November 20th, 2006
No “expert” women bloggers
Didn’t have time to blog last week but one discussion - this old chestnut did catch my eye. After Damien suggested collating a list of “expert bloggers” (a blogger database type of thing) should the fourth estate require any of them to offer their two cents on a given topic, Eireprenuer took it upon himself to compile an actual list - completely free of women.
Now this came as news to me, what about…? Well I could list them, but there’s a blogroll on the right and fair play to Mary, who came right back at him with her own list.
Annette took up the issue and Eirepreneur explained his rationale in the comments section: “If no women have yet made my list it’s a reflection on my subscription overload and not any bias”. And there was me thinking that techie bloggers didn’t have any limits when it came to aggregators and feeds.
Someone over at the Irish Blog Awards suggested a ‘Best Female Blogger’ category in next year’s awards. A bad idea in my view. Blogs should be judged on merit not gender. Twenty Major also agreed in the comments (”I’m not sure any lady worth her salt would want to win an award just because she didn’t have a mickey to zip up. “) and I quite like The Swearing Lady’s take to the whole thing:
“Anyway. Why is it that whenever someone with a vagina does anything except moan about the toilet seat or pop out babbies, everyone gets out the bells and whistles and runs around after her, attaching them to her protesting limbs? Especially if she’s a young person; it seems that you can’t do anything of note in Ireland as a young woman without someone making a gentle point about your looks and sticking a “Well Done, Sure You Could Have Been Barbie” hat on your head. It’s all “I am woman! Hear me simper and ovulate!” Look at any arts and culture article about a gurl, or a business profile, and the fact that she is one of the Wimmin will be pointed out lovingly. Christ, stop making a big deal out of it! Sometimes women feel like Doing Things; it’s not all that shocking!”
Update:Treasa chips in and makes a good point about experts and pigeon-holing.
November 20th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
“Eireprenuer took it upon himself to compile an actual list - completely free of women.”
1) Took it upon himself? Someone posts a blogroll and there’s no objection to that person ‘taking it upon himself’ but when you add the term ‘experts’ it suddenly becomes something that belongs to the community.
My humble list was published in the spirit of being added to an aggregate list as proposed by Damien Mulley. In no way should anyone interpret my modest niche list as some kind of a master list. It just so happens I only subscribe to mostly techie geeky blogs and there are few techie geeky female bloggers in Ireland. Not none… just few!
2) My list was a small draft list… published quickly to demonstrate my proposal to use OPML as a means of generating the aggregate listing. It was by no mean my final listing - the categories will change and I actually have a few female bloggers to add to it.
November 20th, 2006 at 12:55 pm
But you did! You expanded on Damien’s idea and the post is entitled “Here’s my list of experts” - that’s not the same as posting a generic blogroll. Why didn’t you just qualify the title as “Here’s my list of TECHIE experts” so that it wouldn’t sound so exclusive?
I was very surprised that you hadn’t heard of that many Irish female bloggers, and I know there are some women blogging about technology. Sadly, I don’t have much expertise in that area myself.
I look forward to the other additions.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Ok, firstly, I did not say I was compiling an aggregate list and I was and am against the idea of dozens of lists where anyone can say which bloggers are experts. But that’s a mere diversion to the issue about women.
In defense of James, he did state clearly that everyone should make their own lists of who they see as experts. He did not say this is a definitive list, he said these people were the experts he thinks are experts and I would think he would only suggest them as experts as he was familiar with them. If James mostly keeps the company of men, I do not think he is sexist. There is a difference and I thought while subtle, it would still be seen.
I think the issue arises out of what I proposed and the variation of it that James wanted to do. The suggestion on other blogs that James deliberately left people out is utterly false and damaging to his character. Were James to have a large blogroll and only chose men out of the blogroll to be what he viewed as his “experts” then the argument might hold some water, but I really don’t think this is true.
James owes nothing to this world and I don’t really think it is right to take umbrage with him for putting a list together.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Damien, I never mentioned an aggregrate list, I mentioned (and linked) to your commendable idea about compiling a list of “expert bloggers�.
