The Crikey inspired revival of that hardy perennial – pace Jonathan Green – “where are teh wimminz?” – was discussed by Anna Winter in a post here at LP. It also sparked wide discussion all over the tubes. Notable is a late entry – Lisa Gunders’ second post at The Memes of Production. Responding largely to the comments threads at Possum’s Pollytics, she makes two very interesting and well argued points which go to the heart of the issue much more acutely than most of the fairly predictable verbiage generated by the Crikey provocation.
First, a response to the suggestion, which was a mainstay of what we might call the Neocon era of political blogging – that women in Australia are privileged, etc, etc, and that Australian feminists are ignoring their sisters in Iraq, Afghanistan, wherevs, you know the drill. I only have to refer to the archive of furious debates on FGM to signal where this rhetorical move was coming from. Gunders doesn’t necessarily contextualise it in this way, but she makes a very salient reply nevertheless.
She makes a closely argued and well referenced case that there is significant gender inequality in Australia (the denials of which are all too predictable and coloured by ideological blindness), and segues into a consideration of what is properly counted as politics, which moves beyond the usual dichotomies once again:
Given that many people’s experience is that Canberra-based, party politics is something that they have little ability to influence, even at election time, why should they engage with, or contribute to, the massive amount of commentary that accompanies it?
This does not mean that they are not interested in politics. Many are still greatly concerned about the state of the roads, waiting lists in hospitals, standards in schools, suburban planning, and lack of public infrastructure. Some of them, no matter how difficult the stress of balancing all their other commitments, will do something at this level because they can have an effect. Enough signatures on a petition can often get a local traffic hazard fixed or an extra bus in an under-serviced area. Progress Associations can influence, through involvement in the council planning process, the constraints placed on development. Neighbourhood security and sense of community can be enhanced by Neighbourhood Watch and Safety House programs, or services such as Meals on Wheels and involvement in local service clubs. The state and federal governments might fight over adequate funding for schools, but it makes a difference to the literacy development of 30 kids at the local school if a group of parents assist with the reading program each week.
All of this is politics in as far as it is concerned with the distribution of scarce resources, a process which is both influenced by and influences the relative power and life chances of different groups within society.
Again, Gunders makes a persuasive argument well supported by the citation and synthesis of empirical research in addition to rigorous reasoning. Her second main claim follows from the first – the inequalities of time as between men and women in this particular society (and I often wonder where the people who post all day and all night at The Poll Bludger, for instance, find the time):
As I said above though, it would be a mistake to assume that those of us involved in local issues and organisations, unrecognised as “politics” though this is, are not also sometimes engaged in the “rough and tumble” of more conventional politics—it’s just that we frequently have less time to maintain a visible presence there.
Go read.
And just by the by, I think the Crikey idea of a special blog on big P politics by women is just dumb. Don’t want.
“(the denials of which are all too predictable and coloured by ideological blindness)”
I don’t want to revive that thread, but this is a very unfair characterisation of the tenor of the comments. Amid rank sexism (a distinct minority), valid issues were raised, and largely went unanswered. Several commenters made specific and technical criticisms of the post’s thesis, itself a specific and quantifiable proposition, and so falsely portraying them as ‘predictable denials’ of gender inequality does your readers a disservice.
Jarrah, I’ll simply clarify what I said by pointing out that the link is not intended to refer to all commenters and/or comments on that thread, and I’d have thought that is how it would have been read. I apologise if I wasn’t clear enough.
OK, fair enough. And yes, it wasn’t clear, because you linked to the entire thread. Though I guess you didn’t want to single out any particular comment.
Then again, the denials weren’t of ‘gender inequality’ per se, but the specific inequality of average pay.
Dang, now I’ve done what I didn’t want to do, and revived what should be left to RIP.
That’s ok! Yes, I didn’t want to point to any particular comment or comments.
To further clarify, I’m interested more in the emotion behind some of the comments rather than the analysis – it’s not necessarily that empirical points weren’t being made or challenged, but the premise for the post was two fairly simple propositions – (a) that there shouldn’t be unequal pay for work of equal value and (b) that it is in fact illegal for that to be the case.
