The moment that the middle-aged white men who hold the power and the purse strings of progressive politics decide it's a priority to see the movement's values reflected in the attributes of its anointed messengers, the problem will cease to exist.

Because bloggers like Brad DeLong, Atrios, Matt Yglesias and Kos owe their success to the middle-aged white men who hold the power and purse strings over the progressive movement? I don't think so. While it is undeniably true that "power begets power" in some cosmic, abstract sense, saying that doesn't do an awful lot to shed light on the sorts of "institutional support" that some bloggers get and others don't, or on sexism and harassment in the blogosphere, neither of which is going to go away because the aforementioned progressive power brokers decide one day to make it so.

Vargas's piece was pretty lame--in particular for the reasons mentioned here:

>What got to me in Vargas's piece was the hand-wringing about where the girls are -- or aren't, and why that is. "While the Huffington Post and Fire Dog Lake, both founded by women, are two of the most widely read blogs," Vargas writes, "the rock stars are mostly men, and many women bloggers complain of sexism and harassment in the blogosphere." He goes on to report on the panel, "Blogging While Female," which was moderated by Prospect Senior Editor Garance Franke-Ruta (and which I blogged right here).

He doesn't attribute the sexual harassment to anyone in particular, leaving the impression that it somehow stems from the Kos crowd. If that's the case--which it likely issn't--he ought to mention that.

Diversity at thet top?

Digby is as big a "rock star" as the left blogosphere has. Gilliard was iconic. Firedoglake is renowned because of theire Libby coverage. Amanda and Pandagon was recruited to politics (only to return).

so many other bloggers are of gender and race unknown to me.

As for institutional support, most bloggers i read have none.

eric

I don't follow this reasoning myself. The blogosphere is much more institutionalized now than it was just a few years ago, but the same complaints were being made when high-profile blogging had much lower barriers to entry. If anything, institutionalization may have [somewhat] opened opportunities for women--say, at TAPPED. I could well be wrong on that one--but is there evidence that institutionalization has made the blogosphere more male? My own suspicion remains simply that the culture of the blogosphere--of which its denizens seem so inordinantly proud--is the problem.

I'm with Eric. There is no doubt room for more progress, but I'd have thought the impact women have made and are making in the liberal blogosphere--and let's by all means have more of it--is heartening. I'd add Majikthise to his list.

Speaking as an Oppressor, I hope you won't feel intimidated if I note that on the Internet, no one knew that Digby was a woman or Atrios is a man. (Assuming of course that Duncan is a man).

OTOH, we Oppressors do have those secret meetings where we decide, "if someone is half Latina, are they 'OK' enough to get a link?"

as a follow up, when i read a blog, the LAST things i think of is whether the writer is black/white/other or male/female/other. I look at content and style. I could not care what boxes Jesus' General checks off on a questionarre or Tbogg, but those "dudes" are funny. If Tbogg is really Mrs. Tbogg I would not care one iota.

eric

First of all, I never said that the men who are successful bloggers owe all their success to left-wing power brokers. Yglesias, of course, is simply brilliant, and Duncan Black of Atrios created a unique product quite early on. However, institutional support comes in many packages. Duncan has a fellowship at Media Matters and Matt has a full-time job at a magazine that supports his blogging. These kinds of opportunities are far more rare for women.

And BTW, when Digby made her mark, nobody knew her gender.

Speaking as an Oppressor, I hope you won't feel intimidated if I note that on the Internet, no one knew that Digby was a woman or Atrios is a man.

This is interesting. I read through the thread at Digby's place after she "came out" at the Take Back America conference. There were several comments in that thread stating that various readers had assumed that Digby was a man.

I suspect that "male" is the default assumption if the pseudonym doesn't contradict that. That suggests that it would have been very interesting to have Digby blog both as she did and also at another blog under the name of, say, Rosebud, and then to compare the stardom each blog achieved.

from what i have read, the Digby as man belief was largely a product of the picture at her home page.