As I have already pointed out in my comment to James, all he had to do was clarify the post and it’s title to refer to the fact that he was only offering his view on tech blogs. I also never suggested James was sexist, but it is surprising that a blogger, and a tech blogger at that, would not be able to contribute a female blogger to that list, especially as he mentioned Karlin’s blog later on.
Also other blogs may have suggested that James deliberately leaving people out “is utterly false and damaging to his character” - I did not, I merely expressed (as I think I’m allowed to) my surprise and disappointment at the list being delivered under such an exclusive banner. At the risk of repetition, all it had to say was “Tech” experts and no one would even be talking about this. Or indeed if he’d just called it a “blogroll”. The two are very different things and that’s what people have been responding to.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
yeah! what about those chicks with the make-up blog
them sisters will be making more money from their blogs than the rest of the techy bloggers put together.
November 20th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
ro, I think you might be right there, surely there’s never been a blog with such a meteoric rise to fame? Lately, you can’t pick up a paper or turn on the wireless without hearing Kirstie’s dulcet tones.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:03 pm
I was responding to James at the start in relation to aggregate lists and I know you did not suggest James deliberately left people out. I was commenting on what I saw as hysteria on this subject in other places. Sorry if it seemed I was tarring you with the same brush, I very much was not. And yes, James needs to watch out for the trigger words. I bet he will in future. The rest of your reply seems to have been eaten btw.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:09 pm
Crapola. See what happens what you’re not a techie? Can’t even fix me own comments.
Can I veer off in another direction and ask how many categories there will be in the Blog Awards? I was going to suggest some sort of umbrella category that would fit a lot of blogs that are in a minority (family/education/beauty) and might not have enough competitors for a category of its own. Lifestyle is such an icky word. It reminds me of those ‘Take a Break’/'Chat’ magazines that my Godmother reads.
Did someone also suggest food/drink blogs? There’s more than enough good Irish ones.
November 20th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
I’ll tell you this much, if I was getting a list of experts who were really good about complaining about things it would be chock full of female bloggers!
November 20th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
[…] And as for this expert list, or list of experts if you will[2] well, I demand to be listed. Course limiting my expertise to just one topic would be tough. We[3] all know that I know everything[4] there is to know about everything. And then some. Possibly I should be the Jack-of-all-trades-expert . But that sorta implies that I’m not really an expert, when clearly[5] I am. […]
November 20th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
“and yes, James needs to watch out for the trigger words. I bet he will in future”
You can be damn sure I will… I obviously have to *clarify* things very carefully from now on not to step on very sensitive toes. Sheesh, so much for blogging being a form of thinking out loud
November 20th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Yeah James, lucky for us we know what you’re really like now.
November 20th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
hi sinead, your post reminds me of something i have been thinking about lately, although not sure if it’s entirely related to your topic.
anyway, do you remember when A House released the single “Endless Art” and it contained not a single reference to a woman? Eventually they recorded another version of the single that only listed women. (Presumably they were embarrassed into doing this - i don’t know what explanation they gave at the time for such an incredible omission). They now have an updated version of the song out, that thankfully refers to both men and women artists.
November 20th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
“I was commenting on what I saw as hysteria on this subject in other places.”
Where have you witnessed hysteria?
November 20th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
They now have an updated version of the song out, that thankfully refers to both men and women artists.
Why thankfully? I honestly don’t know why anyone would get upset about something like that. So they wrote a song about male artists. I’m sure it wasn’t because they thought there were no good women artists.
If they were embarrassed into making a different version of the song that namechecks women then that’s a bit sad.
