July 9th, 2006
by
Debbie
John Scalzi has tracked the 50 most popular “personal” blogs by people in the science fiction and fantasy world(s). I’m not sure what metric he used to determine who is an F&SF person, but the metric he used for popularity is Technorati rating, which is probably number of unique links to that blog in the last six months Technorati’s other metric is “most favorited,” which, along with its grammatical issues, is also far less accurate, since most bloggers, at least in my sphere, don’t pick favorite blogs. Also note his disclaimers at the beginning of the article.
Anyway, I was struck by how many known feminists and fellow travelers show up on the list. By my count, at least 16 of these blogs are by people that I know identify as feminists and do good feminist work of a variety of sorts. Here’s my annotated sampling for your convenience. My own disclaimers: Some of the folks on Scalzi’s list may be very serious feminists and I might not know it. Many I don’t list below are feminist allies whom I value highly. And lots of the people who got mentioned in the comments on his blog are feminists as well. I dropped in there to mention Our Own True Liz Henry and I’m sure I missed others. One of the reasons for lists like these is to share information and add useful stuff.
2. Making Light — Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden (588)
Not at all a feminist blog, covers big world politics and all kinds of other things, including Teresa’s fascination with knitting (in the subtitle) and other crafts
5. The Sideshow — Avedon Carol (4,907)
Avedon practically introduced me to feminism in the early 1970s. It’s not her focus on the Sideshow, but she will never forget it.
7. Kathryn Cramer — Kathryn Cramer (10,930)
A combination of political blog and mommyblog
14. They Must Need Bears — Elizabeth Bear (19,322)
Bear writes a variety of strong women characters, and she is one herself as well.
17. Westerblog — Scott Westerfeld (23,731)
Scott’s YA novels do a better job of tackling looks and looks obsession in teenagers than just about anything else I know, and of course I’m going to consider this a feminist issue.
18. Nalo Hopkinson (26,106)
Feminism, race issues, and an amazing amount of good sense.
19. Justine Larbalestier (26,106)
Justine’s most notable contribution to the field, in my view, is The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction. She writes fine YA fiction and has recently published Daughters of Earth, an anthology of obscure and well-known feminist SF from the 20th century.
22. Notes From the Labyrinth — Sarah Monette (37,752)
Sarah blogs thoughtfully about writing, and writes complex novels with lots of gender issues.
23. Respectful of Otters — Dr. Rivka (39,834)
Scalzi’s link is to Rivka’s private journal, not her extraordinary blog, which she’s just picked up again after over a year as a full-time new mom. If there’s a better political blog out there, I haven’t found it.
24. It’s all one thing — Will Shetterly (40,594)
Will is a tireless crusader for justice.
25. Lorem Ipsum — Jed Hartman (42,184)
Jed is the senior fiction editor at Strange Horizons and if you know what they publish, you’ll know what his politics are. His journal is a lovely combination of the personal and the literary.
33. Holly Black (58,064)
A fabulous YA author.
34. Anna Louise Genoese (58,064)
Mostly excellent publishing commentary from an insider.
40. Guano Happens — Maureen McHugh (75,763)
There had to be a Tiptree Award winner on the list somewhere, no?
45. Bluejo’s Journal — Jo Walton (104,231)
Along with her other fine qualities, Jo is an excellent poet, and posts poetry with some frequency.
48. The Inter-Galactic Playground– Farah Mendlesohn (129,028)
An incisive and opinionated feminist critic.
Please critique, refine, and add. I’d be surprised if anybody wants to subtract. And also please expand your reading lists to the extent you can: there’s a huge amount of good stuff here.
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Filed under Online | Comments (17)
I beg to differ about Making Light. We cover a world of stuff there, from writing to world politics to writing. It’s a valuable addition to my day. I consider it a gathering of peers from far and wide, and since i live in the wilderness of Kansas City, Mo, contact I need.
I’m not sure you can say Making Light is “not at all a feminist blog”. I mean, like me, P&T are feminist all the time, whether we write about specifically “feminist” issues or not – it’s all part of the groundwork.
What distinguishes a feminist from a feminist ally from a fellow traveler?
Here we go again.
See the discussion of this in Making Light.
which would be at
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007730.html#007730 (thanks tnh)
Yes, of course. I misphrased, and I regret it hugely.
Making Light is a blog of enormous value and great general interest, written by feminists. I value it more than I can say.
I’m a twit.
The problem with how good Making Light is, is that when you want to get in to apologize you’re 103 comments down.
I can only say that I was crafting that piece as I went, the tone of it changed, and I made the classic error of not going back to conform myself to the way I finished up.
As I said there and will say anywhere: Making Light is an incredibly valuable and important blog which I read and appreciate, and it is written by feminists and reflects feminist values.
I’m a twit. Why I’m so frequently a twit with the Nielsen Haydens, whom I value personally an enormous amount, is not clear to me, and I wish I understood it.
