Better Homes & Bloggers
Are lifestyle blogs a new way for women to compare themselves and come up short?
Are lifestyle blogs a new way for women to compare themselves and come up short?
Illustration by Leslie A. Wood
Today, Elsie Larson is wearing gold. “I’m kinda obsessed with gold lately,” she writes, “Gold details, jewelry, even metallic fabrics like this gold skirt that [my sister] Emma wore.” Kaylah Doolan has decorated her home for Christmas and shares photos of the end result— reindeer lights and tinsel decorating hallways, a ceramic elf perched on top of a stack of DVDs, Christmas tins by her bright blue typewriter. Abbey Hendrickson has five new things she recently found “in blogland” to share, including knit sea urchins, Free People boots, and quirkily wrapped gifts. Anja Verdugo recently worked on a “soft goth” photo shoot and documented the event with pictures of yellow and pink roses and makeup brushes next to a container of various lip balms.
Such is a day in the world of lifestyle blogging, an increasingly popular genre that women dominate. Through their blogs, which focus largely on traditionally feminine topics such as fashion, home decor, crafts, food, and family, women like Larson, Doolan, Hendrickson, and Verdugo connect with like-minded individuals, form communities, promote their Etsy shops and, in some cases, receive attention from mainstream media outlets.
For many, blogging is a relatively easy, low-cost way to share personal anecdotes and explore interests in an accessible medium. And, in contrast to mainstream lifestyle media (Real Simple, Martha Stewart Living) that tends to be more intent on raising ad revenue than bolstering women’s spirits, lifestyle blogging puts representation into the hands of the homemakers themselves. At the same time, there is something a bit uncanny about the genre. Click through enough of them and you’ll start wondering: How is it possible that so many women and their toddlers spent their Saturdays in blanket forts made from vintage quilts found at a swap meet? And does the world really need more Instagram shots of early-morning trips to the flower market? One may get the impression that the Stepford Wives have swapped their pastel sun hats and starched blouses for sewing-machine tattoos and Rachel Comey shoes. The pastels; soft-focus and color-saturated photo filters; optimistic, sunny tone; and tendency to address readers as “sweeties,” “darlings,” and other diminutives characterize many of the most visible lifestyle blogs. Coupled with the focus on domesticity and the home, bloggers start to resemble a contemporary, superwoman version of a stereotypical 1950s housewife. These women don’t just maintain squeaky-clean, camera-ready homes and adorable families, they also run independent businesses, wear perfect outfits, rock exquisitely styled hair—and find the time to blog about it.
A brief note on terminology: The category of “lifestyle blogs” can also include service-oriented blogs about four-hour workweeks or productivity sites like Lifehacker, but the ones I discuss here are personal blogs that are just about, well, living life. Many of the most popular blogs and bloggers in the genre not only make a living from their blogs, thanks to advertising revenue, but have also partnered with mainstream media outlets, particularly women’s magazines—Hendrickson, for instance, creates craft tutorials for Parents magazine, while lifestyle blogs like Larson’s A Beautiful Mess and Dylana Suarez’s Color Me Nana are part of Lucky magazine’s Lucky Style Collective, a network of bloggers whose association with the Condé Nast property nets them ad revenue, writing and photo opportunities, and more. Martha Stewart regularly invites bloggers to her show for cooking and craft demos; the blog Design*Sponge held its recent series of nationwide book-release parties at the home store West Elm. It’s not just that mainstream media has recognized that bringing bloggers with established audiences into its fold is smart business, it’s also that there’s something ineffably appealing about perfectly puffed pie crusts, pigeon-toed fashion shoots, and sweet, uncomplicated musings on vintage hairclips.
In a 2011 Salon article, writer Emily Matchar confessed to being obsessed with Mormon mom blogs. In a piece titled “Why I Can’t Stop Reading Mormon Housewife Blogs,” she wrote of the escapism offered by blogs like Nat the Fat Rat and Rockstar Diaries, saying:
[Their] focus on the positive is especially alluring when your own life seems anything but easy. As my friend says of her fascination with Mormon lifestyle blogs, “I’m just jealous. I want to arrange flowers all day too!” She doesn’t, really. She’s just tired from long days spent in the lab, from a decade of living in a tiny apartment because she’s too poor from student loans to buy a house, from constant negotiations about breadwinning status with her artist husband. It’s not that she or I want to quit our jobs to bake brownies or sew kiddie Halloween costumes. It’s just that for her, Mormon blogs are an escapist fantasy, a way to imagine a sweeter, simpler life.