November 20th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
It’s so bloody disappointing that someone would compile a list of expert bloggers without knowing enough about the blogosphere to include blogs like Sinead’s, Annette Clancy’s, Sarah Carey’s, to name just a few. I’m sorry, but there is no excuse for that; perhaps gender isn’t even the issue, it’s narrowness of scope which is the problem here. And it happens to overlap to a large degree with a gender issue (although there were also several male expert bloggers left off the list), so the offender is doubly offensive. I agree with Sinead’s initial comment: if this was a list of techie experts, it should have been labelled as such. The “toes” aren’t being sensitive, they’re being justifiably demanding. They have high standards. It’s about doing a job properly if you’re going to do it at all.
I’m off now to see if there’s an Irish-jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none blogger list that I can give out about too…
November 21st, 2006 at 10:44 am
So they wrote a song about male artists.
No, they didn’t. They wrote a song about artists. They just didn’t think to include any women artists. Why on earth would someone sit down to write a song about “male artists”? Now that would be sad.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:07 am
My list will not include Sinead’s, Annette Clancy’s or Sarah Carey’s. Why? Because I’m not subscribed to them and don’t intend to.
“Causing Offence” - the greatest crime one can commit in the modern world.
Did any of you even read his list or were you too busy getting in a huff? It only contains about 17 names off the top of his head. Any fool can see it’s not meant to be final or definitive. It has my name but not my URL in it.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:23 am
Thanks for stopping buy Conor.
Amazingly enough, several women managed to read the list, hence the various posts and comments. It just would have been easy to clarify the small remit of the area of expertise they were referring (tech blogs).
Am I correct in thinking that earlier this year Colm Bracken pointed you in direction of female bloggers which you lamented the lack of? Has it encouraged you to seek out more blogs by women, out of interest?
Topicwise, we all have blogs we prefer and I know you’re interested in food blogs. I would have to say that Tech blogs come very low down on my list.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:32 am
But not all of James’ list were tech blogs. It was a list of those who James rates highly. No more no less. And if the first draft didn’t contain women, so what? It’s called personal choice. There is far too much thought police activity going on around this topic for my liking.
370 RSS feeds and counting means that I don’t seek out blogs by women or men. If someone I like links to someone else, I’ll check it out. If I like it, I subscribe.
My lament was a general one, not specific to me. I want to see a day where everyone who has a mobile phone also has a blog and then we’ll have a truly heterogeneous blogosphere.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:38 am
Ooops. Part of that last comment got eaten, so I republished. Apoligies for cross-posting.
To be honest, I never even think about the gender of bloggers (except Twenty, of course, who HAS to be woman). I go on the basis of if I like what I read.
Jesus, I have about 120 feeds and that takes up a lot of time (particularly music/Mp3 blogs). How do you find time to read/digest 370 feeds?
November 21st, 2006 at 11:41 am
Sylvia,
I remember the no-women thing in Endless Art. I have to say I don’t think it was deliberate. Would love to hear the women only version - is it available anywhere online?
November 21st, 2006 at 11:50 am
No, they didn’t. They wrote a song about artists. They just didn’t think to include any women artists
And why was that a problem for anyone?
November 21st, 2006 at 12:39 pm
i have it on cee-dee back in the homeland sinead. i’ll mpee3 it when i get back for you
November 21st, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I just found it peculiar that in a list of 50+ artists (in the song “Endless Art”), not one woman got a mention. I’m not saying it was deliberate on the part of A House; in all likelihood it wasn’t. It’s just that if you were asked to sit down and list 50 “great (and dead) artists” from all genres from the last few centuries, surely at least one or two women might feature? A House are of course entitled to write what they like. (Personally I’d love if someone did a similar song listing Wankers from the last few centuries. Twenty, perhaps you could record a single: “Endless Arseholes”.)
I guess the point I was making was just the similarity between A House’s “omission” of women and the omission of women from the list of bloggers being discussed above. In my opinion, both were an unfortunate oversight, not a conspiracy or a deliberate ploy to exclude women.
November 21st, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Again, not to belabour the point, but this idea of “unfortunate oversight” really riles me.
If I choose not not include any section of the human race in something personal I write or say, for whatever reason, then that is what I will do, unapologetically.
