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Thursday, June 14, 2007

How Blogging Empowers Women

I have heard it said before that blogging is the only true form of free speech. So often in history, and unfortunately still today, women are silenced. They are told that their views and opinions are not important. It's true we read books written by women, we see plays and movies written by women and certainly magazine articles written by women. In each of these scenarios, however, the writer is not the final authority regarding if and how her work will be shared with the public. However, in blogging a woman decides for herself whether or not to share her written word with the public. A woman does not have to go through another person to be published.

When you share a story with someone else, you don't know what their reaction will be. I think that this can prevent many women, and men, but particularly women from sharing an experience. What if they're laughed at? What if they're misunderstood? What if their story is minimized? A blogger, however, does not have to have her experience validated by another person. Whether I'm sharing a story that's important to me or talking about what idiotic thing I did that day, I can decide to share it. I can decide not to allow comments, or only to allow comments that I approve.

When I first became a mom, I was devastated that I couldn't breastfeed. Everyone I knew was breastfeeding. It was a dark hole in my life. I felt incredible guilt over it. I eventually worked through those feelings and decided to start a blog where I could discuss not only this, but also other parenting struggles that I have had. There was a lot that was left out of the caring infant manual that the hospital gave me. I have found other women who are also in the same situation. This is empowering to me, because I know that I'm not alone. It's one thing to be able to sympathize with someone, but it's another thing to be able to empathize. This isn't even about not breastfeeding. It's nice to know that I'm not the only mom out there who didn't know to bring birthday snacks to her child's community playgroup or who dyed a good portion of her son's clothes pink and continued to have him wear them anyway. I currently have 2 tons of sand sitting on my front lawn. When I blogged about feeling buried under that load, I got a comment from a reader telling me she had to deal with 8 tons of sand.

As a reader, blogging is empowering to women because they can peruse blogs at their own leisure to find information or seek common interests they share with other bloggers. If you go to the library to check out a book, you leave a record. This doesn't bother me so much, but I can't imagine going to the library and asking the librarian for information about why I used pee when I sneezed (this is a common blog search term that leads to my blog) much less bringing this up to a friend. Yet, I can read other people's blogs to learn about that, and I can do it anonymously. Plus I won't get a late notice in the mail saying that I owe .79 cents in overdue charges on a book about incontinence.

That's yet another reason why blogging empowers women. No matter what you look like, your clothing size, your hair, your postpartum belly if you have one, or whether or not thinking about participating in a public event is enough to give you diarrhea, you can be the person you truly are in the blogosphere. If you love Airsupply, you can shout it out in a meme. Who else is going to know? So you may get a laugh or two from "Noname in MA", (no, it's not me I actually have Airsupply on my iPod!) but it's not like you had to announce it as an icebreaker in your yoga class. On a more serious note, I can discuss things on my blog that I would never feel comfortable discussing with people in person. In my blog, I can say that I am constantly questioning my ability to be a good mother, but that's not something I would share with someone face to face. Can you imagine being in line at the grocery story and saying to a random person, "I'm not sure I did a good job as a parent today. Today I let my child watch 4 hours of TV." Yet, I could write that. I bet I could also find something similar in someone else's blog. More importantly, because I am allowing myself to question my ability as a mother by being able to write about it, I think it makes me strive to be a better mom.

I think blogging can provide a medium for understanding other women. Yes, text on a computer screen does lose some of the nuance, but on the other hand it's fixed. When I read something, I may not agree with it, but the blogger does have my undivided attention. I'm not too busy arguing to listen to what that person is saying. In the blogosphere, I can take my time to read what someone has written and go back to it numerous times. I can then choose whether or not I want to respond to it. When someone starts a debate with you in person, it's hard just to walk away and I think many times I at least, wind up saying something I don't want to say or don't mean because I'm defensive. There's nothing wrong with lurking! Alternately, there's nothing wrong with waiting 12 hours to think about something and then de-lurking.

I do think that blogging empowers women. It brings a new level of understanding to our lives. It allows us to express ourselves. It allows us to be part of a computer age world. How cool does it feel when you're wearing your ratty mom clothes (OK maybe that's just me) and you can say "I have a blog" and suddenly you're seen as "in the know"? It's yet one more way to connect with other people. Plus, avoiding that late notice for the book on incontinence is just priceless.


A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Blogging empowers women. Paying late fines to the library for books on incontinence does not.


Submitted for the BlogHer prize in the BlogHer or Bust contest.

Labels: , ,

posted by Alex Elliot @ 9:25 PM   5 comments
5 Comments:

  • At 6/15/2007 12:42 AM, Blogger Jessie said…

    Ill tell ya, two years after ive started mine, Ive found that its made an honest person out of me. Sometimes a TMI person, but honest none the less.

     

  • At 6/15/2007 5:17 AM, Blogger Jenn in Holland said…

    I am with you on the ratty mom clothes! And on the beauty of being your true self on your blog. Putting it all out there and reading what others have displayed of themselves IS empowering.
    Well said Alex.

     

  • At 6/18/2007 9:13 PM, Blogger Absolutely Bananas said…

    great post!!

     

  • At 6/20/2007 7:02 AM, Blogger Her Bad Mother said…

    "No matter what you look like, your clothing size, your hair, your postpartum belly if you have one, or whether or not thinking about participating in a public event is enough to give you diarrhea, you can be the person you truly are in the blogosphere."

    YES.

    And, I've been known to listen to a little Air Supply myself. Don't tell anybody.

     

  • At 6/21/2007 3:12 PM, Blogger Suzanne said…

    This is great, and I hope you win the contest!

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 5 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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