about” section, where I make an attempt to outline my goals of this blog.
I came to choose blogging as a topic because I find the unique accessibility of blogs to be incredibly interesting. In our class, we spent time talking about Students for a Democratic Society and its eventual incarnations. SDS was an incredibly influential and important activist group, but what I found striking was how elitist its membership ended up being. Most chapters were attached to colleges or universities, and the activism was primarily run by white, wealthy, educated, young adults. This was not unique to SDS – historically, people with money, a degree, and the right skin color are the ones who have a voice on a national platform. Blogs, on the other hand, can be accessed by almost anybody. They do not discriminate in the way that other modes of social organizing have; breaking down the class, age, gender, and geographic boundaries that other movements have contended with. Anybody can write a blog. And anybody else can read that blog. Anybody can have a hand at trying to change the world.
Throughout the semester, the entire class has been working with Pato Hebert, an artist and AIDS activist from LA. When my “working group” sat down with Pato earlier this fall, he encouraged me to try to narrow my project. Sometimes simplicity is better, he said. I quickly recognized that doing a survey of every type of blog ever written would be very unproductive, and eventually came to choose the blog Feministing as a focal point. Feministing is unique in its success, but is also typical in its formation. By talking to people associated with the blog – as both contributors and readers – I am hoping to better understand the heartbeat of blogging and why some are lauding it as a staple of future communication.
As I delved deeper into this project, I became very interested in the types of communities that arise out of blogs, particularly in the case of Feministing. I what I want to know why people write blogs, why people read them, and how these two groups can symbiotically form a virtual community. We usually think of feminist communities as women sitting around a table planning events or marching in a rally holding hands. It is hard to imagine that people who have never met face-to-face can get to intimately know each other and work together towards the same goals. Feministing has tried to engender a community that goes even further than what organically formed by allowing readers of the blog to start writing their own posts in a special “community” section.
Blogging, it seems, has no limits. There are no editors to contend with, no five paragraph essays, no second publications. I like the idea of utilizing a blog to present my project both because it will allow me to do my own “field research,” and also because I sometimes think that ideas can become too formulaic and edited when stuffed into the constraints of a formal paper. Additionally, I love the fact that blogs allow for a conversation to form between the reader and writer, with feedback left as comments. So, please, if you are reading this, let me know what you think.
Welcome to Bryn Mawr Weblogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
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