[T]he internet is characteristically "postmodern" in the way that it opens up limitless opportunities for communication, writing and thought, and in the way that it galvanizes the proliferation of text freed from the mastery of authors . . . it makes all information the ownership of everyone.[1]

What's a blog?

Blogs are everywhere: they've become the new darling of US and international politics and are quickly becoming a new form of media. Hillary Clinton has experimented with blogging[2] and hired a blogging consultant, and the President of Iran recently announced that he would be launching a blog.[3] Newspapers and other media outlets are creating new blogs at record pace. The new and creative ways blogs are being used for political activism have shown that they can make waves in electoral politics: The New York Times credited the power of blogging as a contributing factor in Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary. Lamont had hired a staffer to coordinate blogging activities.[4] National and grassroots organizations have started blogs and in so doing are paving the way for online "netroots" organizing. Just last year, an antichoice bill in Virginia was withdrawn thanks to the quick response of pro-choice bloggers.[5] But despite blogs' prevalence and increasing relevance both in and outside of the political realm, many still don't seem to know what, exactly, makes a blog a blog.

The term blog, short for Weblog, is a Web site maintained by one or more persons who post information in "log" format, most often time-stamped in reverse chronological order.[6] Unique to blogs is a level of interactivity not present on most Web sites. Readers can leave comments and partake in a conversation with other readers and the bloggers themselves. Blogs also tend to be timelier than other Web sites in that they're updated frequently—generally several times a day. If you're not familiar with the "blogosphere," you may find this issue's Recommended Reading section and Wikipedia's list of blogging terms helpful to keep on hand as references while you browse this edition of The Scholar & Feminist Online.

New blogs are popping up everyday. Recent estimates by The Guardian UK put the number of feminist blogs at 240,000, and the number of active blogs worldwide at 4 million, although some estimates are much higher.[7] The blog search engine Technorati says that it tracks more than 50 million blogs worldwide. Despite these numbers, little has been written on the feminist implications of the recent blogging phenomenon, to the detriment of the feminist movement. Further, while women are currently creating blogs at nearly the same rate as men,[8] "mainstream" or "A-list" blogs (as defined by traffic rank and media and political attention) do not often link to blogs run by women, particularly when it comes to the political blogosphere, an indication that the gender hierarchy is being reproduced in the blogosphere.[9] In fact, a recent survey of "important blogs" (importance being measured by how many sites—other blogs and commercial news sites—link to the blog) by the Web site Blogstreet indicated that not one of the "top 10 most important weblogs" was maintained by a woman.[10] Addressing this point in an essay on the importance of blogging to progressive politics, Lakshmi Chaudhry rightly asks: "If blogs derive their credibility from being the 'voice of the people,' surely we should be concerned about which opinions get attention over others . . . What kind of democratic consensus does the blogosphere reflect when the people participating in it are most likely to be white, well-educated men?"[11] Following this argument, this issue not only explores the act of blogging as a way of subverting media power relations and an exciting new way to think about feminist activism, but it also examines the recurring and important questions: Where are the women bloggers? Who are they? Or more importantly, why can't (or won't) people find them?

So what's feminist about blogging?

Although not all blogs by women are considered "feminist," nor are all feminist blogs written by women,[12] the blogosphere is a useful—and necessary—source for feminists both because it allows us to get our perspectives out in public forums, and also because it's a medium easily adaptable to feminist causes. In the article "An Independent Media Center of One's Own," the creators of the Independent Media Center (or Indymedia) note that the open publishing forum offered by Indymedia news Web sites—and also by blogs—embodies feminist values in several ways: it opens up the media-making process to multiple progressive voices; it flattens the hierarchy that exists whenever news is presented as the "active" product separate from the "passive" audience; and it claims not to represent "the monolithic truth but an assembly of many people's views."[13]

