Female Bibliobloggers Hate Me!
I’m sure that if you are involved in any way in the world of biblioblogging you are aware of the hornet’s nest that April has stirred up with the gender inequality issue as it pertains to… biblioblogging? Really? Biblioblogging.
Hmmmm. I know this is an actual issue in the real world… but biblioblogging? Really? People are setting out with chauvinists agendas on their blogs and blogrolls now? I know, I know, I’m unaware of my own presuppositions and the story I’ve been inculturated into…
Personally, I tend to put people in my blogroll that come to my site and interact with the material that is posted here, or I include the sites of other students I go to school with and professors that I take classes from. Other than that there is really no agenda to my blogroll. April doesn’t come here and comment or interact with my articles and I don’t go to her site. Simple really. Nothing beyond that. The agenda for my blogroll is not a feminist one because the agenda for my blogroll is people that actually come here.
However, seeing as I am supposedly intentionally, or unintentionally, keeping female bibliobloggers invisible I thought it would be interesting to see how many female bibliobloggers link to Scotteriology and shockingly I found that the answer is none! Wait a second…
Of course the list is not comprehensive but so far: none for none. Suzanne, April, Tonya, Mandy, J. K., and Judy refuse to bring me, and my views, to the attention of the female biblioblogging community by including me on their blogroll.
What is this? Some sort of conspiracy in the female biblioblogging community to suppress my voice? And why my voice? I’m a big “E” Egalitarian for Pete’s sake! What is it about my blog that female bibliobloggers find so subversive that they try to make me invisible with non-inclusion on their blogrolls?
What’s next? Somebody writing a post on what percentages of posts have to be related to biblical studies for a blog to be considered a biblioblog? Oh wait…
UPDATE: Tonya has gone and got all rebellious and added me to her blogroll. Her membership in the female biblioblogging community may be revoked. Maybe they don’t all hate me.
“…I tend to put people in my blogroll that come to my site and interact with the material that is posted here, or I include the sites of other students I go to school with and professors that I take classes from.”
As I noted on Pat’s blog (if ever my comment passes moderation) this is how blogging communities work in my experience. Have all the Top 50 sites, professional affiliations, and silly names (yes, “biblioblog” is a silly name) you want, but at the end of the day the community is a relatively organic network of people who read and comment on similar blogs. A discussion about the reasons that women are under-represented is a good thing, but it seems to me that the problem is going to be pretty complex and that there will be no easy or obvious solutions. And no solutions at all that can be policed or implemented in a binding way.
As I noted on Pat’s blog (if ever my comment passes moderation) . . .
Thanks for that comment, Colin. Have a little patience, friend. Your comment was left around 5:45am my time. I do like to get a bit of sleep each night. I also have a baby to care for, a wife to spend time with, and work to do. Alas, it has been approved! I think it’s a good point and worth considering. I will try to respond to it on my own blog when I have another free moment. Right now, I have to go hang up some cloth diapers to dry, if you don’t mind the wait
What’s next? Somebody writing a post on what percentages of posts have to be related to biblical studies for a blog to be considered a biblioblog? Oh wait…
Scott, with your snappy little understated jibe at me, I’m going to have to plug your blog into my sophisticated formula which shall tabulate whether you can truthfully be deemed a biblioblog. As I stipulated this solid, concrete, definitive, methodical, unquestionable, scientific, rigorous, ultraprecise, punctilious, scrupulous, and systematic formula on that blog post–the results will be quite exact and accurate.
Sleep is for the weak.
I’m a big “E” Egalitarian for Pete’s sake!
Your Freudian slip is showing. Please confess it again then: “I know, I know, I’m unaware of my own presuppositions and the story I’ve been inculturated into…”
LOL. Well played J. K., well played… consider “Pete” a euphemism!
i’m like you scott. i link to blogs i want to. not because there’s any sort of scheme in my mind to alienate people. if i alienate em thats ok with me- but my blogroll doesnt do that quite as well as my posts do.
So it doesn’t count that I link to you? While not quite a feminist, I do use feminist methodologies and have a deep concern for injustices against any marginalized group. Of course in the world of blogging it isn’t your gender that dictates how you are treated – it is very easy to anonymously blog. Rather it is the quality of ideas that you express or at the very least the entertainment value. Where equality rests is in terms of access – if women are being prevented access to creating blogs then we have an issue. But if female bloggers are expecting preferential treatment based on gender then the question has to be “why”? I have lots of women and men on my blogroll, in fact I specify that these are blogs I read. If I don’t read your blog then I tend to drop you from the roll. The roll is a way for me to quickly link the blogs I want to go to. Unless you are linked from one of those blogs it is not likely that I will find your blog (unless of course you comment on my blog and if I like what I see I will link you at least long enough to know if I want to read your blog regularly).
BTW you should hook a brother up and link to me.
Yeah, Frank, all of this said, I do need to update the blogroll and add you and a few others… it has been too long since I have done so.
Just as an aside, I don’t see anywhere where April links to Mandy.
That’s not an aside that’s an important and ironic (considering Judy’s assertion about blogrolls) point in this conversation.
I noticed you linked to 6 women in this post. Is that because 6 is the number of incompleteness as evidence in the mark of the beast. What exactly are you saying Scott? I trust you will come clean shortly and repent.
Yes. We hate you. We all got together and decided to blacklist you from our rolls. So I’ve added you to ours cause I’m the rebel in the bunch!
Like the Floppy Hat, half of Hebrew and Greek Reader is female and April doesn’t link to us either.
T
Yes, but I’ve always wondered–which is the Greek half, and which the Hebrew?
Personally, I link specifically in order to discriminate against marginalized groups. I’m not sure how much impact I’m having at present, because I haven’t blogged in like a year, and I never got much over 2-3 views a day. But at least I’m keeping the woman/black man/”differently-abled”/LGBT down!
Power to the Establishment! Damn the People! Fight the downtrodden!
By the by, Scott, what’s with the no-linky-to-my-bloggy? Set aside the facts that I never write anything (on my blog, at least), that I have nothing to do with biblical studies (aside from occasionally reading my SBV), and that I prolly couldn’t (as a product of US public schools, vice being homeschooled) locate Canadia on a map.
What gives, dude?
People don’t need a link to your blog because all of your best writing is done here!
I’ll help: Canada is up. Kind of like heaven. They’re very close to each other.
Sheesh, I’m on your blogroll. I feel like such slime. The He-Po is a She-Po if that’s any help.