Thursday, June 28, 2007

Eeek

I am at once deeply honoured and completely freaked to have scored a mention in today's crikey.com.au 'Bias-O-Meter IV: The Blogosphere'.

On the pretty red and blue fan with Marx at one end and Maggie T up the other, they've put me halfway round the red side, scoring five Marxes out of a possible ten, along with The Road to Surfdom. (Perhaps it's an Adelaide thing, though Surfdom is no longer as Adelaide-identified as it was of yore.)

It's hard to know quite what to think about this. Is it true, I wonder. I would never, for example, have scored myself leftier than the redoubtable Tigtog, though in some things I suppose it's possible. But I do have certain shameful, nay, freaky beliefs in things that would get me hung, drawn and quartered by some of the more hard-line elements of the left. I think, for instance, it's a terrible shame that Noel Pearson has just cornered the Australian market in the term 'personal responsibility'; I *whispers* have quite a lot of time for this concept, but I regard Aboriginal people as a special case (what with the whole hopelessly-disadvantaged-for-generations thing), and for the moment, at least, the phrase has become publicly associated with them in ways I wouldn't use myself.

There is a great deal of pressure in the blogosphere to define one's beliefs, but as a lifelong sceptic about prescriptive (and proscriptive) belief systems as such I have always resisted it, so it's quite disconcerting to see oneself quantified so schematically.

Very entertaining, though.

13 comments:

comicstriphero said...

Labels never cease to be attractive to people.

Anonymous said...

Hmm, my impression is that you and tigtog got thrown in as a token nod towards feminist bloggers.

Mark Bahnisch said...

That impression would be quite wrong, speaking as one of the authors of the piece.

I'll be putting it up on LP at midnight for anyone who isn't a Crikey subscriber to have a look.

TimT said...

Ah yes, personal responsibility is a good one, isn't it? Pity the Feds have mangled the concept so much with that horrible 'mutual obligation' euphemism.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

A. Cynic and Mark, I'm obviously not in the best position to assess this but I must say I didn't see it that way either. Of the other blogs idenitifed on the spectrum, Leftwrites has a strong feminist streak and Helen from Cast Iron Balcony is now a major player at Surfdom. Helen Dale at Catallaxy has an interesting feminist side. LP has a particularly strong feminist presence with Kim, Anna, Laura, Tigtog and Suz currently very active (all representing quite different feminisms, too) and Kate, Cristy, Weathergirl and others either esrstwhile or resting. (Sorry if I've inadvertently left anyone out!) There are also a lot of feminist-sympathetic male bloggers there, as there are at Surfdom and various other joints.

I am a bit of a wuss and puller of feminist punches compared to almost all these people, I'm ashamed to say. In the blogosphere, anyway.

Mark Bahnisch said...

I *whispers* have quite a lot of time for this concept

Me too, just quietly.

lauredhel said...

Cheers, from a femmobolsho to a soft left-feminist!

*snort*

Mark Bahnisch said...

I didn't write that bit!

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Heh.

It must be said that 'soft-left feminist' (note changed position of hyphen: to me the 'feminist' part is independent of the 'soft-left part' to some degree) is pretty much how I would have described myself if asked to do so in those terms. (Other self-descriptors might include 'cat proprietor', 'hack', 'superannuated adventuress', 'inadequate housekeeper' and 'humble pilgrim in this our vale of tears', depending on what day it is.)

I'd rather like to be 'femmobolsho', and have indeed been thus from time to time. I'm actually still pretty bolshie on the inside, I just make less noise about it than I used to -- the blogosphere has alerted me to the fact that there are some deeply horrible blokes out there who will seriously try to bury you if they take against you for some passing remark they don't like. Life is too short to contend with these people; I would rather talk to my friends.

tigtog said...

I'm rather chuffed in some ways by the femmobolsho descriptor, although I'm not sure it's entirely accurate! Perhaps our troll-squelching habits got us the bolshie tag? Of course, our commitment to troll-squelching is down to exactly what you note about attracting the deeply horrible sort in blogdom too, Pav: we go for preemption.

Anonymous said...

"I am a bit of a wuss and puller of feminist punches compared to almost all these people"
Gosh, I don't think of you as a puller of feminist punches at all. I secretly think of myself as that! It would be rather typical if all of us feminist bloggers were worrying that we weren't bolshie enough - or maybe typical is the wrong word. We're probably less prone than the men to throw punches in the first place but because of the atmosphere of the blogosphere, feel somehow that we should be.

Zoe said...

A "superannuated adventuress" would wear a truly excellent hat, I reckon, and very possibly a tweed cape.

tigtog said...

Probably scarily handy with the secateurs as well, Zoe!