Friday, March 19, 2010

This post does not exist

Apparently women don't blog
"That's guy stuff. And they are welcome to it."
So I guess you're only imagining this page. And - let's see - at least 60% of my blog roll. And I have dozens of imaginary friends! Sweet!
 
More drivel:
"Men clearly have an urge to blog that women lack. Like extreme snowmobiling, the blogosphere is dominated by men. Not many women are interested enough in spitting out an opinion on current events every 20 minutes".

and
"These days, you don't even have to start a blog to get an audience. All you have to do is write “Margaret Wente is an idiot” and hit send. Instant gratification!"
Ms. Wente, I'm about to spit out an opinion on current events. Are you ready?

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You give idiots a bad name, and journalists a worse one. Have you heard of doing research? (Asking your 24-year-old friend doesn't count). Here's a good place to start. (Oh look! Some of those hits are brand new pages discussing what an idiot you are! Or did I just imagine them?)

In addition, trying to tie your ill-informed opinions in to a high-profile fatal snowmobile accident is not a very classy thing to do, to say the least.

Please bugger off back to journalism school.

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You were right about one thing, at least: that was gratifying.

17 comments:

  1. Well, that was weird... Liz left a comment, but it showed up twice. I deleted one of them, and both disappeared. Oh well, here's what she said:

    "haha, how ridiculous! I'm not typically a fan of Margaret Wente's pieces, I find she tends to form opinion on little to no facts".

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  2. oh great, and now Liz's comment is back. I tried deleting mine, but then both disappeared again, so I reposted mine, and Liz's came back too.

    I give up. If anyone needs me, I'll be in Whistler.

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  3. Hi from your imaginary friend in nz :)

    Whose imaginary hubby isn't into blogging even though he is an IT person!

    viv

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  4. Wow - what total BS!! I think the vast majority of the blogs on my blogroll are women....in Science, amazingly enough. Clearly, that also must be imaginary, because aren't all women pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen, cooking their men dinner?

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  5. I would have so much to say about that, but my snowmobile buddies are waiting for me -- being a guy, I have to alternate between that and blogging, they are just two aspects of the same thing, you see ?

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  6. Damn, I seem to have an imaginary wife.

    I'm rather proud of my imagination.

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  7. I use to like Margarate Wente, but that was a long time ago. In the few years sh has become increasing lazy about researching her pieces. Yes it's an opinion piece but your opinion needs to based on facts, no other peoples opinion

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  8. ha, maybe there was nothing to write a column about? Or instead of her explaining that she didn't want to "blog" make it into "I'm a woman, we don't do that".

    Come to think of it.... why even bother`I don¨t exist..... ^^

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  9. Margaret Wente's column is intended to provoke and incite. She is hired to write drivel - I stopped reading her long ago because it would just leave me angry and frustrated that "a respected newspaper" would give her voice.

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  10. Why *do* respected newspapers pay "journalists" who lack the research skills of a third grader?

    Did you read the follow-up piece where two bloggers (female bloggers) take Maragaret Wente down? It's a great take-down. Wente admits that she has no statistics and says that "To be honest, I don't think anyone really knows how many female vs. male blogger there are, or how many people read what types of blogs." Blogger Annie Urban of "phdinparenting" points out that there are lots of firms who actually research this sort of thing and that statistics are available. She then goes on to link to some.

    But I think this comment from Urban said it best:
    "When influential women are ignorant to the numerous women's voices on the Internet, when the voices of many women are dismissed as endearing, cute and girly, and when the voices of those women who are most oppressed are ignored altogether, that gender gap is perpetuated. Thank you, Margaret, for proving your own point about how hard it is to change the conversation."

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/female-bloggers-take-on-margaret-wente/article1504975/

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  11. What's up with all these ignorant woman bloggers telling other woman bloggers that they are in fact men?

    In other news: the sun didn't come up this morning and no I don't have any data to back that up and it's blatantly stupid.

    -antipodean

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  12. Look at all my imaginary comments!

    Many of my imaginary friends seem to already be familiar with Margaret Wente's work. I've been lucky enough to have never heard of her before, and let's just say that I shall not be seeking out more of her work!

    Liz, "little to no facts" sounds about right!

    Knutty Knitter, my husband doesn't care about blogging either. In fact he thinks some aspects of it are ridiculous. There's nothing like explaining the latest blog warz / drama to a non-blogger to put everything into perspective!

    Alyssa, sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of the iron and vacuum cleaner that are permanently attached to my hand. Yeah, Ms Wente obviously never goes anywhere near science blogs, eh?

    Massimo, I feel so sorry for you. It must be awful to be compelled by your Y chromosome to do extreme snowmobiling and blog all the time. I mean, guys clearly have no choice in the matter...

    Bob, nice work there. We all seem to have very vivid imaginations indeed!

    ScientistMother, so she used to be worth reading?

    I'd protest against laziness, but I really can't be bothered.

    Chall, but if you don't exist, who left that comment?

    Yeah, seems like someone was reaching for a topic that week...

    Girlpostdoc, you're right that this reflects very badly on the ol' Globe and Mail. I guess they're going for traffic rather than quality.

    Bean-Mom, thanks for the link. I'd read some of that conversation, but not the whole thing. I think the backlash speaks for itself - I found out about this article via a trending topic on Twitter! (I only see the topics that are trending in Canada, but apparently the outrage migrated to the US and elsewhere too).

    Antipodean, see how easy it is? You should have your own column :)

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  13. i hate it when i discover that my spouse is gay! especially when i learn such things on the internet! i mean, hell, he married a "blogger" and "bloggers" are all men, so .. what does that make me? um, confused, actually.

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  14. Grrl - you're imaginary please multiply yourself by i and get real.

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  15. Grrl, is that even legal in Germany yet?

    Bob, I need a new category. Groan of the week.

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  16. Todays twitter stream now makes sense!

    I nearly commented earlier, but see as you don't exist I didn't want to confuse my limbic system by validating a hallucination...

    ReplyDelete

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