I don't read LaShawn Barber's blog hardly at all, but courtesy o' Fausta, I happened to catch her appearance on MSNBC's Connected Coast to Coast. I thought she did rather well, on the whole, particularly considering it was her first time on tee-vee. Now, nothing that was said on this broadcast was of particular interest to me. It was the same ol' same ol' that makes cable news network talk shows particularly boring. Yet there was one notable exception.

Monica Crowley called female bloggers "blogettes."

There's no transcript that I can find of the show, because apparently if your show on MSNBC is aired before 7p.m. EST, they don't deem it worthy of transcript-status, but this is what I heard. I wrote it down. You can follow the video link at Fausta's and see for yourself.

This is what I would have said to Crowley, had I been the one in the chair. This is also why I will never be allowed on tee-vee.

"Blogettes?

Ahem.

I think not, chica.

Don't you dare try to cutesy-up my title and differentiate me from the rest of the bloggers because I have a pair of breasts and a vagina. Particularly when it seems you, like the rest of the mainstream media, have no freakin' clue about what blogs are, let alone who writes them. Let me guess where this gender-equity segment came from. You read about Susan Estrich taking on Mike Kinsley about the dearth of female op-ed writers. Then you, in an effort to make your show more hip and wordly, try and apply this to the blogosphere, because that's all that everyone's talking about! Conveniently, Kevin Drum writes one poorly researched piece asking "where are the female bloggers?" and you, somehow---because I'm not really sure you can operate a computer let alone surf blogs---catch wind of it. Suddenly you and Ronnie Junior know enough about the subject to make it a topic on a show so obscure even I hadn't heard about it, but you're also going to try score some brownie points in the blogosphere you know nothing about (because, of course, you know how viral marketing works and if we can get some free pr in the blogosphere, well, damn the torpedos! We'll do it!) and coin the phrase blogettes?

Again, I think not.

Let me take a wild stab here and say that the idea for "blogettes" is derived from "Wonkette"? That's really original, kids. Wow. Let's place a little gold star right smack in the middle of your foreheads because you're so creative. The movie people should be calling any minute now to option your story.

I will only say this once, so pay attention and get it right the first time.

I am not a "blogette." I am a "blogger." Got it? I may not want to be spayed anymore than a cat does, but neither do I want to be "set apart" with a cutesy title that is so not what I am about. First and foremost I am a writer. That the content that makes up The Cake Eater Chronicles comes from a female shouldn't have anything to do with the validity of the opinions presented. They either have merit or they do not. It's quite simple. The blogosphere is all about ideas and opinions. It's a veritable smorgasbord. There's something for everyone. The sex of the author shouldn't come into the equation unless we're talking about things directly related to our sex---like tampons or jock straps. To miss this point is to miss the exact essence of the blogosphere. And the internet, for that matter.

I am not going to participate in some gender-equity program in the blogosphere, nor will I allow myself to be labeled with some girly-girl term because you, in your vast and all-encompassing wisdom, needed a topic to fill time on your cable news chat show and this seemed as good as any other.

Piss off."

See? No one would ever allow me to be on tee-vee because I won't stand for the condescending bullshit that doubles for content on a cable news show.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:53 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 712 words, total size 4 kb.