So what is a woman weblogger, anyway? The blogosphere had a discussion about that very topic last year, and it got a bit contentious. We never really settled the matter. So let’s try again.
I’m a woman with a weblog. Who am I?
I am a conservative Republican. I am a liberal former San Franciscan who can program with the best of the boys (if not better!). I am a libertarian who writes about economics. I wrote the first book about weblogs. I am a bellicose woman. I am an Israeli mother of two. I’m an American with an attitude who buys CDs for the troops and runs a weblog about the war. I’m an editor in New York. I’m a former military woman with a daughter in the military now. I rant. I advise. I lecture. I educate. I shoot. It’s about sex (sometimes). It’s about Canada. It’s about Jewish issues. It’s about libraries. It’s about animals and babies. It’s about me.
I write about women’s issues. I write about men’s issues. I write about politics. I write about comic book heroes. I write about issues that interest me, period. (No, that doesn’t interest me, that generally pains me about once every 28 days. I can hear the ewws from the guys in the back. Oh, stop.)
So what does it mean to be a woman with a weblog? Well, it means that I’m a woman, and I write a weblog. I don’t believe that issues are necessarily gender-specific,and I certainly don’t stop to wonder if I’m shooting for a male or female audience when I sit down to write an essay. I just write them, and assume that the audience will sort itself out. Judging by the email I get, it’s pretty evenly distributed.
I can tell you what generates the most interest: Sex. That’s the absolutely, without a doubt, catch-’em-all topic that nobody seems to ever get enough of. Alas, I rarely write about sex, or my hit count would be two or three times its current size. (I think there’s a euphemism in there, but I’m going to steer very clear of it.)
So what’s the upshot? Is there sexism out there? Absolutely. Does it stop me from doing what I want? Sometimes. Does it stop me in the blogosphere? Nope. Does it affect the blogosphere? Yep. A lot? Not really. Will I name names? No. Will I get posts and letters refuting this claim? Undoubtedly.
And one last thing, since this is the first in a series of women writing about women: I am a feminist, and proud to say so.
Let the debate recommence.
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Women. Sex. Sexism. Feminism.
It was nice to read and figure out what you think…well one thought American people didnt care much about rest of the world..perhaps that is changing, although it is still about stuff that is right under your nose….
Coming to terms with relationships..that is the least area of interst looks like. Why are we interested in sex and not relations….
because it is easier to have sex than sustain a relation..you know then I have to be concerned about your period and not stay away at work those five ( or three ) days ).
It is easier to have no commitment..well nothing different for wemen either and it is catching up..the instant fun thing that does not call for commitment..because remember making and keeping commitment is harder that having sex..not love…not love and sex but only sex…well there you are and the world is catching up..Indian news magazine Outlook ran a cover story on how Indian wemen are going for affairs in search of exciting sex…well you get the drift
To link or, not to link, how do you answer that question?

I’m a guy, Kiril’s the name.
I’m a blogger, Sneakeasy’s Joint is the place.
Have been for a year, now, and have started a 2nd, issue oriented one, as well (The Cycling Dude).
The posts connected with this piece, and this piece itself, have gotten me to thinking a bit about who I link to and why?
My links include a few of the Big Bloggers, amidst, those who have linked to me, and also blogs who don’t link to me, but I find interesting as well.(women bloggers, included).
I don’t have the time to read everything in the bloggerverse, and that’s one reason my Links List is so small.
I have begun to wonder whether MY linking to the Big Boys, unless I do so in a post for a particular reason, is even neccesary.
Anyone who blogs, or just does a Google search knows about these folks, or will discover them.
Heck, a few even make the rounds of the TV Talk Fests.
They don’t need me to spread the word about them.
The ordinary Blogger, like myself, would benefit more from a spot in my Links List, and I would benefit just as much by reading them.

I emailed Salam the link about Uday having a brain hemorrhage. He wrote me back:

the absolute biggest best most wanted brain-stuff-specialist (i am sure it has a name can’t think of it now) [has been called] and taken to a location outside baghdad, he called his family and said he can’t come back tonight.

something has happened to someone.

