A storm's a-brewin' over at RWN where Hawkins is discussing women vs men bloggers. The background is too complex to summarize here -- you can read it on RWN -- but Hawkins goes on to ask an interesting question:

So let me branch out: Why are comparatively so few female bloggers of note in the political blogosphere?

Personally, I have come to suspect it's just a numbers game. On the whole, women aren't as interested as men in politics, so therefore there are a lot less women than men writing about politics, and hence there is a much smaller pool of female bloggers with the talent to move up the ranks.

Some people probably won't like that answer, but hey, why aren't there as many women who are sports fans as men? Why are there a lot more women than guys who enjoy romance novels? Maybe it's nature, maybe it's nurture, maybe it's some combination thereof, but men and women on the whole don't have the same level of interest in politics.

As an aside, I see nothing sexist in that quote at all. I'm reminded of a heated argument that erupted a few years ago when one of my female friends took extreme offense when my brother made an offhanded comment that his college basketball team could whoop any WNBA team. Cries of Sexist! insued, but there's nothing sexist about saying something that's probably true. But I digress.

Maybe that's why I'm having a hard time finding wives who want to talk about this stuff with me. Maybe that's why I was so disappointed to find out Kim du Toit is a man. But you know what -- it doesn't really matter. I started to write "it's too bad women don't want to blog about politics" and then I erased it because it doesn't matter. Who cares if you're a man or a woman; in the blogosphere, it's ideas that count. Reynolds and Green do a lot of recipe blogging, which should be a "woman's" topic. Who cares? They say important things on the majority of their posts, so they can write the occasional post about chicken, or whatever. I don't care if I'm writing back and forth with a man or woman, as long as we have common ground and we a trying to help each other grok.

I sometimes write about girly things like knitting or how I think Stephen Green is cute. But I most certainly will never give up trying to grok politics and current events so I can, as Hawkins joked, "have more time to blog about make-up and house plants." I can't even do make-up -- I've never bothered to learn how to apply it properly, and it shows -- and I have one houseplant that I just remembered to water after reading Hawkin's post. Make-up and plants ain't never gon happen on my blog.

MORE:

By the way, I just got introduced to Cassandra and Debbye through Hawkins' post. So far I like what I see. I need to check back in with them often.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:01 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 515 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Well DANG, Sarah... And here I was getting all ready to write up a snarky post announcing my retirement from poliblogging and going on and on about makeup and houseplants. Except I have abso-fricking-lutely NO idea what I would say on either of those topics, so I was going to email you for ideas. Are you telling me I'm SOL? sigh...

Posted by: Cassandra at April 29, 2004 11:08 AM (ee4ft)

2 I was going to offer to divide the labour with you, one of us taking make-up and the other taking house plants ...

Posted by: Debbye at April 29, 2004 11:08 AM (iMG32)

3 All three of you - PLEASE keep up what you're doing! I've really enjoyed your perspectives - it's great to hear insights from thoughtful women who are interested in what's going on in the world at large.

Posted by: Lyana at April 29, 2004 02:29 PM (ps81A)

4 Sarah: I enjoyed your post a while back about being at the party with that woman who went off about hoping Kerry would be elected so her husband would come home. I don't have enough time to read other blogs, but will definitely make time to read yours. Military wives should stick together. If you ever get discouraged, shoot me an email and we'll trade "war" stories - I've got 23 years worth You sound like a gutsy and intelligent lady.

Posted by: Cass at April 29, 2004 10:33 PM (ee4ft)

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