Awards for blogs are generally silly things, and I don’t pay much attention to them. For the same reason as I don’t pay attention to online polling. I’m just a little too familiar with who is deeply invested (“you can vote once every 24hrs!”) in such things, who constructs them, and how they are used, to think them worthy of serious consideration. Anway, it warms my heart to find some purity left in the blogosphere, and I think the woman has a point. 49 categories, but not one specifically for da wimmin? That’s a head-scratcher.

Do you note the glaring omission of feminist blogs or a “Feminist Blogs” category? Pandagon, Feministing, and Shakesville were nominated under “Liberal Blogs” (and the winner was a white male liberal blogger, of course). There is a “GLBT” category which includes Pam’s House Blend (and the winner was Joe My God, a white gay male blogger, natch). Not only is a “feminist” category glaringly omitted, the nominees and winners are overwhelmingly white and male. Surprise.

Feminism, however, does not seem to exist in its own right for these guys. And, I guess, really, that’s about right. If a whole lot of people had their way — including many self-identified feminists– feminism would be subsumed, erased, hidden by these penultimately male categories, i.e., “liberal” and “GLBT”.

Our little world of the blogosphere is very young, still forming and changing, but it reflects a simple truth about the people in it. Most of us are pretty privileged, and overall, the (American political) blogosphere is still rather homogeneous.

I got into it last night with friends, because my blood was up over a throw away comment about how hard it is to make it in this country on 50K/yr. That’s not a lot of money, but at the same time, it’s a fortune, compared to what people around the world must live upon, as well as some people in this country who don’t have the money and free time to spend hours every day on the computer chatting up friends. Let’s not kid ourselves, as hard as some of us work, and as poor as some of us are, we are still a slice of humanity that has is really, really good. Think about the slaves who make your clothes in a Chinese factory, or the people in Iraq without clean water or a safe place to hide from flying bullets. I mean, really think about what it must be like to live like that, day after day after brutally oppressive day.

Anyway, I don’t mean to make this a soapbox post, but rather remind people that there is much to be done, if the blogosphere is to be more than the latest way to “monetize” bullshit. The blogosphere could start by recognizing that women, like queers and minorities, are probably worth a category or two, if we’re going to get all excited about awards we give each other. It’s such a small step, no?