And while hip young Mormon women do have a disproportionately large presence in the lifestyle blogosphere, a broader interest in and resurgence of domesticity predates lifestyle blogs by many years. At the close of the 1990s, both newspaper articles and alternative media like Bust magazine heralded a “new domesticity,” suggesting that the gains of feminism had freed up the modern women to actually enjoy things like cooking, knitting, and even ironing; a massive 1999 tome called Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House buttressed the idea that domesticity could be approached simultaneously with—and with the same seriousness as—a degree from law school. (Author Cheryl Mendelson, in fact, has both a JD from Harvard Law and a PhD in philosophy.) A few years later, the aftermath of 9/11 found media types again turning to the idea of a new domesticity as a respite from terror threats and economic uncertainty. And most recently, the recession has led to a more widespread embrace of the idea that the home front can be a site of economic, political, and environmental empowerment, with everything from raising bees and brewing beer to homeschooling and hog farming getting front-page ink.
But lifestyle blogs, for Matchar and many others who are entranced by them, tap into a particular aesthetic that has nothing to do with bucking societal expectations or creating necessary alternative employment. In her recently launched blog, New Domesticity, Matchar describes this mood as “very romantic, soft-focused, aesthetically pleasing images of home life, that is very DIY, very home-oriented and nostalgic.”
And perhaps just as important, authentic. Make that “authentic”: Both the appeal and the unease of lifestyle blogs are centered on the fact that, unlike more traditional forms of media like magazines, television, and movies, blogs are supposed to be real. In theory, they exist outside the economic strictures of parent companies and advertising contracts; they are, at the most basic level, online records born from a desire to share with others, rather than satisfy a bottom line. (Indeed, the link between blogging and the journaling that has historically been a feature of Mormon home life goes some way toward explaining the Latter-day Saintliness of so many lifestyle blogs.) As Matchar argues, such blogs allow readers to satisfy “the desire to peer into others’ personal lives” in a more casual way than afforded by mainstream media of the past.
This tension between authenticity and aspiration may be at the heart of why lifestyle blogs don’t just inspire readers, they also tend to bum them out. Matchar, for instance, says she has talked to many women who, upon becoming immersed in the world of lifestyle blogging, have had negative reactions. “[Reading these blogs] creates a constant comparison…it’s easy to get caught up in ‘their life is so much better than mine,’” she says. Lifestyle blogs, which in the words of Clever Nettle’s Verdugo, “show perfect homes and perfect lives where everything is lovely and perfect (and expensive!),” can result in something as simple as a post on a delicious meal setting off the most grounded follower. As one reader, Claudette, recounts: “I see her fucking noodle soup. And I feel like I should do that. And I don’t feel good. I feel like I should be perfect.” Claudette, who follows many style blogs, particularly those that reflect her own modernist sensibility and obsession with fashion and design, isn’t unhappy with her own life. But, she says, “I look around my house and I like the things I own…but it can never be good enough.”
Verdugo acknowledges that much of the negative feedback she has seen on blogs stems “from the perception that bloggers are constantly [portraying] their lives [as] unrealistically perfect. There will always be a disconnect between real life and what people think your life is like.” Caitlin Emeritz, who runs the blog Metrode, points out that bloggers are not purposely trying to make their readers feel bad about their lives: “I mean for my blog and store to be inclusive, and hopefully inspiring, rather than a standard against which to judge other women or men.”
It is also worthwhile to point out what kind of lifestyle is being promoted and who the face of it is. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the most popular lifestyle blogs, the ones with the largest readerships and tendency to be featured in other media, are usually authored by Caucasian, middle-class, straight women. Claudette, who is black, remarked that the lifestyle blogs she reads are like an extension of mainstream society’s preference for “happy white women,” and could not think of any lifestyle blogs by black or Latina women, though obviously they exist. Another reader echoed this sentiment, stating that while she felt there was an Asian-American presence, especially among blogs focusing on fashion and style, she recognized a strong whiteness to the world of lifestyle blogging. The lack of class and racial diversity is telling, as is the fact that lifestyle bloggers of color with robust readerships—among them Savvy Brown, Afro Boudoir, and La Dulce Vida—aren’t the ones who tend to define the genre, and thus don’t have the links, the love, and the lucrative partnerships of their whiter peers. Some of the bloggers in the Lucky Style Collective, for instance, are women of color, but it’s tempting to view their blogs’ disinterest in foregrounding racial identity as the very thing that makes them easily assimilated into lifestyle-blog culture.
