"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Why Don't More Women Have Popular Political Blogs?

It's a hot question these days.

All I can add is that from my experience on campaign 2004, people who blogged are generally more ego-driven, more likely to enjoy hearing themselves talk about politics. I'm not excerpted from that (I often epitomize it). For whatever reason, Women in America seem to do that less.

On the other hand, I saw more women managing yahoo groups, moderating discussion forums, and keeping up actual organizational connections. I won't speculate on why this is, but I will note that these activities often produced much more political and social value than blogging did.

Without wading too deeply into pseudo-sociology, I think there's potentially something gendered about the attention-centric ethos of pure personal publishing (read me! read me!) vs. the outcome-centric ethos of organizing (lets get something accomplished). There's also something potentially gendered in the difference, for instance, between "outward facing" web publishing (e.g. the man-heavy blogosphere) and more "inward facing" ventures (e.g. livejournal, which has a lot more prominant female participants).

My gut and recent experience suggests that women online seem more driven by connections and conversations; men by recognition and reputation. That could be an insightful view into the heart of the American Equation, or it could be a temporary blip in the development of online culture. Or I could be totally wrong.

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