Otherwise we are back to the early 1990’s PC bullshit of people watching everything they say and do in case some handicapped african-american lesbian single mother of three ADHD children from Cork feels excluded and has their feelings hurt.
November 21st, 2006 at 1:58 pm
That was probably the last list solely of men the world will ever see. From now on, every list will have to contain some women’s names to avoid giving offence, which is only fair.
I’m looking forward to Eddie O’Sullivan’s team sheet for the match against the Pacific Islands. No, wait! That’s all right. We have Brian.
November 21st, 2006 at 2:07 pm
I guess the point I was making was just the similarity between A House’s “omission� of women and the omission of women from the list of bloggers being discussed above. In my opinion, both were an unfortunate oversight, not a conspiracy or a deliberate ploy to exclude women.
That’s fair enough. I just wonder why anybody ever thought ‘Hey, there’s no women in this song!’.
I’d just have thought ‘Oh, they’ve made a song about artists who are men’.
November 21st, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Just like to add my support for James. He was talking about a distributed list and not a master list. If you are not familiar with his ideas and you read the article in isolation, I can see how, if you are non technical, that you might get the impression that it was a master list, but as someone who works with James on the Open Irish Directory, I know this is what he meant.
James does great work in encouraging ‘people’ in the tech world and I’ve never detected any hint of bias in his blog, which I have been reading for a long time.
November 21st, 2006 at 7:16 pm
My first issue with James’s posts were that he went off into OPML again - which would ordinarily set me off anyway on the subject of its requirement of unnecessary gatekeeping, and he and I have had that argument several times already
However, I’m obliged to defend him in at least one important regard. The very first person he mentioned as an expert on something in response to Damien’s initial post was my missus. I’m very sure indeed that she’s not a bloke.
Could it be possible that neither you nor Mary actually bothered to read the post in question? I’ll entirely grant that James’s post is estrogen-deprived, but “no women” is simply - and extremely obviously - incorrect.
November 21st, 2006 at 7:44 pm
John, perhaps you’re reading a different version or post - the post I read - with this link to James’ list - doesn’t contain any women bloggers. In relation to that link, the “no women” status is correct.
One upside to all this is that I’m discovering lots of blogs (and gasp! techie ones) that I’ve never read.
November 21st, 2006 at 8:21 pm
I’ve seen some funny stuff written about this ‘controversy’ but ESV your comment really takes the biscuit. It’s clear that you didn’t even take the time to read my post. If you did you would have understood I wasn’t proposing to publish a comprehensive list myself and that my published list was only a draft version. In fact my proposal was based around an aggregate/distributed list for exactly the reason that I wasn’t foisting my humble list on anyone and it should only be taken as a contribution to an aggregate list.
How you could DEMAND that I include any group of people in my list, regardless of whether they be female or not is breathtaking in it’s arrogance. I would never be so presumptuous as to force my opinions on you!
“if this was a list of techie experts, it should have been labelled as such.”
What a load of absolute horses**t! Since when have we started requiring bloggers to clarify and specify down to the nth degree what they write about? Do you put such superhuman rigour into your every post? Didn’t think so.
“The “toesâ€? aren’t being sensitive, they’re being justifiably demanding.”
No, some of them are being incredibly ignorant and clueless.
“I’m off now to see if there’s an Irish-jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none blogger”
Why don’t you make my blog post your first destination since you clearly haven’t bothered to read it before posting your inane codswollop. On second thoughts, don’t bother…
John was referring to the reason why I agreed with Damien’s proposal in the first place, because I’d been asked for my opinions on Second Life and pointed the journalist to John’s wife Sabrina Dent. Yes, I actually named a female before even presenting the rest of my draft list. It’s in the first paragraph of my post for anyone who wants to take the time to read it -
http://eirepreneur.blogs.com/eirepreneur/2006/11/lost_copied_blo.html
Sinead you take time to lob stones at me for not being thorough but you didn’t even bother to find the original post? Baffling!
Thanks John, we’ll continue the OPML argument elsewhere
November 21st, 2006 at 8:52 pm
But the blog post mentions Sabrina in the very first paragraph.