Despite the democratic potential of the blog format—the fact that nearly everyone can find an audience for everything from discussions of gratitude to tutorials on how to craft up some glittered flats—it seems important to question why the blogs that have come to define “lifestyle blogging” are emblematic of deeply normative, well, lifestyles, even when they don’t necessarily set out to be. Context matters: The bright tone of blogs may tacitly discourage questions about what or who isn’t represented in all those cheery Instagrams. The copious images of female-focused domesticity can’t help but underscore that, while we’re all free to choose our choices, a clear and privileged path to happiness and achievement runs through the kitchen, the garden, and the nursery. One can see these frustrations played out in such places as the “My Balance” section of the wildly popular blog A Cup of Jo, in which different lifestyle bloggers discuss the challenges of balancing blog work with their home lives, revealing stiflingly similar results. Sure, shuffling children to and from preschool, planning a blog post, setting up lights for photos, and painting furniture for a diy tutorial may be hectic, but it probably sounds like a vacation to many readers. And whenever a commenter pops in to request that the site perhaps investigate the balance of a mother in a two-income household—or, hell, a single mother, even—a polite but deafening silence inevitably results.
The fact is, while lifestyle bloggers share some intimate details with their readers—wedding photos, discussions about how many children to have, feelings of insecurity—such blogs are carefully curated for a variety of reasons. Ashley Rose Helvey’s blog, for instance, is primarily visual, and thus: “From looking at [it] you’d never know that I watch Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and love Waka Flocka Flame. My sense of humor isn’t apparent, but that’s okay because it’s not what I’m inspired to share.” Purple-haired, tattooed Doolan, of The Dainty Squid, also allows that her blog is bit a toned-down, saying, “my blog portrays a small chunk of my life and who I am, and I must admit it’s a pg version of me. You won’t find any inappropriate jokes or curse words like you would in ‘real life.’” Doolan adds that she deliberately avoids topics such as religion and politics because “it is important to know when topics or opinions are relevant to my blog and business.”
It’s not surprising that as a blog becomes more popular, its authenticity becomes more circumscribed. And for bloggers with an eye on leveraging their work into bigger, more mainstream venues, the balance of professionalism with authenticity means less critical discussion, fewer acknowledgments of bad days or insecurities, and less humor. And because the lifestyle blogs that receive the most attention (and opportunities for more revenue) reflect the most limiting vision of traditional femininity (conventionally attractive, straight, happy white women with beautiful homes, playful children, and quirky recipes), it isn’t surprising that this formula tends to be the most emulated one within the world of lifestyle blogging. As blogger Susie Hatmaker points out, “As soon as there are a few ‘blogging celebrities,’ of course many more are going to try to emulate that idea of success. It has created a new, pretty strange way to be successful.”
For some, bucking this trend is key to their feelings of personal, if not financial, success. Verdugo, for instance, recalls that “once I realized that I would never make a ton of money selling advertisements on my site, I felt much calmer and in control. I don’t have to please any companies or review products…I can just be me.”
What may be most frustrating about the rise of a particular stripe of lifestyle blog is that so few of them elicit the challenge to societal expectations of femininity one would reasonably expect in a medium so dominated by women. Forms of media that have glorified and promoted the home front as an exclusively female domain, after all, have never been in short supply, from sitcoms to shelter magazines to store catalogs. So while lifestyle bloggers can rightly claim that their “choice” (that is, their privilege) to not work outside the home, their choice to be primary parents to their children, and their excitement about rewallpapering their downstairs bathroom is just that—an individual choice. But an accumulation of such choices promotes a homogenous narrative indistinguishable from those that have come before. And no amount of glitter can freshen that up.
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La Dulce Vida
---I looooved this post.
Pleased to see" La Dulce Vida" on this page...as Adriana is one of my all. time. fave. bloggers.
Brava!
diversity
I'm so happy to see the diversity of blogs mentioned. They've been around for quite some time. It's great to see some kind of acknowledgement. These are the ones on my weekly to read list.
