blogosphere

With the end of the year coming, it seemed as fine a time as any to thank others who have recognized all of you and applaud some of your achievements here at the AGA.

• Austrailia's Wo! Magazine included the AGA in their recent piece on feminist blog community.

• Em's entry Boy Things, Girl Things was listed in the most recent Carnival of Feminists.

About a week and a half ago, Kampire pointed out the plight of the Biting Beaver (link) for us to see an actual story of a woman denied EC. Over at her blog (link), she's posted her story cut and dried, and it's empowering. As a young feminist in this rich internet socio-political community, I strangely (and rather guiltily) feel more proud of her actions than sorry for her troubles. I'm thrilled with the fact that she's living rpoof they're all wrong--all those anti-choicers out there unreasonable enough to believe that denying a women EC fights abortion, that a 24 hour waiting period will change a woman's mind when that's all she's probably thought about since she learned she was pregnant, that abortion directly results in depression and anxiety disorders.

I realised something aout blogs today: a lot of political bloggers are men. Why?

Could it be that the blogosphere is a perfect reflection of our offline gender-centered world and that women are more reluctant than men to take a stand in the public sphere and be vocal about opinions? Statistics are ambivalent about the issue, and research seems to say yes and no.

The Pew Internet & American Life project Center recently reported (pdf link) that in September 2005, 25 percent of women were reading blogs, compared to 29 percent of men (11 % of men had already created one, while only 9 % of women had). The survey also reports gender-based differences in terms of usage: men seem to consume information online more aggressively than women, their approach to consulting news can differ greatly: