From Contra Costa Times

Word to the wired: Don't ask the founders of BlogHer where the women bloggers are. You see, a hyperbolic debate is raging in the blogosphere: Why is this supposedly democratic medium recreating real-world inequality?

A blogarchy has emerged from the Internet equivalent of an "American Idol" popularity contest. This elite clique of bloggers -- the so-called A-listers who get checked out more often than Lindsay Lohan - - attract the largest online audience. All those eyeballs can deliver cachet, cash and the coveted contract for a blook (a book based on a blog).

What's perplexing: Nearly all of these Web celebs are men even though more women blog than men. How do men leverage their laptops into giant soapboxes when hordes of women type away in digital obscurity?

From Alternet

As a female opinion journalist, I've been called everything from bitch to whore to sweetie.

As a young woman, I stepped out into the treacherous waters of opinion journalism, and was amazed by the lack of civil discourse and the intensity of personal attacks that I received via e- mail, letters to the editor and on Web postings.

Subjects such as women's issues, racism, anti-war politics, environmental matters and virtually any topic deemed "liberal" inspired some vitriolic comments from readers that I will mention here. Most attackers took the position that I was just a cute, dumb, college student (even though I was in my late 20s) in an effort to discredit me and I was most reliably attacked by a collection of right-wing Web sites and right-wing men who sent me letters.

Needless to say, I ran out of the gates, trail-blazing, and came back a wounded animal. The experience solidified my "attack and retreat" explanation of the low numbers of women in opinion journalism.

From Feminista

I hear it everywhere.

I press the button on the answering machine and a friend's voice says, "Hope you guys are doing well." I sit down with a friend at a restaurant, and the server asks, "What would you guys like to drink?" A student in my gender class looks out over a group of thirty- five women and five men and says, "You guys, I have an announcement."

Not that long ago women were being told that "he" and "mankind" included us--but we were skeptical. Feminists--women and men--argued that language matters, that words are the tools of thought, and that erasing women through terms like "mankind" made it easier to treat women as less than persons.

So when did "you guys" sneak by and then sneak in?

From Feminist Daily News

Three leading national women's organizations sent a letter to ABC News President David Westin and ABC Network President Anne Sweeney protesting the apparent demotion of anchor Elizabeth Vargas. On Tuesday, Vargas, then-co-anchor of World News Tonight, read a statement announcing her departure from the show to “focus on anchoring ‘20/20’ and the arrival of [her] new child.”

“With this action and your parallel decision to terminate the series “Commander-In-Chief,” in which Geena Davis portrayed America’s first woman president, you have now managed to eliminate two of the country’s most visible women role models and high achievers from your television lineup.”

The letter, signed by the Feminist Majority Foundation, the National Organization for Women (NOW), and the National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO), calls on Westin and Sweeney to consider the message they are sending by removing Vargas.

From Angry Black Bitch

This bitch just read the sorta-news that ABC News has moved a certain Charles Gibson into the anchor chair for World News Tonight.

Interesting choice...and clever too.

From Holla Back New York City

Oh SNAP!

Holla Back NYC empowers New Yorkers to Holla Back at street harassers. Whether you're commuting, lunching, partying, dancing, walking, chilling, drinking, or sunning, you have the right to feel safe, confident, and sexy, without being the object of some turd's fantasy. So stop walkin' on and Holla Back: Send us pics of street harassers!

From PopPolitics.com

The television universe has expanded and contracted at the same time. In recent years we have begun to watch prisoners, presidents and anti-terrorist agents with the same fervor we reserved for doctors, lawyers and cops. For many -- including this critic -- this shift was extremely welcome. Finally, the logic went, we would be able to see characters and experiences that stretched our imagination and challenged us.

Unfortunately, with few exceptions (such as HBO's mobsters and funeral directors), television's fascination with these "new" occupations has not raised our cultural consciousness much at all. In fact, these shows reach back to age-old American stereotypes and make those tired doctor/lawyer/cop shows feel ground-breaking.

The most disturbing aspect of this regression is in the construction of gender -- specifically the patriarchal assumption that women and power don't mix. As the season finales of the past few weeks have confirmed, television, even as it attempts to break new ground by having women in politically powerful roles, doesn't like women who attempt to exercise that power in any significant way.