Memo to Margaret Wente: women DO blog

By Tamara Baluja

I got a real kick out of reading Margaret Wente's column in the Globe and Mail on Thursday. If you haven't already read it already, go ahead and read it now. It's hilarious!

She asks "Why are bloggers male?" Her answer: women don't like to blog because it's essentially a new type of p . . . ing match for men, and of course, women don't like doing that!

Lady, I have two words for you - Huffington Post.

Arianna Huffington's blog is one the most successful sites on the Internet and it all started because of one woman. 

And don't forget Julie Powell's blog, the Julie/Julia Project about cooking her way through Julia Child's cookbook Mastering The Art Of French Cooking. That blog became a book and later a motion picture, Julie and Julia, for which Meryl Streep got an Oscar nod.

My point is, women are out in a big way on the Internet and as bloggers. Perhaps someone should tell Wente that columnists are essentially bloggers. After all, she gets paid to toss off her opinion - isn't that what blogging is all about?

Frankly, I don't even see the point of this gender debate. Blogging has nothing to do with male or female egos. Blogging is way of celebrating opinions and diversity. It's a way of getting voices heard that wouldn't be otherwise heard.

And women should definitely take advantage of a forum that allows their views to reach millions of people. A good place to start would be the Globe and Mail event,"Margaret Wente chats with women bloggers." Date: Friday March 19, 2010 at 12 p.m.

Tamara Baluja is a radio room reporter, a journalism student and a former GA at CFRB News. tbaluja@thestar.ca.

Comments

[buzz bishop]

Oh, and add Dooce to the list.

I find opinion pieces like this to be trite link bait and a waste of "heritage media's" time. They claim to be the last bastion of real journalism and then toss out weak, poorly thought out opinion pieces like this.

More is on my blog ..

http://www.buzzbishop.com/blog/2010/03/18/who-the-hell-is-margaret-wente/