Blogging, even compared to other forms of media, remains a very male dominated activity. It was our intention when Shifting Grounds was launched earlier this year to feature at least one women contributor every day. Regrettably, we have fallen woefully short of that target at times. To an extent this reflects a lack of editorial focus and effort. But even though we are now making purposeful efforts to recruit more women contributors, it has proved difficult to fulfil our initial plan.
Shifting Grounds is therefore launching a modest initiative designed to shift the gender balance of the blogosphere, even just a little, in the right direction. Starting on Monday, we will be featuring a special week of content from women contributors only. David Clark will be vacating the Editor’s chair and making way for our Guest Editor, Emma Burnell from Scarlet Standard.
As people who have often campaigned for increased female representation in all forums, particularly political, this was a real challenge to ensure money and mouths were in the same place. Proving that women are just as capable, just as suitable, just as opinionated as men is a challenge to be relished.
The idea of having a women’s week was the suggestion of our contributing editor, Ben Mitchell, following a bloggers breakfast organised during Labour conference week. What seemed clear from that meeting was that making the blogosphere more representative would require a conscious effort on the part of the community as a whole; not just female bloggers, but of all feminists in the blogosphere.
Setting aside a week devoted to women contributors is one contribution we can make towards achieving that goal. Our aim is to draw attention to the situation, showcase the work of new and existing women bloggers, and perhaps inspire more women to give it a go themselves.
We certainly have a great line-up of writers planned for next week. Some will be writing on issues of female representation, and ways in which we can improve our politics to make it a space where we can all feel comfortable contributing. Some are experts in their fields who just so happen to be women, writing with wit and knowledge on topics they feel need more discussion.
We hope you enjoy it. We also hope that you see it as a constructive and practical way of broadening the blogosphere and improving it for the benefit of us all. These women are all great writers, thinkers and contributors to our political debate. Never again let it be said that it is too hard to get female representation in any discussion.