Comments on: Communication Styles: How Men and Women Blog Differently

By: Roberta

Roberta — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:18:30 +0000

Oh yeah…Ana Marie Cox is a little smug. I gave up reading her when she left Wonkette. I like reading the blogs of the women who haven’t gotten such a big head from all the blogebity-ness of it all.

By: Roberta

Roberta — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 04:03:43 +0000

Great points in this article, Kathryn. I read several of the major male bloggers, but I’ll always read the posts of female bloggers first. I dunno what it is, but I feel like I’ve connected more with a lot of the female bloggers. They seem to care more about my opinions.

By: David Culpepper

David Culpepper — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:08:11 +0000

The link has been fixed and works now.

By: Kevin Ott

Kevin Ott — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:47:53 +0000

would love to research whether itâ€™s more women or men who vote â€œdownâ€ on sites like Digg or Mixx!

That sounds like a fun project. I wouldn’t recommend doing the same on Reddit, which is easily the most dude-centric site on the web. Worse than Fark, even.

if her posts were written by a man, would you still say she seems smug?

I considered this before commenting… and, yeah, I would. I didn’t really read much of Wonkette before it got as famous as it is today, but I perceive Cox is a member of that annoyingly out-of-touch NY/DC media elite, which makes politics seem less like something that has a profound effect on people’s lives and more like a cocktail party in a Truman Capote script. Which is a shame, because, y’know, the Internet is supposed to thwart that kind of thing.

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:40:06 +0000

lol … I was going to add in that last comment that one of the things guys have pointed me towards is gaming but I decided to leave it off … After writing the comment, I decided to follow your name link to find out more about you. :-p

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:38:53 +0000

Thanks! It’s funny that you say that about your girlfriend because it seems to support the general theory that women are focused on building intimate relationships, whether that’s online or not. MySpace and email are all about making human connections. Of course, blogging can be, too which is why I think women’s blogs (and the way they communicate with their regular readers) differ from men’s. I’ve definitely gained a lot of interest in different areas of the web after male friends pointed me in the direction of them … I think we just naturally gravitate towards different things but the web is great because it makes finding different things so easy!

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:36:41 +0000

Thanks for the response. You make a good point with the “your band sucks” thing in that I’ve seen a lot of the back-and-forth comments between guys online turn into something that looks very similar to the proving-whose-the-alpha that happens in men’s conversations. For example, I noticed on one of my social networking sites that two guys are currently engaged in an active battle to vote each other down on the sites for what seems to be no other reason than that putting someone down makes you go up. I think there’s less of a tendency for women to do that … and would love to research whether it’s more women or men who vote “down” on sites like Digg or Mixx!

Thanks also for pointing me in the direction Feministing … your link looks like it didn’t go through right but I found the blog (http://www.feministing.com/) and checked out a few posts. I’ll definitely be reading more.

As for Cox, I have a question for thought … if her posts were written by a man, would you still say she seems smug? (I don’t actually have an opinion on this one, just curious …)

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:20:25 +0000

Good read…I agree that we are fundamentally different as far as thinking goes…doesn’t say one is better or worse like you stated; as the web becomes more saturated with users women will blog more and sometimes you want that woman perspective as a man or vice versa…I’m trying to get my girlfriend more involved on the internet…trying to show her it’s not just myspace and email

By: Kevin Ott

Kevin Ott — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 19:20:47 +0000

Some great thoughts here. I’ve never considered the notion that women are probably better at men than online community-building, but now that I read your post I absolutely agree. I’ve always suspected that much of the “your favorite band sucks” mentality that sometimes seems to overwhelm the Web is the direct result of unmitigated dudery.

I’ve always been a big fan of Jessica Valenti over at Feministing. She’s got some co-bloggers I like a little less, but that’s a great blog overall.

And I’ve always found Anna Marie Cox really smug. Anyone else see this?