As for insitutional support, it was Duncan who was provided the bona fides to Media Matters and not vice versa. Further, one could argue that it is only a matter of time befire the bloggers with institutional ties will be coopted by the beliefs of their benefactors. In part, that is why the blogosphere is populated with anonymous writers.

Daily Kos will eventually become "the establishment" and will become the target of the disaffected in the progressive blogosphere.

"It is inevitable Mr. Anderson."

I could not care what boxes Jesus' General checks off on a questionarre or Tbogg, but those "dudes" are funny. If Tbogg is really Mrs. Tbogg I would not care one iota.

TBogg's a male but hailing as he does from planet Jupiter, he still adds to the diversity mix.

The online world has always been more of a guy sort of place, and it's no surprise that it was mostly the guys who got to the blogosphere first. But I don't see how patterns of institutional support are perpetuating that.

Adele: just how many persons primarily known for their blogging have institutional support? There's Matt, Kevin Drum, Ana Marie Cox, you folks at the Prospect, and Duncan's MM fellowship. After that, I'm stumped. What am I missing?

If that's it, then institutions aren't making much of a difference at all here. They're not supporting the existing blogosphere power structure (if that isn't an oxymoron) more than incidentally.

As one of the white guys who apparently controls the world, I must say I'm a little astonished at the suggestion that the blogosphere is subtly but deliberately sexist (and racist). There's probably a male bias in political interests in general (reflected in blogs) and a historical effect to the extent that early bloggers were technologists who, surprise, were also more likely to be male.

I don't think I've ever seen a liberal blog cut out, cut off, or otherwise sideline women bloggers purely for their sex.

The Post was a was disingenous hit piece. Main pieces of evidence?

1) Didn't quite mention that Kos was well, Hispanic. and

2) When was the last time the Post ran a story on how white old fogy male their own editorial page is - or for that matter how white stodgy guy the TV political shows are?

3) Nor did they mention that well-off guys would be more likely to be able to afford a little plane trip to Chicago.

But overall it was the fact that once again the Post ran a story with a negative slant about progressives, while never breathing the same word about conservatives, or themslves.

I'm usually not a huge fan of the self selection theory-- that women remove themselves from certain "opportunities" because of their perception of their chances of success-- but there may be something to it in this case.

If the Kos convention is "middle aged men" then I think a lot of somewhat older women would self select *out* of blogging. Harassment has been pointed out, but I think that's not the main issue. The main issue is economic. Once you've spread your opinions around the web, it's harder to deal with the workplace. This is true for men as well, but there is no question that mainstream society does not like to see women expressing strong opinions. Rather, they expect women to support them and their own sense of self, which means deferring to their opinions. Anything else is not collegial.

This impacts what you are willing to do on-line. An opinionated woman wants a paid career. She's not going to wreck herself for nothing. And certainly, there is a notable lack of women in, say, magazine jobs. (I don't mean Vogue).

There are plenty of young women in the blogosphere. They really do seem to mostly blog on gender issues, but gender issues are always tossed on the sidelines by (what then become) male dominated communicative spheres. If these women experience harassment for their opinions, it's quite possible they're experiencing the disagreement and dismissal that is part of the usual go around where men and women chronically don't eye to eye.

Honestly, I would love to stay and argue with everybody, and track down the institutional support enjoyed by each male blogger who ever made it to prominence, but I have a day job running a training project for a non-profit. Note to low-tech cyclist: No one gets paid for blogging at TAPPED. To Samuel Knight: Actually, Vargas does "quite" actually note Moutlitsas' background (which he describes as half Latino and half Greek). Anonymous makes some valid points about self-selection, but there are still plenty of smart women bloggers who are simply ignored, or who can't afford the ticket to Yearly Kos. My TAPPED sibling, J. Goodrich, seems to get it with the name game.