Latinas and people of color not only blog about the home but other lifestyle topics like art, work, education, culture and inspiration. Thanks to blogging that platform continues to grow.
Yes, yes and yes. This is a
Yes, yes and yes. This is a great article! My thoughts exactly. I read a lot of blogs in general, and I keep a style blog myself. Reading lifestyle blogs, I always asked myself when do they find the time to do all this? Even more so when they have children! Of course, I did also wonder about the amount of young Mormon women in the blogosphere. I was asking myself if I just have a preference for Mormon blogs or if there are indeed so many ;-) Your explanation looks valid to me :-) (I live in Germany, so I don't know much about Mormons except the prejudices). I guess what we envy while reading those blogs is definitely within ourselves: The things we want to achieve ourselves irk us the most. I don't mind any blogger baking the best cookies or having the most romantic mantel decoration (I don't bake, I think mantel decorations are stale and I don't like romantic decorating). I do get a little green when they seem to have endless adventures about which they don't forget to instagram, and have a seemingly effortless style. I know that the style is probably not effortless at all, and when I have adventures I prefer to have them and not photograph them (except the adventure includes testing the new camera!). Besides, nearly no one knows about my blog because I feel so darn shallow having a style blog. So I don't have a lot of help from someone taking my pictures. Which is a little impractical from time to time, but I wouldn't feel good about dragging my boyfriend into this on top of his 60-80-hour work week. It feels good to be self-sufficient! I have to confess though, I have unfollowed a blog or two in the past because I was just so fed up from the sugar dripping off the site or from seeing little Miss Perfect being smug about herself. I don't think it was envy though, I just know I can't do what they do. That is okay because I know what I do is better *for me*. I'm a psychologist and work in research trying to earn my PhD, I'm *thisclose* to finishing the medical textbook I got a book deal for and I have a second internet project that will hopefully bring home some money. Blogging is really just for fun, and I know I won't be a good housekeeper or decorator or child enertainer ever (ugh. Children ^^). Still, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had started my blog when I was still a student. I had sooo much time. Maybe that is what I sometimes DO envy.
You go girl. I get ya. and
You go girl. I get ya. and just to say, I'm impressed with ya :) lets see your blog!
"Happy White Women"
I came over from Adriana's blog La Dulce Vida ~ The Sweet Life. I was curious about an entity called "Bitch Magazine". I found a site that was interesting, thought provoking and humorous. I was intrigued, besides, I wanted to read the reference to my new friend's blog. True to my ilk, I decided to join the dialog.
I was a homemaker in the 50s, 60s and 70s and a career woman in the 70s, 80s and 90's. I can tell you that there were "Happy White Women" and unhappy white women in each of those chosen responsibilities and in each of those decades. Self confidence, self assurance is an internal issue and, in my humble opinion, not to be relinquished to the whims of the media flavor of the month or anyone attempting to interpret said media.
I remember TV commercials, the up and coming media of the 50s, with homemakers, in high heels, waxing their floors until one could use them for applying makeup. All the TV sitcom moms wore high heels, Sunday attire and pristine aprons. They all ate in the dining room and had perfect manners. In the days before clothes dryers, women felt inferior if the neighbor got her, bright white, diapers on the line before she had finished waxing the floor and taking off her high heels. We NEVER wore our heels to hang out the laundry, we might damage those lucite stilettos. Of course Hef 's magazine placed that requirement on the woman of the day/night.
Before retiring as an upper management banker, I listened to the working woman's woes. She was trying to balance the career, children and spouse. She felt she should be at home with her children. She was attempting to be all things to all people except herself. With the advent of the mobile phone (in the auto only), the bag phone, cell phone, etc. we even lost the ability to be alone. All the while , the career women were afflicted with insecurities just as the housewives. Same thing only different.
Having traveled extensively before and after retiring I have seen and experienced many different cultures and their people. I often found myself wanting to become one of the natives and stay. Blogging, for me, opened up even more new and different worlds for me.
Since I started blogging, a little over a year ago, I have met the most unique group(s) of people. I found them to be sincere, generous, caring and fun. I have become blogger friends with native bloggers in Pakistan, Singapore, Great Britain, France, Germany, Ecuador and from sea to shining sea of the USA. We all share our lives as women.We are sharing our customs, religious customs, everyday activities, weddings, births and sometimes sorrows.