(b) was mostly ignored, I think, which is interesting in itself and what struck me was the apparent desire to find reasons other than bias and/or structural differences in the valuation of work by gender and in the broad social division of labour. That’s where, I think, the ideology came in.
But I’ll leave it there as a clarification!
This might sound a bit obvious, but whilst the average political blogger/politician/commentator/Crikey subscriber is a man, the average man is not a political blogger/politician/commentator/Crikey subscriber.
I think this suggests something. It could (possibly!) be less to do with differences between the political styles/interests of men as a group vs women as a group, or maybe even descrimination directly along gender lines.
Say that if there is a difference between the genders, it is mainly the deviation within the population rather than the mean. The average man may have the same left-right position as the average woman, but the distribution could be more spread out so there are more communists-libertarians-whatever extreme amongst the men. The extremes tend to shout out the rest, so if the middle is drowned out, we miss both the participation of the average man and woman, but proportionally more women.
Or perhaps the style of debate, the snark culture or pontificating only appeals to the fringe of the society. This likewise would would alienate the average of both genders, but more women than men.
Which means that why we notice that the participation of women in this debate culture is low, it may not be because the culture is too male, but because it’s too fringe.
I think it’s certainly the case that the day to day intricacies of partisan politics are very much the interest of a very small minority of the adult Australian population. What would be useful to know, Richard, in assessing your hypotheses, would be whether there’s much difference within that population of ‘political tragics’ between genders. There is no doubt survey research disaggregated by gender on how closely people claim to follow politics, but I’m not sure the way the question would normally be worded would properly capture what we’re talking about.
So, the very first comment complains about the fact that the OP criticises the tenor of the comments in the original piece; draws an apology straight off the bat from the OP; and questions the validity of the discussion (“revived what should be left to RIP”) but in doing so, Dude reveals he is talking about the wrong thread (he’s talking about the equal pay thread instead of the one Kim is talking about). This goes unremarked.
Terrific. I can see how this thread is going to go already.
Really good points Kim and echoing on from Gunders. I’m interested in the environmental sustainability of urbanisation and what happens if it goes on unchecked in order to provide economic growth and “cheaper” (!?!) housing.
The other layer is the social sustainability of this growth, and that is managed scarcity. Social support services in such areas are incredibly under-developed. There is a whole debate (that isn’t being had – thanks JHW) about how sustainable the nuclear family is in such environments as a recently developed (for humans) social unit in Western societies. An example of unmet need is post-natal depression, affecting conservatively 15% of women and often having lasting effects on families that are avoidable.
For a while in the 70s and 80s and as early as the 60s for some, economics and politics at the household scale was beginning to feature in public debate. People working in the area of community support, women’s health, refugee support services are flat chat just doing stuff with meagre resources. So they have time to blog? The whole area of politics at the local scale using planning as an overlay is incredibly unequal in terms of gender, and that inequality affects both men and women in the long run.
In Victoria we have an ex ruckman breathing testosterone into the planning agenda with his construction mates. The ramifications of which should be a wider conversation on the intertubes.
More as an aside than anything else…in general, I post on political sites using a gender neutral name. Inevitably, however, hints as to my gender creep into my posts on a regular basis.
Despite these giveaways, other posters continue to refer to me as male.
On the other hand, I once used an ultra feminine name to post. Other posters tended to treat my posts as bits of fluff.
There’s a lot of assumptions made on the internet!
Mehitabel, I’ve always been fascinated that blog commenters, even if they use entirely nonsensical handles unrelated to their own identity, always seem to code themselves and each other as male and female. I’ve said before and often that one of the defining features of a good blog comment culture is the level of common conversation and intimacy, and I suspect that awareness of gender—though not, unfortunately, sensitivity to it—is critical to that.
As to what constitutes “politics” I’d also question Crikey’s claim to be a “political” blog in the sense of analysis, rather than a rather well-funded scandal rag. (NTTAWWT).
