UPDATE: Good for them! Peek has now added (that I noticed) seven excellent blogs written by women: Body and Soul, Feministing, Mouse Words, Sisyphus Shrugged, Pacific Views, Farai Chideye, and Rox Populi to their blogroll.
They’ve also added Afro-Netizen and possibly others that I haven’t noticed.
What’s below this is my original, now out-of-date post.
* * *
Here’s the text of the email I’ve sent to Peek, Alternet’s “blog of blogs.”
Hi! I’m Barry (aka Ampersand). I’m flattered that you include my blog, “Alas, a Blog,” on your blogroll. Thank you!
However, I’m disturbed that there’s only one blog written by a woman on your blogroll. There are many excellent blogs out there by women, both specifically feminist and not; “Wonkette” should not be the only one listed!
I’m also disturbed that there’s only one blog with a focus on feminism listed – mine – and it’s one that’s written primarily by a man. If you’re going to list only one blog paying attention to feminism, it would make sense to choose one written by a woman.
There are many excellent feminist blogs by women – if you visit “Alas” and look on the sidebar, there’s an entire section devoted to my most-recommended blogs about feminism, nearly all of which are written by women. I think “XX” and “Feministing” may be particularly suitable choices, for their broad coverage of feminist issues, but I strongly recommend all of the feminist blogs on my blogroll.
In addition, there many of the best-written lefty poliblogs are by women. Two that come immediately to mind are Body and Soul and Sisyphus Shrugged. I’m sure other bloggers are emailing you suggestions, as well. Visit whatshesaid.the-goddess.org and browse the blogroll there; you will find many blogs well worth your time and your blogroll.
I am not accusing you of being deliberately sexist or of deliberately slighting women. However, because the tendency to give primacy to male voices is so deeply embedded in our culture, even people of good will can unintentionally replicate and contribute to this sexism merely by following the path of least resistance.
Fortunately, there is a simple way to repair the problem with your blogroll – just add some excellent female bloggers!
If you don’t do that, however, then I must respectfully ask you to remove “Alas, a blog” from your blogroll.
Thank you for your consideration.
Thanks to Morgan and to Mouse Words for pointing this issue out to me.
UPDATE: Alternet editor Evan responds to these sorts of concerns in the comments at What She Said!. (Thanks to Sheelzebub – who has a good post on her own blog criticizing both “Alas” and “Peek” – for pointing this out to me). Here’s part of what Evan writes:
The intention was to begin by presenting our readers (many of whom are getting their very first taste of the blogosphere) with a more familiar landscape while integrating less familiar blogs as we proceed. Indeed, we hope PEEK will become the very place where the voices of less well-known blogs and bloggers are amplified!
Evan says that “quite a bit of fine-tuning and adjustment will no doubt take place over the next few months.” With all due respect, I’m not sure that saying it will take “a few months” demonstrates that you’re taking the feminist criticism of your blogroll seriously.
I’m not saying that your desire to build gradually, in an interactive process with readers, is wrong. And I agree with Lauren at Feministe that Alternet has earned some slack.
Why not compromise? Add several excellent female voices today, to show good intentions – and then work to improve things further over the next few months?
I certainly hope that they can move themselves to add the suggested blogs instead of deleting yours.
I saw their response at WSS. I hope they seek us out–they will find.
And FWIW, I sent them an eyeful.
I’ve had a quite enjoyable and fruitful discussion with the editor. I honestly don’t think we have a thing to worry about, at least if they want PEEK to be successful.
Part of our conversation is on my blog, but the best parts are “off the record.”
I am not familiar with all the blogs on Peek’s list, but I do not see any that I recognize as being written by a black person. I suppose Daily Kos and Juan Cole (just from his name) qualify as Latinos, but I do not see any that I know deal regularly with racism issues. (At least, not specifically racism in America – Juan Cole’s blog certainly has to deal with racism in its focus on the Mid East.)
I hope this does not count as an attempt to derail, but it would seem hypocritical to get upset at a lefty blogroll that only has one woman, but ignor a lack of people of color. But hopefully I am wrong and one of the blogs I am unfamiliar with is by a black person and/or about racism.
It’s not a derailment, and I think you make a good point.
The truth is, I wasn’t sure about if there were bloggers of color on that list or not. Since I didn’t know if the list was slighting people of color or not, I decided that I could leave the decision to criticize that aspect – or not – to people who were more knowlegable than I.
It now appears that there are, indeed, not enough people of color on the Peek list. I’ll definitely bring this up in my next correspondence with the Peek folks.
I just took a look at the blogroll at PEEK, so I don’t know what it looked like before, but I am pleased to report that “Feministing” and “Afro-Net-izen” now appear.
I covered the dearth of people of color on the blogroll in my letter to PEEK. You can see the text of it on my blog.
I’m not saying one women’s feminist blog and one african-american blog is enough (I’m not familiar with afro-net-izen, but a cursory look seems like it deals a lot with race issues) but it does show if we continue to write Evan our lists of good blogs, the situation should improve. I know I’ll be suggesting the likes of Prometheus 6 and Echidne.
How about the disabled? Surely there’s a disabled-oriented blog or three.
>> Add several excellent female voices today, to show good intentions – and then work to improve things further over the next few months?
If they copy-pasted your short list, then, it would become your blogroll. They need to do their work in formulating their own recommendations for their readership. In the meantime, with your site on the blogroll, your entire list of feminist sites already adds to the landscape they are mapping.
They seem to be relying on the notion of what is familiar to them. Have they indicated what criteria they will use in choosing sites for their blogroll? Why did they choose yours, for example?