‘Nuff said?
I wouldn’t have thought of Making Light as a feminist blog. (I wouldn’t have described it as “not at all feminist”, but I certainly don’t think of it as a feminist blog.) In part, I suppose, that’s because Teresa’s justly-famed moderation skills stop short at moderating Patrick: he’s allowed to be as rude as he likes to anyone he feels like, and Teresa doesn’t disemvowel his comments for rudeness. I also don’t associate being libertarian with being feminist, as “libertarian” in the US usually seems to be code for “might is right”, and is a political stance I find more in [straight][white][men] who think their privilege is earned rather than bestowed.
I don’t see why allowing Patrick to be rude is unfeminist; I haven’t noticed his rudeness being misogynistic.
While I tend to agree about libertarianism in the U.S., the brand the Neilsen Haydens practice doesn’t strike me that way. I wouldn’t call Making Light a feminist blog, but it sometimes touches on feminist issues, and I would consider the Nielsen Haydens to be feminists.
Mel: I don’t see why allowing Patrick to be rude is unfeminist
*shrug* Allowing her husband special privileges to abuse others, while making a big deal out of politeness for everyone else – including anyone Patrick is rude to? I would say that’s not a feminist stance, though obviously no one can claim to be ideologically pure feminist 100% of the time. Technically, I think this is the my-husband-can-do-no-wrong position, since as far as I can tell, Teresa doesn’t even notice Patrick’s rudeness to others as being rude.
I wouldn’t call Making Light a feminist blog, but it sometimes touches on feminist issues
Yes, I’d agree to that.
One of the hidden ironies of all this is that, frequently enough, I’m the one advising Teresa to be more restrained in moderating our various threads; to disemvowel and delete less. Which may or may not match up with the above portrayals of me as the no-good very-bad awful-rude member of the Nielsen Haydens. Well, we noticed decades ago that some folks seem to feel compelled to portray Teresa as the Nice One and me as the Mean One. Those are known as “people who don’t know us very well.”
Anyway, whatever advice I offer on the management of our comment threads, Teresa does in fact get the last call. Yonmei’s insight into what transpires between Teresa and me is on par with her grasp of what either of us thinks about libertarianism.
tx patrick for clarifying!
on libertarianism:
I distinguish capital “L” libertarian from lowercase “L” libertarian: capital L is the Libertarian Party and the Silicon Valley self-identified Libertarians I know. They’re good on drug policy but seems to have gotten kinda stupid (IMO) in terms of a lot of domestic politics. (I can’t remember the humorous anarchist quip on modern US Libertarians, something about private police forces, porn, smoking pot, property.)
Lower-”L” libertarian I identify more with the the individualist libertarian strands that are usually better identified with anarchist circles: neither necessarily capitalist nor anti-capitalist, although certainly some what fit in both categories.
Political labels, at least, are to be used with caution (IMO): One can attach a label to others, or self-identify with a label, for all kinds of reasons & in helpful ways — but I’ve rarely seen any label that fully captured an identity or stance, or was understood the same way by everyone who used or encountered it.
Failing to moderate her husband? For shame. How dare she shirk her women’s work?
Regarding libertarianism, there are many, many different political tendencies over the years that have taken the label “libertarian,” and I’m personally quite fond of some of them. The anarchists of the Spanish Civil War would have been quite surprised to be associated with Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand.
For that matter, I have plenty of respect for many actual American free-market libertarians; Jim Henley, for instance, is one of my favorite bloggers, a man of tremendous integrity, even if I do disagree with him about, say, the SEC.
PNH: Yes … If you have found a good way to explain the different tendencies who have described themselves as “libertarian”, I’d like to know it. I usually go with l/L pro/anti-capitalism and explain that’s an anarchist (small “l”) take. (Well, mine.) Sometimes it sinks in, sometimes I just get a Buttercup-style confused look until I explain further. I’d like something more succinct and accurate but haven’t found it.
You’ve piqued my curiosity about Jim Henley; I’m not familiar with him.
In fairness to Yonmei – she described libertarianism as “what she found” and “in the US”. I think that’s a reasonable qualification, and opens up the opportunity to clarify the differing tendencies and make the dialog richer.
Failing to moderate her husband? For shame. How dare she shirk her women’s work?
How is being an even-handed moderator – willing to rebuke anyone for rudeness, even the moderator’s spouse – “women’s work”?
Patrick: Yonmei’s insight into what transpires between Teresa and me is on par with her grasp of what either of us thinks about libertarianism.
I have no idea what either of you think about libertarianism: I don’t recall ever reading anything by either of you on this topic, so how could I know? If you read more carefully, you’ll see that I am expressing what I think of libertarianism based on what I have seen self-identified libertarians assert.
I have no idea what transpires privately between you and Teresa: that’s none of my business. I have merely noted (and indeed can link to an incident of this) that when you are rude, Teresa does not disemvowel you, but rebukes the person you were rude to for provoking you.