Elayne Riggs' Journal (for Leah)

Monday, March 07, 2005

Estrogen Month - Day 7

Thanks to Pen-Elayne readers' input I've added three new blogs to my blogroll (see yesterday's post below), and word of "new" women bloggers is getting out far and wide (at least I hope so). Here again are the loose "rules" of Estrogen/Women in Blogging Month:

* Check out the blogs on my left-hand sidebar. Women-run blogs appear in at least five sections (Liberal Coalition, News+Views [Da] Gals, Dynamic Duos, Da Groups, and the first part of Kultcha). These are all great blogs, well worth your time to check out and perhaps add to your blogroll if you're so inclined (particularly if you're a big-name guy blogger who's ever posted wondering where all the liberal-left women bloggers are). All blogs in each section are listed in alphabetical order by the blogger's first name or handle.

* If you don't see your favorite women-run blogs on my sidebar, they could be in my Bloglines bookmarks under the three "Gals in Waiting" sections at the top. I've split "Gals in Waiting" as follows: those blogs I'm likeliest to add before the month is out because they've received more than one of your votes in support (8 as of this post); those of which you've made me aware via one vote (33 so far); and those that I've found via looking around at some of your blogs but for which nobody's cast a vote yet (probably about 150 or so). In each of the Gals in Waitings sections the blogs are listed in alphabetical order by the blogger's first name or handle.

* Please cast a vote in the comments section below for any of the blogs you've seen in the bookmarks to "move up" to my sidebar. If you have a blog and are voting for someone, they really ought to be on your blogroll, yes? And please be aware that I read all blogs via Bloglines because there's just no time for me to do otherwise, so the blogs for which you vote should have a working RSS feed and be in English (blogs with translations often have them at the bottom and have a limited RSS feed). While you should not vote for any blog that I already have on my sidebar, please feel free to give those blogs a shout-out if you wish so that others reading your comments can take note of them.

* When you vote for a blog keep your head up high, and don't be afraid of the dark - sorry... when you vote for a blog, please tell us all why you like that blog. People reading your comments are much likelier to take to a blog if you tell us a bit about it and what attracts you to it. And that's the long-term goal here - to get more publicity for these women and to get them not only on my blogroll but on others' as well.

* If you're a guy blogger, especially one higher-up in the blogosphere, consider taking the Pen-Elayne Pledge (and posting about it on your blog) to add at least one new female blogger to your sidebar and regular reading routine every week in March to celebrate Women's History Month.

* If you're a guy blogger relatively new to the blogosphere and upset that I'm "excluding" your blog from this WHM celebration, tough titties. I mean it. This celebration isn't about you. There are tons of ways to get your blog more recognition (and this goes for both guys and girls). Conservative blogger NZ Bear used to run weekly "new blogs in need of more readers" contests on The Truth Laid Bear before he burnt out on it, but I'm sure someone or other has picked up that slack. Publicize your blog there. Get site meters, and get listed on Blogarama, BlogRank, BlogStreet, BlogWise, TopBlogs and Technorati; buttons for all those places are on my sidebar. Start making interesting comments in other blogs' comment sections. Join or form an alliance, promising to list each other's blogs on your sidebars and do occasional blogarounds like we do at the Liberal Coalition. Just don't gimme that garbage about how pro-woman automatically implies anti-man. I'm still pissed about Take Your Daughters to Work Day morphing into "Daughters and Sons" because the societal default got its nose out of joint. Remember, your personal blog may not yet rank high in the liberal-left blogosphere, but male-run blogs in general are still considered the default; the relative invisibility of women as a group is what this exercise is designed to tackle. (And, as an aside, I frequently add male-run blogs to my sidebar as well. So really, I don't want to hear it. Particularly second-hand, when you're not even brave enough to complain to my face so you whine on someone else's blog.)

Sorry about that last paragraph, but I needed to get it off my chest. If I have time later on or tomorrow, I'll post some more URLs from the "Gals in Waiting - No Votes Yet" section so you can check out those blogs without having to click twice. In the meantime, you can check out Jude's list for the day. Let the voting re-commence!

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