Recently, a fellow blogger pointed out a fact about my blogging. Let's just call that person H as in HaHa. This is what H said:
"I notice that most of the blogs you find and the commenters you have are all women".
Jeez .. what an absurd, uncomfortable and incorrect thing to say!! Well .. maybe not incorrect .. and maybe not absurd .. but let me tell you, it was definitely uncomfortable!!
The ironic part is that I was aware of it and yet it never hit home until now.
I tried in vain to think of excuses to refute this claim. But nevertheless, what H said was very true. My only saving grace was the fact that I have had two guys comment on my blogs .. Amol and CU I owe you both big time for this!!
But being the slow thinker I am, the question came back to haunt me again. Was there a reason behind this?
Was it because I was looking for someone? Naah .. one hookup in life is sufficient to last a lifetime. A man has to be crazy to deal with more than one woman at the same time!!
Was it because it is more fun communicating with women? Probably true for men in most cases. But not for me. I have more than my fair share of interaction with the three women in my life.
Was it because women make more sense than men? Now that's really funny ..I wont even answer this :)
Here is my take on this. I read and comment on blogs I enjoy and and if that happens to be a woman's blog, then so be it. And in return, I get their comments on my blog.
And imagine, how much worse of it would have been if the word "women" in H's comment was replaced by "men" ???
So here are some of my options going forward.
1) Try to get more men to read my blog and comment on it. Unfortunately for this, I need the help of all the women reading my blog to pass the word to their male colleagues.
2) Enable the comment moderation feature in blogger and selective publish comments to maintain a male/female balance. Prerequisite for this would be #1 as I would need male comments first :)
2) Ignore H. Enjoy all the female attention my blog is getting!
Any suggestions ??
Thursday, November 29, 2007
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17 comments:
OOps ..Ive opened your comments section ..
jokes apart - does gender really matter ?
Sure it matters .. for example, I cannot use the ladies restrooms no matter how urgent the situation may be!
Jokes apart, it probably does'nt matter when one is blogging. But as you step outside these walls, the society constantly reminds you of the differences.
There .. I have now balanced the male/female ratio on the comments .. :)
If you want comments from men, post man stuff: hockey, boxing, farting, prostate-related ailments, how irritating women are, etc.
I remember pulling into a petrol station and having to use the women's restroom because the men's was under maintenance!
Anyhoo, I don't think that your audience's gender really matters - hell if I know how many men/women comment on my blog...I just enjoy the visits and what people have to say.
Yeah, I'd comment on your blog if I was a man too.
I enjoy commenting, even if only to fight with you about general male-chauvinist tendencies that annoy me.
Plus, I enjoy what you write. So I doubt my being male or female would change that.
Doubts put to rest, I hope.
hahaha...another option to the list is 'ask the female bloggers commenting on ur space to pose as men and comment'...lol!!
i know the suggestion was weird but the comment made by ur friend was equally weird...:D
ignore it!
ohh yaa and am tempted to agree with ur 'females are smarter and more sensible than males' option...heehee
anyways i dont expect any thrashing to follow as most of ur blog audience are females :p
Why is it uncomfortable? I despise the idea that concrete feedback comes from men and praises come from women. I am not suggesting you said that or HaHa meant that but I have a couple of male friends who feel that way.
I don't know what made you write a post about it. I don't know what made you resist the pride that comes with it. All in all, I don't know why you are even posing that question.
Thank you everyone for your honest comments. As always, feedback is very much appreciated and taken with a pinch of salt :)
As to the questions that Anonymous raised, uncomfortable is how I felt when the topic was raised. And uncomfortable is how I feel when you raised these questions :) But that's ok, we all are humans and do not truly control our feelings.
To answer your questions, I blog to connect with other people and to figure out how similar or different my views are from others out there. I posted it to let go of my discomforture. And I posted to have a healthy debate amongst my few loyal readers :)
Did not mean to offend you. Sorry. Apart from all this, love your blog. Am a 25 yr old woman reader. :)
Okay so I am not going to say I am laughing.
If you really want more men on your blog, I think you will have to follow the advice dale gave.
As far as the options you have provided - I will say 3 - even though you named it 2 - where else will you ever get this much attention from women??
@Anonymous - you did not offend me in the least. You did raise very interesting questions, and made me think hard for the answers. I am glad you are out there reading my blog and commenting :)
@Deepali - A comment from you at last!! But without the laughter :(
Hahahaha
As per the preconceived notion, women like to talk more, and therefore, like to comment more??
Maybe?..
@deepali - thanks :)
@solitaire - I would tend to agree with you when it comes to some females, but it would be unfair to generalize.
Damn, i missed out on this! Must've been fun when the show was going on. Anyway, i gave a lot of thought to this ..er...abt 5 mins ;) Did you want to flaunt the fact that more women comment in your blog?? A secret intention for this particular post . Maybe?! ;)
a fun post and comments too. njoyed them.
@preethi - You did'nt miss much .. and the show is still on.
As for flaunting and secret intentions .. no comments :)
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