Friday, March 18, 2005
Hooray For Atrios
And I mean that sincerely.
Last night, Tas e-mailed me a link to a blog I'd never heard of before. A blog called Shakespeare's Sister, another great liberal blog written by a woman that doesn't get the attention it deserves.
But it did today. Thanks to Atrios and thanks to Kevin Drum.
How did Shakespeare's Sister attract this attention? By writing a post entitled "Get Real" which included unattributed quotes from some a-list bloggers that were downright insulting and rather ridiculous.
Shakespeare's Sister: "We’re not going to get anywhere as long as the male bloggers who post about this issue continue to do so with such appalling intellectual dishonesty. In private emails, male bloggers who publicly wring their hands about how to solve the problem of the dearth of women bloggers in the upper echelon, will admit that the reality is the difficulty of finding women worth linking to."
Women don’t give me much linkable material.
Women write on subjects that don’t interest me.
Women don’t know how to compromise on abortion rights.
Why don’t women post about Social Security? It affects them, too.
Women don’t write commentary, don’t come up with new ideas.
Gender politics is all secondary issues.
Atrios stopped by and left a few comments, some of which - to me and to a few others that left comments - were just as ridiculous as the misogynistic crap above.
But Atrios ended up giving a link to Shakespeare's Sister today. He linked to another article that she wrote and (I'm sure) blessed her with thousands of hits today. Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly also linked to Shakespeare's Sister. He even admitted to being responsible for a few of those quotes, but he didn't say which ones.
Of course, a couple links handed out once doesn't mean that everything's peachy-keen now. There has to be more solidarity between a-list bloggers and b to z list ones, and between male ones and female ones, and between white ones and black ones, and between white ones and other ethnic ones, and between straight ones and gay ones, and - just as importantly - between left-leaning ones and right-leaning ones.
I'd also like to give props to Oliver Willis for linking to a really interesting smaller fem blog the other day. How he found this blog I have no idea, but, as I said, it is rather interesting. The blog is called Angry Single Mom and it's written by a religious left-leaning mother who blasts the fundamentalists for attempting to "dismantle our freedoms" and for being hypocrites.
That said (or blogged) I intend to take a break from this topic. Perhaps more of the a-listers will continue to promote smaller voices, especially voices that aren't always male.
As far as my "beef" with Oliver Willis. As one of my best friends in the blogosphere said to me, though not in these exact words, "You can't get that upset with Oliver because he's just another asshole blogger like you and me." Point taken. Although I hope he (and other bloggers like Atrios) get over themselves. Just because their blogs are more well known, it doesn't mean that their blogs aren't still blogs. Just because a blog is small, it doesn't mean that the information found on it can't be trusted, especially if it's backed up with extensive research and viewable links.
UPDATE: Angie from Ang's Weird Ideas left a link on my Haloscan to another great blog called The-Goddess who is "Pro-Witch/Woman/Gay/Bill of Rights" (of course, I've blogged many times in support for the last three , but I've also known a few witches - even dated one once - through my travels who I'd also support...just not the "wicked" ones or Barbara Bush...don't get at me for that one, Republican readers it's just a joke based on what she once said about Geraldine Ferraro). Check out her blog and especially check out her responses to each of the male blogger retorts/excuses/insults directed at Shakespeare's Sister listed above.
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