I would love to...track down the institutional support enjoyed by each male blogger who ever made it to prominence, but....

But that's the crux of your argument, it seems. You say "White, male bloggers receive institutional support in ways that non-whites and women do not, be it in the form of funding, linking, quoting or bookings on political talk shows."

If you can't show that more male bloggers than you can count on the fingers of one hand get funding support, then that isn't much of an issue, is it?

Note to low-tech cyclist: No one gets paid for blogging at TAPPED.

Wasn't sure if y'all did or not, but that doesn't exactly buttress your argument.

I never said that the men who are successful bloggers owe all their success to left-wing power brokers. Yglesias, of course, is simply brilliant, and Duncan Black of Atrios created a unique product quite early on. However, institutional support comes in many packages. Duncan has a fellowship at Media Matters and Matt has a full-time job at a magazine that supports his blogging. These kinds of opportunities are far more rare for women.

I apologize for not being clear. I agree the institutional support comes in many flavors -- of which DeLong is another example (and no one is going to argue, I think, that the faculty hiring at major universities yields proportions of women and minority faculty hiring representative of the population as a whole). But neither Yglesias nor Black nor Delong (well, maybe Black) owe their institutional support to "the middle-aged white men who hold the power and the purse strings of progressive politics." So the world here in which the "problem will cease to exist" seems to me a hollow promise.

Well, maybe Wankette ruined it for everyone. They do still have this tendency to overgeneralize-- seen one seen 'em all, and we all know they all have the same opinion, right?

For more on this, I'd check out the really interesting discussions by Chris Bowers and Jenifer Fernandez Ancona at OpenLeft.com

I don't think I've ever seen a liberal blog cut out, cut off, or otherwise sideline women bloggers purely for their sex.

That's why it's institutionalized sexism; there's no need for it to be quite so blatant.

Blogging power comes in part from traffic, and dollars to donuts political blogs by women bloggers (who tend, IME, to talk about more than just politics) don't get the links that political blogs run by men do. It's not intentional, but it's systemic. And that's just one element. Women bloggers writing about politics get more vicious personal attacks than men do, as well. And women bloggers are perceived to be unusual in an environment where the default is assumed to be male, so a blog with, say, 40% women bloggers or commenters is perceived to be overrun with women.

Digby's success actually supports that point--I can guarantee you she wouldn't have earned nearly that reputation if she had always been out as a woman.

Inclusion isn't about guilt or blame - it's about winning. If progressives want to win, we need to make sure our ranks go broad and deep and reach injustice at its roots. That's less about making room at what's perceived to be the main table than recognizing all the other tables that exist. It's making sure the issues of the day reflect the life experiences, analysis and solutions of those most affected by injustice. We all have a stake in making sure we hear the many other voices out there.

Good point Ellen. For whatever reason YearlyKos Convention was mostly white and male. Instead of sweating over whether this fact is the result of institutionalized_______, (you fill in the blank)just fix it. In this comment section I haven't seen very many possible remedies suggested. The blogger at rudepundit.blogspot.com currently has a few african american bloggers guest blogging while he's on vacation. This doesn't mean these guest bloggers will be attending next year's convention but if some of you convention attendees did the same or similar maybe some of your guest bloggers will be next year's conventioners. How many of your guest bloggers attended this year?

What grendel said.

These last few years of the ascendancy of blog culture with the representation of the left has been eye-opening for me. Because, as a male who's been a feminist for my entire adult life, I'd previously thought that there was more progress in attitudes on the left than I now realize there has been.

You only have to read one of Garance's posts on Hillary to see this. There's nothing like any sort of feminist issue to suddenly make proud lefty men turn into raving Neanderthals. It's sad. I mean, really, it's sad. It depressed me.

This impacts what you are willing to do on-line. An opinionated woman wants a paid career. She's not going to wreck herself for nothing. And certainly, there is a notable lack of women in, say, magazine jobs

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