House of Eratosthenes

Writer Jessica Wakeman recently had an interesting study published by media watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting on the present number of bylines belonging to women on Huffington Post.

After two months of tracking the number of bylines on the homepage, she found that only 23% of them belong to women:

The Post does seem to be making a conscious effort to include women’s voices; despite the low percentages, the study found at least one female byline on the home page at all times. But if there is indeed such an effort, it stops far short of parity. Of the 89 times bylines were checked during the study, not once did the number of women’s bylines equal those belonging to men. Only eight times did women account for more than a third of all bylines. And Arianna Huffington, appearing 57 times, accounted for more than a fifth of all women’s bylines; 45 of those occupied the most visible top post. Only once, in fact, did a woman other than Arianna Huffington get her byline in the most visible top slot–Post editor-at-large Nora Ephron (8/26/08).

I’d like to see a larger study around this; too many of us feel that women bloggers are undervalued in the progressive blogosphere, but hard evidence is always helpful.Thoughts?

Yeah here’s a thought, you whiner: A utopian’s work is never done. There’s always a scintilla of unfairness left lying around. Utopianism, therefore, whether it’s feminism, “civil rights,” hyper-environmentalism or general left-wing thuggery, will always be the packaging of extremism behind a veil of phony compromise.

Thing I Know #52. Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met..

Here’s another.

When I think of a hybrid construct of all the HuffPo bloggers of whom I’ve read, be they male or female — and I probably speak for quite a few who have dabbled in that corner, here — the general picture that emerges, closely resembles a stereotype of women that might be tossed out by careless piggish men, right before feminists like you start waving around their patented theatrical outrage.

Products of lifetimes spent getting attention, and not trying to accomplish too much else.

Thoughtless. Spoiled. Snarky.

Cute to the point of irritating.

Thinking well of themselves, while never straying too far from, or reigning in too tightly, a streak of viciousness.

Unhappy if everyone in the room isn’t watching them every second.

Full of punchlines, with absolutely no solutions to the problems of which they like to complain so much, showing absolutely no effort to find any.

And so it occurs to me that you’re caught up in a cyclical protest here, feminists: You’ve been spending all these years demanding people think of women as rationally thinking, strong, reliable and capable beings — and that women take this to heart as much as anyone else. Maybe, just maybe, when women started to comply, that’s when the female-authored posts to HuffPo took a tumble.

Let’s face it. You really don’t have to wait that long for a post written by a woman to emerge from the depths of the cistern that is Huffington Post. And if I want to think more positively of women and the contributions they can make to our society, I have a lot of other things I can look at besides that. No, the real flesh-and-blood women I know, inspire much more confidence in me about what they can do, and cause me to look forward much more positively to the next time I’m called on to work on something with a female, compared to the average female-written contribution to HP.

Or to Feministing, for that matter, now that I give it another think or three.

“After two months of tracking the number of bylines on the homepage, she found that only 23% of them belong to women”

Is it not relevant to compare the percentage of a.) women writers overall or b.) percentage of female readership of HufPo (or of the other media outlets mentioned)? They seem to be assuming a lot here.

But then again, outrage can’t be bothered with actual thought.

This reminds me of a local newspaper story of the other day concerning black teachers. It told how many schools in the area, especially the city schools with obviously more black students, were coming up with ways to increase the number of black teachers. The article went on and on about the benefits of such and the time and effort of certain outreach programs, blah, blah, blah…Well, come to find out that only 11% of teachers nationwide are black.

So you can spend countless hours and money trying to fix a perceived problem, and I’m not saying this isn’t, but until you figure out the culprit in the first place you’re just spinning your wheels. This just makes these types of people who think with their emotions rather than facts, i.e. liberals, look extremely silly.

There’s a saying in the dirty hands business, and elsewhere, to fixing a problem – Identify, Locate & Repair. These folks are trying to skip #2 and will NEVER, EVER get to #3. At least they’ve got Hope/Change to fall back on.
- tim | 11/21/2008 @ 17:32
Why are people always trying to fix things that aren’t broken? If customers are clamoring to read more female writers at Huffpo, the site will respond with more female writers. It’s called market economics.

I despise these nasty little feminist types, they make my world unnecessarily difficult. The un-feminists, that would be me and my merry crew of women who actually like to cook, raise children, earn a living, wear heels and enjoy men, need to start slapping these ignorant, deluded cranks back into reality. You don’t get handed a pedestal just because you have a vagina, you have to earn that special seat the old fashioned way; by garnering respect for your abilities, intelligence and honorable dealings.

**I hate Feministing, especially that Amanda person. You might like Dennis The Peasant, he fisks her beautifully. The man makes me laugh out loud.

http://dennisthepeasant.typepad.com/dennis_the_peasant/
- Daphne | 11/21/2008 @ 19:10
Morgan,

Another beauty.

And BTW, have you noticed how many of the angry “women” these days talk babytalk? Just sayin…
- rob | 11/21/2008 @ 19:11

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Feminists Outraged: Women Underrepresented in Publication of Stupid Crazy NonsenseFriday, November 21st, 2008

Feminists Outraged: Women Underrepresented in Publication of Stupid Crazy Nonsense
Friday, November 21st, 2008