I’m interested in learning what criteria you, and others here, have for determining excellence in female voices. Maybe PEEK have different priorities. And that would be something to explore methodically as they expand their blogroll.
Should the choices on their list and your list intersect, those sites might gain in credibility. Differences could add diversity of some sort.
Apologies in advance for diverting, but Robert mentioned disability blogs, and that made me curious. What are the good blogs dealing with disability? I know of a couple of bloggers who are disabled, but disability isn’t their main focus.
Here’s a good disabled blog:
http://thegimpparade.blogspot.com/
Should do for a start, eh ?
Cool. Thanks!
Yeah, what blue lacks in quantity, she more than makes up for in quality. I’d be happy to produce a post every six months if I could make it read that well. 8)
More disabled-activist blogs:
The front page of Ragged Edge Magazine’s website is essentially a blog, and quite a good one. I’m adding it to the “Alas” blogroll.
Crippled Monkey blogs for Ouch! Magazine, which is in turn owned by the BBC (?), focusing on disabled issues and people in the media.
And while we’re (sort of) on the subject of disabled activist writers, it’s a chance for me to recommend one of my favorite writers, Harriet McBryde Johnson.
If you haven’t read Johnson’s articles, then you’re in for a treat! The first, Unspeakable Conversations, is about her Princeton debate with Peter Singer, who in disability rights circles is considered pure evil. The second, The Disability Gulag, is a critique of the American disabled care system. Both articles are funny, well-written, politically engaged, and human.
She has a new book coming out soon, which I’m looking forward to reading.
Thanks Alsis! I’ve got a half-dozen reviews of movies in the works and if your plug here doesn’t make me get off my ass (figuratively speaking only) and finish a couple, nothing will. In the meantime, try:
Disability Studies, Temple U, especially important right now is the linked article by Lennard Davis about Million Dollar Baby. Also good, Simi Linton’s essay on transportation in NYC.
Not quite a blog, Disability World. Check out an interview with disabled women leaders in Ghana.
And just to stir things up, an essay by Marta Russell on assisted suicide, humanism, and Oregon’s law. It’s a few years old but more applicable than ever, given that MDB is up for an Oscar this month.
The emails I got from the editor at PEEK were really nice and the efforts to fix things are most welcome. The pleasant way that this all was dealt with has really made my day.
If you’re looking for another blog by a woman, check out my blog.
Thanks so much, everyone. Ouch! has a blogroll, too.
Hey, Amp-
Thanks for mentioning What She Said!. The list there is approaching 500 women bloggers. I wish they’d list it, or feministblogs.org. One link takes people so many places.
And if I can just take a moment for shameless self-promotion, my blog The-Goddess is written by a Native American, bisexual, disabled, feminist, Pagan. How many categories do I have to cover to be considered, for Goddess’ sake?!
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Please pass this onto other people.
How can the people force a mean spirited conservative congress to pass a progressive agenda? Simple. I have picked some well known companies that appear related to issues that progressives find important. Boycott these companies and make them lobby congress and get what we want or they go bust. While I agree we need to elect a Democratic congress and a Democratic president, with a consumer boycott we the people can exert influence every single day and not just at election time and not just with letters or petitions but with petitions with the bite of a boycott.
Join the revolution for progressive legislation
http://www.boycott-republicans.com
Write this url on your one, five and ten dollar bills.
Call Eckerd Pharmacy Corporate Headquarters at 800 325 3737, Call CVS Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 888 607 4287 and Call Walgreens Pharmacy Corporate headquarters at 800 289 2273 and tell them you will not purchase any products from their drug stores until they get the Republican congress to repeal the faulty prescription drug benefit and replace it with a simple 80 percent coverage benefit under Medicare Part B. Then sign the petition.
Call Walmart at 800 WALMART and tell them you will not buy from them until they get the Republican congress to stop social security privatization, increase the minimum wage to TEN dollars an hour, and extend unemployment insurance for people who lost jobs and sought work for more than 6 months. then sign the petition.
Sign the petition to stop social security privatization, increase the minimum wage,extend unemployment insurance for people who lost jobs and sought work for more than 6 months and repeal the faulty Republican prescription drug benefit and replace it with a simple 80 percent coverage of medication under Medicare Part B. Please get two other people to sign this petition.
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/progressive
Sign the petition to stop the War and Occupation in Iraq
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stopthewar
Boycott Wendy’s Restaurants and Outback Steakhouses.
Why you say? Wendy’s Restaurants operate out of Dublin, OHIO and Outback Steakhouses operate out of FLORIDA. Now you see. I have picked two well known companies that operate out of the states that have brought us stolen elections by the immoral Republican Party. These companies operate restaurant chains that have restaurants around the United States.
Now why boycott them after the effort to overturn Bush’s second stolen election has failed? Boycott them, call them, email them and tell them that we will not go to their restaurants until Ohio and Florida elects democrats to Governorships, Secretaries of state and majorities in their legislatures in Ohio and Florida. In other words we will punish them for allowing the stolen elections to happen in 2000 and 2004. Will it work? Well do it and see.
I had a petition to demand a revote in Ohio and Florida at
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/revote
but now I use it to allow people to express their opinions on the 2004 and 2000 stolen elections and encourage them to boycott Wendy’s and Outback Steakhouse, 2 famously Republican contributors.
Thank you.
Also visit these fine websites
http://www.Buyblue.org
http://www.2005blue.com
http://www.choosetheblue.com
http://www.imblue.net
I also received a very nice letter from Peek. I’m glad it’s updating it’s blog roll to include more women and African Americans. Things have definitely turned out well.
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