Question of the Week: Where are all the Female bloggers?

Beside a few heavy hitters (Malkin, La Shawn Barber, and Michele's ASV) there are not a lot of big "female" bloggers. Certainly not many political bloggers (since Michele doesn't do politics anymore, she must be removed from that list.) I have two observations regarding this (correction, two "main" observations, and one extra bonus point).

The reason why there are so few female bloggers, is that the majority of women do not like politics. And, many are neither good at, nor do they enjoy, debating. While there certainly are women here and there that enjoy a nice intellectual debate, and are enraptured by all things political, most of the women I know fall under one of two categories: those that can't debate, and those that don't like politics.

The first group likes politics per sec, but are too emotional for rational debate. Their feelings get hurt, or they get angry, or placed in some emotional state that makes rational debate impossible (even debate via the internet.) When you disagree politically with these types of women, you become an ENEMY. You are a bad person. When it is discovered that you voted for Bush, or that you are pro-life, you will be avoided in the future. Blacklisted or blackballed. Whatever. Your political affiliation makes you EVIL. No amount of rational debate will make the smallest dent in these types, they are ruled and controlled by the politics of emotion.

The second group of women fall under the "I'm not interested at all in politics" model. They have little more than a passing interest in the news, and find politics BORING. They may vote, but that's the extent of their role in civic responsibility. They will talk babies, or tv shows, or PTA. They probably don't know a lot about history, and even less about current events. I say this, because I fail to understand how a person could know anything about those two subjects, and not find politics rather important.

My final reason ... not entirely related to the rest of this post - is that many men dismiss the opinions of women. Even in our day and age, most women need to "prove" themselves to men in a manner that is not required of other men. It can be rather discouraging to women bloggers who are trying to participate, only to find that they are talking into a void - be it on their blog, or on other blogger's comments (especially when the same points THEY make are ignored, until a man brings up a similar point.) IT is no wonder that many women choose screen names that lack sexual identifiers. Not all men in the blogsphere act this way, but the ones that do stick out (to me.) Not naming names here.

Anyway, that's my .02.