So you all went straight to the OPML? I’m impressed.
I’m going to do mine in XOXO just to annoy James.
November 21st, 2006 at 8:55 pm
James, as you well know, I’m referring specifically to your OPML list in the post entitled ‘here’s my list of expert bloggers’ and not the lost copied post you’re referring to. I think most people have been respectful in their responses on this topic, even when disagreeing with you, perhaps you could have borne that in mind with your last comment.
That’s it from me - otherwise we’ll lobbing back and forth on this til the year of dot.
November 21st, 2006 at 10:21 pm
But Sinead, if you are referring specifically to his list why did you link to his blog post? He provided a link to the list.
Respectful is not a word I would use to describe most of the comments. Wrongheaded, uninformed and insulting would be closer the mark.
I’m of the opinion that James deserves an apology for the rubbish that has been thrown his way in the past few days and I’ve been surprised by his calmness to date.
One thing that has always impressed me about James on his blog is his willingness to admit when he is wrong. It’s a lesson you and many of your readers could well learn.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:31 pm
Respectful? When people pile on the attacks for my attempt at helping someone build a resource that might be helpful to others how can you say they’ve been respectful? When someone who doesn’t make any effort to understand (and I’m not talking about you Sinead) what I was trying to achieve or the technology I was availing of the achieve it, but piles on with criticisms based on interpretations of what I was doing do you really expect me to play the gentleman? I’m sorry Sinead but I’m not going to let someone make an attack on my character without hitting back. I didn’t pick a fight with ESV, ESV chose to attack me. As Damien has rightly acknowledged this stuff is damaging to my character! I’m not going to sue anyone for defamation but at least allow me to defend myself… strongly.
November 22nd, 2006 at 4:23 pm
I didn’t see this reply until now, sorry for the silence. James, I did read your post. I also read your comments on this post (before the explosion in the latter half of the comments). I did not “demand” anything of you. I noted what I saw to be a shortcoming in your list. I didn’t claim that list was comprehensive: I know it was a list in progress. My point is that it was a poor beginning.
Cool it, for Christ’s sake.
November 22nd, 2006 at 5:16 pm
>..Mary actually bothered to read the post in question?
I commented in the thread under the post. Please dont include me in the argument. I dont hold strong feelings in this matter. Plus James has only ever been polite to me, so I have no wish to be rude to him.
November 23rd, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Heh, I liked the swearing lady’s take too, made me laugh, and I agree.
I’ve two takes on it - one side of me thinks we all should be judged on merit and not gender and then the other side of me laughs at such naivety and thinks that sometimes positive discrimination can be a positive thing. I don’t want to be all ‘oh you wouldn’t understand because you’re a MAN’, but guys…think about it a little.
Glad and all I am to have the opportunities I have had (which of course I properly should have and gender should never come into it) it’s still not a perfect world for women (or men). And do consider this no one is trying to take an award from a man, we’re merely seeking to have an equal share with them. Which seems very fair to me.
November 24th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
“do you remember when A House released the single “Endless Artâ€? and it contained not a single reference to a woman?”
christ. what should art be without women eh? i love it how all you guys (even the ones pretending to be women) take this all so seriosuly.
November 29th, 2006 at 4:34 am
I must have listened to “Endless Art” 2000 times, and I’ve never noticed that it doesn’t contain any women. If women want to be equals, we’ve got to behave like equals instead of perceiving bias where it doesn’t exist.
February 7th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
[…] Within the Irish blogosphere there’s been a lot of talk in the last few days about things like gatekeepers and how girls are just as good as boys at blogging. […]
February 25th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
[…] And as for this expert list, or list of experts if you will[2] well, I demand to be listed. Course limiting my expertise to just one topic would be tough. We[3] all know that I know everything[4] there is to know about everything. And then some. Possibly I should be the Jack-of-all-trades-expert. But that sorta implies that I’m not really an expert, when clearly[5] I am. […]