I emailed him asking whether he wanted to blog this but he hasn’t blogged anything and he hasn’t written me back so in the interests of info flow I am blogging it.

He also writes that he is nervous about the B-52s

Yesterday I received an email from Paul Boutin of Slate, asking me to call him, to discuss whether Salam Pax is a real person. I fully understand why journalists have to be skeptical. There’s a ton of liars out there, and the Internet is the perfect vehicle for con artists.

This morning I received several emails asking me the same thing: is Salam for real?

Full disclosure: I have a tendency to judge things and people immediately, and then to draw back. I immediately felt that Salam was for real. But…after that, I had my doubts. I never thought that he was a CIA front. Would the CIA have been clever enough to think up a hip dude who speaks quite good English and German?

I went though a period suspecting that he was a Mossad agent. Really. When I rejected that theory, I suspected that he was a Lebanese in London with an intimate familiarity of Baghdad, having a fine old time at my and other people’s expense. I pictured him and his friends posting this stuff from London, laughing uproariously at the stupidity of those gullible Americans. I’ve had my doubts, so I can’t blame anyone else for having them.

But over the past six or so months that we’ve been corresponding, my doubts have evaporated. Completely. OK, there’s a chance this could be a hoax but I’m willing to look like an asshole and say that my doubts have totally evaporated.

I expressed this to Paul and gave him several reasons:

1. He sent me something from Iraq. I did not save the outer envelope. I did keep it for some weeks but in the end, I decided to toss it. I don’t read Arabic, so I can’t prove that it came from Baghdad. Even if I had kept it, and even if I could get an Arabic speaker to verify that it came from Iraq, would the hardcore skeptics believe that it was sent by Salam?

2. Salam and I exchanged numerous emails about the history of the Jews in pre-1948 Iraq. He told me that in the Iraq in which he grew up, they were never spoken of, nor referred to in textbooks. He showed curiosity, so I gave in him info about where the surviving synagogue is. He wrote to me with details about their former residences which I know to be true from other accounts. I wasn’t tricking Salam into telling me things I already knew to test his truthfulness, I was letting him tell his story and each time he did, I became more convinced he was telling me the raw truth, of someone who knew he had been lied to about an important part of his country’s history and who was trying to comprehend it. Did you ever see the movie, The Nasty Girl?. It’s like that…only in this case, Hitler’s still alive.

3. Here’s the kicker. In December of last year, there was a sickening attack in Israel, within the “Green Line.” This was upclose and personal sadism, not the impersonal desperation of the suicide attacks. Not to go easy on those, but to my sensibilities, this was much worse. I was literally sick about this for three days and I think a tight-lipped hostility seeped through. He could have taken it personally but didn’t. He wrote me a very gentle reply. He signed his family name. (Which I won’t write here. Obviously.) I was very touched.

The blogosphere has been pretty hard on Arabs and I have chimed right in. One of the things that us Yank-bloggers have had the most sport with is the fact that, Arabs have an “honor-shame” culture. This is supposed to be alternately risible and terrible, especially juxtaposed with our Western, rational-fact-based-transactional-impersonal culture. I mean, they’ve got narghilas, we’ve got cruise missiles, which culture is superior?*

I think that human beings are more than the sum of their parts, and that all societies are more-or-less composed of all these qualities. In any case, I have a big honor deal going on in my own life. I experienced the 9/11 attack as (among other things), a huge diss. Our honor was impugned. We had to avenge our honor to be whole again.

So, when Salam responded to me as he did on that occasion, giving me his full name, he was saying, “Here. I extend my sympathies, on my honor, with my family name.”

I don’t need any more proof than that.

Satisfied?

I have misgivings about writing this. Salam wrote me he expected to end up one day as “pasta sauce.” I would not want to endanger his life in any way, and feel that I may be contributing to it. But…he’s continuing to blog away, so I feel that I must vouch for what I feel is true, even if I don’t know it.

Blog on Salam! One day, I’ll take that drive from Jerusalem to Baghdad and buy 1,000 tiles!!

Now, if only I had a nice, big kitchen to line them with. I hear that land is cheap in Baghdad.