Comments on: Why There Are Fewer Women Bloggers

By: DirkJohanson

DirkJohanson — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 19:11:39 +0000

A risk to personal safety is something guy journalists don’t have to deal with as much? Here’s a video of Daniel Pearl being decapitated: http://www.libertyunites.us/video_daniel_pearl_beheading_video-425.html

The biggest reason women don’t blog as much is that women don’t have the balls. See http://guyinism.com/?p=207

By: Kathy Sierra

Kathy Sierra — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:51:42 +0000

I quit when it became obvious that what was happening to me was far beyond the usual online/anonymous/troll behavior and was a focused attack that kept escalating. The difference between obnoxious commenters vs. an individual (or more than one) obsessed with you personally is something most people who haven’t experienced it can understand.

The online troll wants a reaction.

An online stalker/abuser is obsessed with getting a reaction, from YOU. Ignore a troll and they eventually move on. Ignore an online stalker and they’ll escalate. If words don’t work, let’s try pictures. If those pictures don’t work, let’s make them sexual or violent. You get the idea. And where I agree with you is that for women, “ramping up/escalating” nearly always involves sexual intimidation. Not because it’s what the abuser wants, necessarily (big problem: you really don’t know for certain)… but because it’s such an easy way to harass and potentially frighten a woman. Another is to mention their family.

Put these together and it often simply isn’t worth it. That was certainly true for me.

I did have to wonder a bit when I read about Michele Malkin (I do not follow her so I didn’t know about her having to move). Right after my incident, I saw Michele on television discussing what happened to me (Joan Walsh was there as well). Michele’s big point was what an absolute wimp I was (I don’t disagree) and that she couldn’t understand why people were outraged on my behalf when this same stuff happened to her all the time.

Like Michele, I, too, had to move when my home address (and social security number and family member names) were published online in an anonymous post that also called on readers to USE that information to “show her how you feel”. Within 15 minutes of that post appearing, it was replicated throughout the web in ways that were impossible to eliminate. At one time my own social security number returned more than 200 hits in Google. [key point: the posting of my personal data was *not* part of the original attacks that caused me to speak out, but were posted the next day and claimed to be in "retribution" for speaking out. This is not an insignificant point.]

But one key difference myself and Michele is that I am a tech writer of very modest means, who did my blog as a 100% unpaid labor of love. Moving was a very big deal.

If the price of being a successful blogger includes having to deal with this, we’ll still have plenty of bloggers, but diversity will suffer. It’s one thing when they go after you personally, but another still when you have family members who did not sign up to be part of the attack. And again, in my case, it wasn’t as though I was saying anything that *needed* to be heard in the world.

By: Joanie

Joanie — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:09:31 +0000

The disparity is not as large across the board in blogging… as anyone who reads cooking blogs, ‘family’ blogs, ‘hobby’ blogs and such will know. But politics? Heck yes.
Absolutely right that women don’t like to spar, and that men sexualize them when the men feel threatened. I was the moderator of a big forum as was called a “token c—” which was pretty darned nasty… especially as I did most of the work, and was in no way less qualified than anyone else! And that wasn’t a political blog, it was a hobby forum. Whether it is taught to us, or whether it is hormone based, or brain-wired, women are just less confrontational as a whole. They also take things much more personally.

By: VWmama

VWmama — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:33:29 +0000

I am a female, fairly new to blogging, and haven’t had any of these things happen to me yet thank God but I wonder what would happen if I posted my real name? Thank you Dee Dee for sharing your experiences. I intend to take them to heart. How does one go about buying the domain name? I don’t make any money from my blog but it is a great creative outlet for me and it helps me share stuff with my friends and family much more easily than with email. If someone is crazy enough to want to know my bust size it is…sagging.

By: Lisa Devaney

Lisa Devaney — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:03:48 +0000

Good points, and I especially like this comment:

“Men see verbal sparring as a testosterone-fueled challenge. Women see degraded communication and hostility.”

Couldn’t agree more and can’t stand testosterone-fueled verbal sparring.

I don’t have the guts for it and it makes me want to crawl under my desk and stop blogging.

By: EricPWJohnson

EricPWJohnson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:46:01 +0000

There is a need for more women bloggers, just as in there needs to be more women in politics. Being the father of three girls and the brother of three sisters, as well as the husband of a career executive I can see first hand the condesention, innapropriatness and totally stupidity of out of control threatened males.

By: Halli Casser-Jayne

Halli Casser-Jayne — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:15:14 +0000

Nice post. Personally, I have found women to be less accepting of women with opinions than men. Many women were raised to believe “Daddy” had the ultimate word. For those raised in a more balanced household, they still bristle at a women “raising her voice.” This only encourages me to say what I mean and mean what I say. So there you go. Welcome to the Wild West!

Halli Casser-Jayne
http://www.thecjpoliticalreport.com

By: Texan99

Texan99 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:13:10 +0000

I think many women are extraordinarily sensitive to counterattack, especially when it takes the form of casting aspersions on their femininity or implicitly threatening physical danger. They’ve been taught that fighting tough makes them less feminine and that all danger must be avoided at all costs; if they buy that, any guy is going to be able to make them back down when he senses he’s getting rings run around him intellectually.
…
How often have you read a female blogger announce she’s going to retire from the fray because the bad atmosphere is too discouraging? It’s commonplace, and yet have you ever read a male blogger taking that line? Guys are raised to expect it and tough it out. And if someone tried to tell them that toughing it out made them less masculine, they’d either stare blankly or just laugh.

By: Dee Dee Warren

Dee Dee Warren — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:47:13 +0000

I tried my best to keep my information private. But if you have an obsessed enough “fan” or group of “fans,” they will find it out. Been there, done that. I now don’t even bother because it removes the cyber-stalkers primary weapon: fear and intimidation that they are going to release information you don’t want released. I have decided that if anyone is going to be the first to post my picture etc., it is going to be me. I won’t give creeps that satisfaction any longer.

By: Undine

Undine — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:43:57 +0000

The internet has done many wonderful things for people’s lives, but I’m amazed at the courage and/or foolhardiness of anyone willing to put their real names out there. I’m a female who blogs about Edgar Allan Poe, for the love of Pete, and I would never use anything but a pseudonym. Poe’s Goth reputation–which really is unmerited–attracts a few Internet types that are…a bit unusual, let’s say? They don’t come off as violent, like the political weirdos, but you wouldn’t exactly want some of them dropping by your doorstep.

Amazing how a computer keyboard seems to bring out the very worst in certain personalities.