By Gaby Hinsliff / @gabyhinsliff
There used to be a dogeared cartoon on my desk, showing a boardroom full of men and one lone woman. The catchline read: "That’s an excellent suggestion, Miss Briggs. Perhaps one of the men would care to make it?"
It’s one of those jokes most working women find funny, and many men strangely don’t. I thought of it when I accepted Alex Smith’s offer to guest edit LabourList for International Women’s Day today.
I’m generally suspicious of anything wimmin-only: it smacks of condescension. My first instinct was to commission something about why a female-only blogging day is a rotten idea.
What stopped me was the realisation that there are still too many Miss Briggses around Westminster, advancing good ideas which go ignored until a man takes them up with greater volume and confidence. And there are too many women waiting to be invited to blog, where men just pile in. What appealed about this guest edition was the chance to give new writers and fresh perspectives an airing.
My only rule was that the writing should stand on its argument, not its author. Ideally you wouldn’t even notice they were all female: after all, did you notice that every single byline here last weekend was male?
Some contributions are wakeup calls, like Darinka Aleksic’s piece exploring the likelihood of a post-election challenge to abortion law, or Ceri Goddard’s blog explaining how spending cuts affect women differently from men.
Others challenge conventional thinking. Ella Rolfe writes a controversial piece from Iraq, following yesterday’s elections, on the consequences of well-meaning efforts to get women elected. Back home, Julia Hobsbawm argues that while the politics of parenting revolve around money, what many families lack is time.
Kitty Ussher, the former Treasury minister, writes candidly about the warning signs we missed before the banking crash – and why unpopular decisions are necessary to prevent the next one.
But if you read only one thing, make it Lisa Ansell’s blog on why she feels patronised by talk of the ‘women’s vote’. Since resigning as political editor of The Observer last year in an attempt to get a life, I’ve finally understood how divorced from reality Westminster can appear.
As a journalist, I’m staying strictly neutral in this election, so the site will feel less party political than usual today. Which allows the New Statesman’s Sophie Elmhirst to welcome Samantha Cameron to the sisterhood.
Whether or not she voted Labour in 1997, Ms Cameron is nobody’s chattel and we applaud her right to do what the hell she likes in 2010. Sam, nobody will know but you and the ballot box….
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Un it , If they engage we less we get 2 way politics the the disconnect will carry on , Our party is fallin behind because they dont get it , Listen to voters or at least egage them , Can our leadership at least accept that we need a 2 way chat with voters .
Danny
People like Ralph and Chris Cook regularly throw out ideas that I'd vote for, but they'll never have any effect until the leadership acts in a way that shows some resemblance to what the grassroots claim to stand for.
Philosophically, I want to vote Labour, but I won't support Brown & Mandelson et al.
How did the t-dhirts sell ? and i hope ralph brought one
Danny
Tell them to take half hour to respond even if its spin , But get them to engage a 2 way debate or ba them from posting , Oly when mps and minsters engage will people listen .
Danny
What is the readership on say, a weekend like?
Sorry to but in , but the site is like the commons (sometimes), the mps never respond , and praech but never debate , thats whats wrong with politics.
Danny
120? That is heartening.
It also means that men think it has nothing to do with them. If gender equality in the workplace is only framed as an issue that concerns women, then it's inevitably going to be treated as a box-ticking exercise by those men in the boardroom with Miss Briggs. You might stop overt sexism, but it won't change the the sort of attitude seen in the cartoon.
"Ideally you wouldn’t even notice they were all female: after all, did you notice that every single byline here last weekend was male?"
I didn't notice either to be honest.
Interesting that there was significantly less traffic in the comments section yesterday during women's day. Further confirmation that the blogosphere is principally a male dominated sport and also that the articles generated yesterday did not have the usual appeal to the mostly male commentators.
What can we do to appeal to more women?
Gaby and I discussed this. The guest editorship pieces always seem to get fewer comments. Hear me out, but I think it's because people are wary of change, that people feel secure in their comfort zone. We always know that no matter the backstory of a PPC Profile, they're likely to get questions for being "Oxbridge" or "from think tanks" or not local enough or something; people seem naturally suspicious on this. On the other hand, guest editorship pieces surprise people, who then seem less willing to engage.
In terms of traffic -- don't assume that the articles with fewest comments are the least read; often it's the reverse. Articles of a certain type attract comments - either provocative pieces or overtly party political ones. Conversely, the most cogent or winnable arguments often attract the fewest comments, because there's less to discuss.
For the guest editorships, the purpose is to bring new arguments and personalities that might not normally get space on LabourList for whatever reason, and to attract new readers. Yesterday's pieces may not have attracted as many comments as today's, but 31% of traffic yesterday was brand new to LabourList, which is, well, total success! Traffic itself was as high as normal on a weekday.
Hope that makes sense.
Alex
Read the stuff with great pleasure and interest, but felt that these are matters for women to debate without the interference of men, so that the discussion remains (a) polite, (b) intelligent, and (c) between sisters.
anyone can start a blog, there is no restriction by gender, ethnicity, political or religious belief,and success or otherwise is down to the quality of what is written so why are you suggesting an AWS ??