Frankly, I'm tired of people hand-wringing over not being taken seriously. We're bloggers, fer crying out loud. And of course there are women whose major selling point on their blogs is (quite intentionally) their physical appearance, or more to the point, their sexuality. All while trying to be "serious." (Adam knows of whom I speak.) There are a lot of dudes who will read a blog written by a woman just because they like looking at her picture and imagining she's writing for THEM. It's just the way things are, on the internets and off. Not much you can do about it except keep the pics off the blog, or even do like Digby did (concealing her gender).

I do think there's a big difference in the political bloggers btw left and right, though; a lot of (but certainly NOT ALL) the prominent female bloggers write a lot about so-called "women's issues," with a focus on feminism. Like it or not, I'm sure it's just as off-putting to most men as dudes' blogs with soft porn pics all over them are to us. (That's another entire story, right there - some dudes post that sh*t and wonder why women feel like it's a no-girls-allowed zone? Duh!)

Anyway, I'm not taken "seriously," but then, I've been known to slip goatse links in my posts just because I thought it was funny.
(Don't worry, I'm over that phase.)

People blog about various things. Any blogger who wants to be taken seriously is probably just too serious. You have to post a lot and be relevant. Google can't tell a blogger's gender.

Oh yeah, I always take MissCellania seriously.

I'm terribly sorry to have to have placed you in a list that also includes Michelle Malkin.

the reason i believe men are taken more seriously is because they generally don't write solely about their feelings. women do. feelings do not generate populatiry, because EVERYONE has feelings. i think women might write more for personal benefit, where men write more for an audience. when you write for an audience, you try to get them involved with the content. now i'm not saying men are better writers, i'm just saying that they don't let their feelings generate their content. and that's OK with me.

the world may (still) be dominated by men, but women will always be better at balancing the checkbook.

But I came in here to say, no, female bloggers are not taken seriously. Neither are male bloggers.

I don't think it is about gender. It is about how interesting your writing is.

Oh well, there's still a lot I can learn..

Amanda Marcotte, the horrible Michelle Malkin, the equally horrible Pam Gellar (Atlas Shrugs anti-Muslim bigotry blog), Jill Filipovic, Pam Spaulding, Debbie "Ask me why Muslims suck" Schlussel, Jane Hamsher, Ana Marie Cox, Jacqui "Ars Technica" Cheng, Xeni Jardin, Juliette "Baldilocks" Ochieng, Kathryn "K-Lo" Lopez, MISS CELLENIA, Lindsay Beyerstein, Garance Franke-Ruta, Roxanne Cooper, Rebecca Traister, Joan Walsh, Carol Avedon, Lauren Bruce, Tammy Bruce, "Hecate," Susan Hu, "Echidne of the Snakes," the politically confused but otherwise exceptional Beth "Alabama Pachyderm" Cleaver, Melissa "Shakespeare's Sister" McEwan, the criminally stupid La Shawn Barber, Sharon Weinberger, Elizabeth "The Anchoress" Scalia, Dr. Helen "Mrs. Instapundit" Smith, and on and on... And this list (with the exception of Miss C., Sharon W., Jacqui Cheng and Xeni Jardin) only covers political bloggers, left and right.

I read tons of blogs and I certainly don't choose which ones to "take seriously" based on the sex of the poster and I think the rest of the blog-reading world participates similarly. If Blogger X, regardless of his or her sex can maintain a schedule of engaging and provocative posts, then readers will flock to them. If they lose their edge and it starts to show in their work then they may lose some of their audience. I couldn't imagine a reader deciding that their favorite blog has gotten tediously boring but that they would consider the sex of the blogger in question as part of their decision whether to stick around or participate elsewhere.

Vive les bloggers féminins - même les wingnuts belliqueux parmi eux!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Sierra

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=1 4783

Greg H--this isn't about male to female ratios in the blogosphere; We're talking quality of writing, and even though some of the best blogs are written by women, they are passed over in news articles in favor of male bloggers of less quality.

Chad; So, being featured in a local free 'zine aimed at a very narrow market is the same as getting exposure in a national news article? "Skirt" Charleston is aimed at women. Of course it will feature female bloggers.

I know some intelligent women who blog and who are taken seriously, such as brainy, outspoken economist Megan McArdle whose blog, Asymmetrical Information, now appears in the Atlantic:
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/ She's worth reading.

In this case, it makes more sense to blame the cultural factors that make women less likely to contribute than to blame male bloggers for ignoring female bloggers. If you start doing that, you risk making a blogger's gender more important than the quality of his or her content. In a number of the blogs I read, I have no idea if the writer is male or female, but I keep reading because the content is good. Unless the content of the blog is really specific to women, I don't think it should matter who is typing it.

As for media coverage, you can't cherrypick one or two examples of reporters ignoring female bloggers and say there's some kind of systemic bias against women on the Internet. All it proves is that there are at least a few journalists who are ignorant, maybe passively sexist. While it may make sense to think that women are shortchanged, there is simply not yet any serious evidence to assert it.