Yep. The US was certainly right to drop the Bomb in 1945.
[Passes the Campari bottle to the Groke]
I thought Lisa Gunder’s post was excellent.
This point:” that for political engagement to be meaningful, people must feel that their voices are being heard” sums up the problem facing not only women as a group but several other groups in our society who who are rendered near invisible in that so often what they say is either ignored, treated with disdain or simply considered not relevant.
Effectively silenced.
Mehitabel – I made that same point myself. When I comment on what are considered “male” topics, the assumption is that I am a man. When I comment on “female” topics, it is assumed I am female.
What is interesting is that acrimonious (and downright rude) responses tend to occur more when people think I am a woman and I tend to get more “pats on the back” when people are assuming I am a man.
Like I said on the original post, I suspect that many people – men in particular – assume that everyone on the “political” internet is a man unless proven otherwise.
On the subject of the all day/night commenters, I suspect strongly that these are people that are in the “business”; ie that they work for a Member of Parliament, Senator or political party and this is, essentially, part of their job.
“and questions the validity of the discussion (”revived what should be left to RIP”) but in doing so, Dude reveals he is talking about the wrong thread (he’s talking about the equal pay thread instead of the one Kim is talking about). This goes unremarked.”
It went unremarked because that’s not what was meant, you (Chick? Gal? Sheila?) have got it backwards. I think the previous thread should RIP (at least on this thread) because it would derail Kim’s new topic.
I’m a male who went from mostly dry ranty political posts to mostly more emotional posts about life, family and connections. My readership went from about 50-50 to about 80-20 female to male. This seems to play into some ye old gender stereotype but I think it throws up other questions:
- who gets to decide that a blog analysing social issues from the top down (as in big picture, dry politics) is necessarily 100% political to the exclusion of one that analyses social issues from the personal, immediate, and ‘bottom up’ (for example Blue Milk or Nopod).
- If someone only has 100% political blogs in their feed, why do they think they are getting the best political commentary out there (compared with the political posts that sometimes arise on mixed or more personal sites)?
Naturally reflecting my own bias, I think much of the most relevant commentary is buried in mixed sites that, in the era of the megablog and the Crikey! and Teh Punch! tend to get less and less readership.
I can’t see that changing much but I guess what I’m saying is I think there are shiteloads of good female political bloggers, they’re just being ignored in such sweeping statements because they are embedded in a different online community that blowins who don’t know their feeder from their cakehole aren’t really aware of.
I agree Armagny, but would question your framing, or use of terminology, in this sentence:
“…mostly more emotional posts about life, family and connections.”
I think you, or we rather have been conditioned to see these things as “emotional” and there are a whole lot of people out there (not necessarily you) who read “emotional” as “irrational, and worthless in the context of any serious discourse.” Whereas, as you know, we’ve been discussing education in a highly politically charged context both on your blog and on mine. Now, I know people do get emotional about their childrens’ education – it gets them where they live – but that does not necessarily make it apolitical. You can see every day how blokes get emotional about the things that matter to them – the economy, the OMGWTF effect of policy X on small business!! or the battler employer!!! or the terrible effect a carbon tax / emissions trading scheme would have on business! OMG!! but to THEM, they’re seen as being totally rational, because they are discussing things that are correct topics for discussion in a blokey-dominated sphere. But it’s all perception. Men and women are equally “emotional”. But “emotion” has become a popular smackdown in Australian political discourse – it means “you’re a hippy / woman, go away.”
The Groke, Kim’s words “the denials of which are all too predictable and coloured by ideological blindness” are a hyperlink to the inequality of pay thread. Jarrah is objecting to that characterisation of that thread. Why is that a problem?
