  Back in the early days of blogging, it seemed the epicenter of the blogosphere was in the Silicon Valley. But, maybe because the dot-com'ers used the economic downturn as an excuse to go back to grad school, but probably because blogging perfectly captures the inter-disciplinary surge among the hoity-toitiest of academia, the epicenter is firmly located in Boston. And so it came to be that Harvard Law took to blogging like white on rice, white rice, that is, and urlLink hosted a conference by and for bloggers (as opposed to vendors) last October to discuss everything blog-worthy.
This April, they're hosting the sequel: urlLink BloggerCon II . urlLink Lisa Williams was kind enough to mention here in my comments that she'd save me a spot in the Women's Forum, I couldn't resist immediately accepting. Up until then, I thought the event was to be an exclusive thing to just the hoities, but I guess they mean for anyone who can to attend. I already found a problem, though, with the agenda-setting process. The organizers laid out the application of blogs in our lives as the focus. So far so good. And then, they appointed the equivalent of a listing of college departments as the categories for the applications of blogs to fall into. These included technology, law, politics, and so on. I can understand a mindset so entrenched in academia that it seems the world falls into these schools, in fact, as a rejected applicant to Harvard Law's policy program myself, maybe I'm just jealous of their mindset!
But what really disappointed me, is that they left out my department! Where's the social sciences? No anthropology? No sociology? Que pues, man! Blogging is nothing if not a mirror. A tool for reflecting the popular culture's musings and responses. An ever shifting opinion poll, live and interactive. The microscope into the heart of any given cultural group. Sounds like the social sciences to me. My personal application for blogging was also neglected. Blogging is also as a lifeline back to the world of the living for those who have been removed, the interacting adults that say sentences longer and more complex than my three-year-old's queries about where Mr. Wind lives.
I read recently that the sling was arguably the most significant development in technology for the human race because it allowed women to tie on a baby, thus freeing their hands for food acquisition. The sling put women in the workforce! Suddenly the food supply was substantial enough to support the advancement of the race over their inter-species competitors. This, timed well with the perfection of the spear, was the missing link our species needed to get out of Africa and populate the world. Today, the computer, and especially blogging, is the sling for the modern woman. It allows me to join the workforce again, while still watching over my children.
It enables me to survive the otherwise utter isolation our culture leaves women at this part of their lives by offering a little conversation here, a witty observation there. Without it, I would have long since been carried to the nut house! I still might have to be, don't get me wrong, but at least I'll take my laptop with me when I go. This is really an issue unique to women, and I think it's the biggest reason there are more women bloggers online than men, as well as the biggest reason women bloggers are so under-recognized amongst the bloggeratti (whose ranks have never been shared with a mom-blog that I know of).
Considering Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's research which persuasively argues that the desire for social interaction is intricately linked to the nurturing emotional surge of motherhood since a mother's progeny's survival was dependent upon social positioning in our species' early days, as well as considering my own body and emotions, I think it's nothing short of torture to take women out of functioning society at the very time their brain's need it most. The isolation and removal from society that comprise reality for the middle-class American woman living in this first decade of the twenty-first century is finally alleviated--just a little, but enough--by blogs.
Women and men alike somehow lost track of the goals of the struggle for equality. Equality doesn't necessitate homogeneity. In so far that blogs reflect the reality of our lives, a woman's blog is not going to reflect the same world as a man's. Some women have already complained that the conference has a woman's forum, saying it belittles women. I think they're afraid of looking under-recognized by needing the special attention. They want to play on the same court as the boys. But I don't think it's even the same game! Rather than struggling for the same of everything, the push for equality among the genders should focus on celebrating all things "she" every bit as much as all things "he. " 
