Via Lindsay at Majikthise, Stephanie Schorow has an article on women and and in the blogosophere in SadieMag.
Clancy Ratliff, who is studying female blogs for her PhD, blogs on www.culturecat.com.
Ratliff, who blogs herself at www.culturecat.com, explains that male bloggers rarely link to female-written sites or even visit them to leave comments. Female hosted blogs seldom get listed alongside powerhouse sites such as Eschaton (www.atrios.blogspot.com) and InstaPundit (www.instapundit.com), and those sites that do often have a well-known host or catchy appeal. Conservative pundit Michelle Malkin’s blog, www.michellemalkin.com, for instance, consistently ranks high in ratings indexes, but she’s also a syndicated columnist and author. Wonkette (www.wonkette.com) provides a titillating, raunchy collection of inside-the-Beltway gossip–not a website for those who see women as the more refined sex–making Ana Marie Cox, Wonkette’s creator, the go-to gal when mainstream media wants to cite a “women blogger.”
“I think she’s funny,” says Beyerstein, “but it’s kind of frustrating for more serious female bloggers. She’s not a [policy] wonk, she’s an entertainer.” Kathy states it more bluntly: “Any woman blogger on the web can use her sexuality to gain readers. But is that what we want?”
Yet mainstream media pundits and academics regularly invite the dirty-writing Wonkette to comment on issues of blogging or blogging ethics. She “was invited to represent not only women but the liberal blogs. That [annoyed] the hell out of everyone,” Beyerstein says.