A blog is also a function of the ability to use the technology as much as it is the ability to use time effectively.What I find not to pleasing as a male,if, that is uppermost in my mind when I post anything,which I will say here it isn’t,is the languid belief that some points need to be made.I guess I do it too.I have given myself the right to hate women,especially anything generalising around the word Australian.It isn’t easy deciding to give oneself that right,after all most of the time life isn’t that unpleasant for both sexes in Australia.I sympathise with the unwell out of no fault of their own,but,of an age now,where the creepy process of seeing neurosis appearing even in my observations of self,there is no excuse really in dramatic flourishes in print on the foibles and failures of men.You can attack me for that attitude,but, you know if it well put together,I might even feel your intention,but, I wont let on will I!?And why!?I didn’t come through your bedroom window,or knock on the door with a female voice sounding like someone who could be collecting charity money.Female Australian isn’t uppermost in my mind either,I consider myself pretty tame,really!
what
Succinct, Liam.
I agree.
Rainne, I was mistaken about him mistaking the thread (?!), but I interpreted “should be left to RIP” as wanting the thread, now we’re clear about which one it was, to die. Since both that thread and the one we’re on concern women, I interpreted it to mean “can’t we just get over all these so called womens issues already” which has often been the positon in these threads. Sorry, Jarrah, if that was not what you meant.
I’ve given myself the right to hate on people who don’t insert spaces after commas and full stops.
Not sure that “charity money” would be top of mind for me in that particular circumstance.
As a now somewhat regular and frequent poster on the Pollbludger site and elsewhere using various pseudonyms in the past, I guess I’d agree with Roger Jones @8 and chinda63 @ 12. The capacity to read and contribute in a consistent way to blogs such as this is tied to the kind of work that I do. When not in meetings I sit in front of a computer either writing or reading. This means that I can refresh ongoing debates regularly and respond relatively quickly to ongoing discussions. It would appear that, much though Jarrah may wish not to revive the discussion about labour equality, differences in online contribution is very much tied to differences in work.
I would say that I’m a little affronted by the implicit suggestion that such contributions are ‘time-wasting’ (‘where do they find the time?’), but maybe that’s just because I waste so much time doing it. Certainly I’m not going to get too hung up about such criticisms, if it is as such that these comments are intended.
Helen, I basically agree: I’ve used the term for ease of relative reference but I think the thrust of your and my comments is largely the same.
As an international relations buff more than capable of engaging any debate on strategic affairs and the like, I maintain (and strengthen by the day) the view that so many stupid decisions in that arena derive at least in part from forgetting the particular, personal, social and familial effects of our actions. Failure to imagine, when we say 100,000 dead, what that means for each and every person who lost a loved one.
@22 – Rewi, it’s not intended as a criticism, just an observation. I also find it interesting that people have a tendency to read these posts in an overly defensive way that’s not intended.
Hi kim
both my wif and I use the handle “gusface”.
The funniest thing is that worstchoices drew us into the webby thingy.If it wasn’t for Jho,we wouldnt have bothered.
I value hers and my opinion but lately we have decided to only post on real blogs,like LP, rather than mickey mouse ones that are playing to a particular cohort
(male,sexist with a distinct groupthink).
Hi Kim,
So, what, are you calling me overly defensive now?
yep.
commenting on the post about unequal pay are the reason that this woman doesn’t, in general, engage in the political discourse.
This woman would prefer to go about her life making a difference (no matter how small) through her actions rather than not make a difference and engage in petty at best, vitriolic at worst, squabbling on the internet.
I read it, I think it and I go away and act.
@26 – Heh!
Mehitabel @ 9 – People are constantly assuming I’m a bloke. I did have a male avatar, I suppose, so it was kind of understandable then, but the mistake keeps happening. I think law is presumed to be a “male” domain and anyone who has a legal sounding moniker and writes on legal subjects must be male.
What is a “political blog” anyway? I’d say there were plenty of “political blogs” written by women – it just depends how you define it. For example, our blog at Skepticlawyer is mostly political – dealing with the legal side of politics (with occasional forays into music, history and my kids).
Personally, I’m with Armagny – I like blogs which are a mix of the personal and political anyway. I’m one of those 80% of his readers…
Clunk!
The sound of the penny finally dropping. With thanks to Helen at @15.