I'm a woman blogger, one of those desperate souls with bad hair and smeared lipstick, one of those slightly crazed looking creatures muttering to themselves at street corners while picking up months old topics for their blog posts. I'm made of no linkable material, I write boringly on boring things, I'm too rigid on my abortion rights, I seldom rant and rave about Social Security.
On top of all that, I'm totally without creativity, never come up with any truly new ideas and always go on about trivial secondary issues like whether Iran is executing women for the crime of being raped.
That's what an anonymous Important Blogger has told Shakespeare's sister, a great new blogger, a woman whose lipstick is always perfect if she chooses to wear any. Or more quotably:
In private emails, male bloggers who publicly wring their hands about how to solve the problem of the dearth of women bloggers in the upper echelon, will admit that the reality is the difficulty of finding women worth linking to.
Women don't give me much linkable material.
Women write on subjects that don't interest me.
Women don't know how to compromise on abortion rights.
Why don't women post about Social Security? It affects them, too.
Women don't write commentary, don't come up with new ideas.
Gender politics is all secondary issues.
Well, yes, a good woman blogger is worth her weight in gold. Or in chocolate. But equally hard to find, especially if the standards are suitably adjusted to keep her rare. I mean, come on! Linkability and boredom are subjective standards. There are days when I'm totally bored with myself and would delink if it was relatively easy to do and reversible. But I have to live in My Divine Presence all the time and that's very different from someone linking to me once a year or so. I'm quite nice consumed in small portions, and if you read my writings carefully you might even find something of interest. Such as my cup size which is 34C. Or what's wrong with Social Security, or the bankruptcy bill.
In fact, I post on Social Security all the time, I write commentary all the time (my life is commentary!), I suggest new theories and ideas all the time. But, alas, this is all so very unlinkable and boring. And then I do go on about gender politics which are not secondary if you belong to the other gender than the one that the Important Blogger inhabits. That's how it is.
I'm even willing to compromise on abortion rights: I'm willing to have them completely taken away from Important Male Bloggers if that helps with the discourse.
But I'm not going to change anything just to get linked by some anonymous Important Blogger. Nope. Even goddesses have their pride and this is where I will not stoop to conquer. Besides, I love the readers I have and value their opinion more than the opinion of someone who has not read my divine thoughts with adequate humility and attention.
If I could start my blogging career again I'd choose to use a pseudonym. Something like Bob the Slob or the Blogginator or Currer Bell or James Tiptree, Jr.. I'd talk a lot about my eight inches uncut and I'd swear a lot and I'd be one of the guys. Of course I might be one of the guys right now. There's really no way of knowing on the internets, is there? Now that's a worrying thought for all those who have lists of reasons for not linking to women's blogs.