In addition to the feminist nature of blogs themselves, contemporary globalization has made the Internet—and blogs in particular—a valuable way for feminists to communicate through and beyond various divides. According to one of our contributors, Gillian Youngs, contemporary feminism, using what's known as "cyberfeminism," has been successful in using virtual networks which "cross not only the boundaries of nations and cultures and public and private spheres . . . [but] traditional divisions within them such as state and market, civil and commercial society, profit and non-profit, institutional and personal." The term cyberfeminism itself is defined as "a diverse range of practices and discourses all generically identifiable by their commitment to exploring non-oppressive alternatives to existing relations of power through manipulation of information technologies."[14] Importantly for the blogging context, cyberfeminists are described as women "for whom information technology, and in particular the Internet, has become a central part of their everyday, lived feminist politics."[15] For younger feminists who grew up using the Internet in their daily lives, then, it's a way to turn the personal into the political in what contributor Tracy Kennedy refers to as "feminist virtual consciousness-raising."

Without doubt, the cyberfeminism taking place in the blogosphere has broadened the scope of public feminist dialogue and the reach of progressive feminist politics. In setting out to "challenge the male-centered culture of the Internet and to imprint their own models of open and accessible . . . communication onto the new technologies," these technologically savvy feminists have found a way to introduce new voices and new strategies into age-old feminist debates.[16] Ideally a powerful communication tool for feminists from Arkansas to Albania, the Internet promises a more open and democratic arena for debate and action, many aspects of which are explored in this edition. That said, there remain serious racial, economic, and even gender gaps—explored in the "where are the women" conversations—in the actual use of the Internet in general[17] and the blogosphere in particular. We must ask, then, Whose voices are we hearing through this medium, and why?

Where are the women?

Our contributing authors and bloggers explore various elements surrounding this pivotal question, which was also a main topic of conversation by panelists at the November 2006 panel on women and cyberactivism hosted by Barnard. In "Where are the Women? Pseudonymity and the Public Sphere, Then and Now," Tedra Osell traces the historic roots of women and pseudonymous writing, asking whether the contemporary perception that men dominate the blogosphere might stem from "this question of pseudonymity" and suggesting that "perhaps part of the gap between reality and perception comes from women hiding in plain sight." Clancy Ratcliff describes preoccupation with the question itself as one of the main barriers for women in the blogosphere, arguing that "bloggers' preoccupation with the element of sex in the 'Where are the women?' discussions shows that gender is a "difference that cannot be set aside" and one that "affects weblog conversations before they even begin."

On the other hand, Chris Nolan argues that instead of focusing on the "where are the women" discussions, women should look forward, focusing on how women's voices can contribute to public discourse by taking advantage of new technology. Nolan issues a call to action for "women who really care about politics and public discourse" to support Web sites and other online efforts that speak to women's needs better than mainstream, male-dominated media outlets.

Highlighting one important reason for the use of new technology to move beyond the dominant media discourse, Marie Varghese cites the example of cyberactivism in calling attention to violence against LGBT people of color. Varghese argues that "blogging as an act serves to refocus the lens and add more depth to the available images of queer experiences in the US." Patricia Lange's essay on video blogging also provides evidence that women's use of new technologies is leading to "increased public discourse about formerly uncomfortable, distasteful, or difficult topics in ways that other media methods have not."

Gillian Youngs and Shireen Mitchell provide an in-depth look at some of the barriers to online feminist organizing. Youngs argues that, while "feminism is alive and well, evolving and changing in these cybertimes," divisive social and global inequalities are also in danger of growing if "the kinds of warnings about exclusion that feminist voices articulate are not heard and acted on."

These pieces are only the beginning of the dialogue on issues examined in this edition of The Scholar & Feminist Online. Due to the interactive nature of blogging itself, we have provided a new and exciting way to become involved in the conversation. As contributor Tracy Kennedy reminds us, "feminism has indeed changed . . . [i]n an Internet-saturated culture, feminists need to take on these 'master's tools' of technology and embrace the Web, making it our own" We hope that you will utilize these tools, and that this issue will be the start of a much-needed conversation on the most effective way to utilize this new medium for positive change.

How is this issue different from previous editions of S&F Online?

Unlike previous issues, this edition is broken up into two parts: an academic section, featuring articles on feminism and blogging (described above), and a blog section, where some of today's most popular feminist bloggers have joined us to take part in a one-of-a-kind conversation. The bloggers will post on various critical issues, including: race, class and gender in the blogosphere; women blogging in male spaces; comments sections as political discourse; and feminist blogging and politics. We will also include each academic article in our blog section to offer the contributors, bloggers, and readers a chance to discuss the essays. For one week after the edition launches, the blog portion of the edition will be live, giving both the contributors and the readers a chance to discuss the issues online. Posts will be organized in chronological order and also by topic through a sidebar. We encourage you, the reader, to continue the conversation and interact with the contributors and other commentators.

Finally, we would like to thank everyone at the Barnard Center for Research on Women for their guidance in putting this issue together, and especially for their willingness to try something that has never been done before. Thanks also to our wonderful contributors and bloggers, who have shared their insights and ideas, and who inspire us daily both on and offline.

We hope you enjoy the issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together. See you in the comments section!

Endnotes

1. Desiree Lewis, "African Gender Research and Postcoloniality: Legacies and Challenges," Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, Gender Series, Volume 1 (November 2004), www.codesria.org/links/
conferences/gender/LEWIS.pdf. [Return to text]

2. Clinton's blog can be found at http://health.yahoo.com/
blog-for-hope/clinton/. [Return to text]

3. See the August 14, 2006 report on Ahmadinehad's blog at the BBC News Web site, http://news.bbc.co.uk/
2/hi/middle_east/4790005.stm. [Return to text]

4. Ryan Lizza, "The YouTube Election," The New York Times, August 20, 2006. [Return to text]

5. "Update: Blogs Force Cosgrove to Withdraw Disturbing Miscarriage Bill," posted to Feministing.com, January 11, 2005, http://feministing.com/
archives/002440.html. [Return to text]

6. V. Tobias, "Blog This! An Introduction to Blogs, Blogging, and the Feminist Blogosphere," Feminist Collections 26 (2005), nos. 2-3, http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/
WomensStudies/fc/fcblogs1.htm. [Return to text]

7. K. Cochrane, "The Third Wave - At a Computer Near You," The Guardian Unlimited, March 31, 2006, http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/
story/0,,1743734,00.html (accessed June 5, 2006); see our blogroll for a small sample of some of our favorites. [Return to text]

8. Pew Internet & American Life Project, "New Data on Blogs and Blogging," press release posted to pewinternet.org, May 2, 2005, http://www.pewinternet.org/
press_release.asp?r=104 (accessed June 7, 2006). [Return to text]

9. S. C. Herring et al., "Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs, in Into the Blogoshpere, ed. L. Gurak et al. (University of Minnesota: 2004), http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/
women_and_children_pf.html (accessed June 5, 2006). [Return to text]

10. C. Ratliff, "Whose Voices Get Heard? Gender Politics in the Blogosphere," posted to CultureCat, March 25, 2004, http://culturecat.net/node/303. [Return to text]

11. L. Chaudhry, "Can Blogs Revolutionize Progressive Politics?," In These Times, February 6, 2006, http://www.inthesetimes.com/
site/main/article/2485/ (accessed June 5, 2006). [Return to text]

12. See Ervin's essay in this edition for her take on the differences between blogs run by women and feminist blogs. [Return to text]

13. J. Breitbart and A. Nogueira, "An Independent Media Center of One's Own: A Feminist Alternative to Corporate Media," in The Fire This Time: Young Activists and the New Feminism, ed. Vivien Labaton and Dawn Lundy Martin (New York: Anchor Books, 2004), 19-41. [Return to text]

14. Susan Luckman, "(En)Gendering the Digital Body: Feminism and the Internet," Hectate 25 (1999): 36-46. Luckman is quoting Sadie Plant, the feminist theorist who coined the term "cyberfeminist." Importantly, she also notes that, "there exists no singular cyberfeminism per se." [Return to text]

15. Ibid. [Return to text]

16. Ibid. [Return to text]

17. See Joni Seager's The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (New York: Penguin Books, 2003) for global and national statistics. [Return to text]