I must say, when I met Adriana I did not know I had met a woman of color. I met an intelligent, friendly lady with the most gorgeous black hair that I have ever seen. Adriana certainly didn't shy away from this old lady who is as white as a sheet and speaks with a southern drawl. BTW, she doesn't look old enough to have a 20yr old son. I sincerely hope I have met a new friend.
Blogging is new media convenience. Take what you like and leave what you don't like. Develop a powerful sense of self and don't believe blogging or bloggers can define your strengths or weaknesses. It/they cannot. Only you can do that and don't allow the assignment of that definition..
I agree. I follow a few
I agree. I follow a few lifestyle blogs and I think it's definitely a new way to compare ourselves and come up short. I'm getting tired of the fake perfection they portray and I've quit reading some because of it. I'm considering quitting them altogether, in fact. These lifestyle bloggers are also really good at photography and do an excellent job at making something ordinary into a magical image that makes you think they must live in a storybook, picture-perfect world. Sometimes they inspire me, but more often than not I end up feeling inadequate.
You are your own best cheerleader
Carolyn, Don't let the medium do that to you. Celebrate the things in your life that give you pleasure. Be your own cheerleader. Lord knows, we all have to cheer ourselves on, often. Surf around and find a few blogs that speak to you. There are some really good ones out there. I have dropped some but found others with great humanity.
Try visiting La Dulce Vida. The link is in the original article. She keeps it real.
Good luck! Don't let anyone or anything make you feel inadequate.
"And whenever a commenter
"And whenever a commenter pops in to request that the site perhaps investigate the balance of a mother in a two-income household—or, hell, a single mother, even—a polite but deafening silence inevitably results."
Have to call BS on this one a bit. The blog is the second income for a lot of these women. Joanna Goddard (of a Cup of Jo) makes her living from her blog, as do many of the the others mentioned. In fact, I'd speculate that some of the bigger blogs bring in more than the husband's salaries.
I want to remain anonymous for my blog's sake, but after you add up the amount of the time conceptualizing, writing, photographing and promoting a post, it's just as much work as a full-time job (which I also have). I admittedly don't like many of the Mormon blogs, but don't think that *all* of us lifestyle bloggers just bake cookies and make candles all day. As I said, I work 40-60 hours per week at an intense job and still manage to maintain my blog.
And there's nothing wrong with blogs being aspirational for 99 percent of readers. There are plenty of blogs and websites where readers can read about marriage problems, fertility issues, weight/self-image issues and all of those other things that unfortunately plague women today. Some women want an escape from that. These blogs offer that. Magazines exist for the same reason, so who cares if women want to read them?
People Need to Relax
Oh relax. Blogs are for entertainment. Much like watching the show Glee or any other form of entertainment. I don't have a complex that I can't sing as good as Rachel Berry. But I enjoy watching because it inspires me. Blogs are just another form of inspiration and entertainment. Take it at face value and stop over analyzing. Just enjoy. Let the blogs that you like inspire you to implement better things in your life. You don't have to be just like the bloggers you follow but you can sit down and unwind from your day and enjoy what they have to say. Of course they aren't showing every aspect of their lives. Of course they are showing the perfect things. Real Simple isn't shooting ugly recipe shoots. Their job is to inspire. If you don't want that go read the news - that will surely make you feel like shit. And while you're at it grow some confidence! Be happy with you and the things you have to offer. So you aren't Elsie Larson and you might work at Dunkin' Donuts for a living - that doesn't mean you can't read Elsie's blog at the end of the day as a little escape. That doesn't mean you can't find a cool DIY on her blog to do in your free time.
Take the blog Bonzai Aphrodite. That woman is terrific. She was doing all sorts of badass stuff on her blog. It inspired me to eat healthier, to take health into consideration. I didn't have a complex because I couldn't be just like her. She can fit growing her own food, making it from scratch, being a mom, etc. into her schedule - the more power to her. I am happy that she can rock that. Yeah, there is stuff she didn't blog about - of course. So what? The stuff she did blog about inspired me. Made me better. That that lady reached people. She shared things that inspired people to be better. If she gave any of her readers a complex then those readers need to examine what they can change in their lives to make themselves happier.
Comparing yourself to anything is always a time waster. I suppose I could compare myself to my best friend too. She's beautiful, a stay at home mom, bakes wonderfully, decorates her home to the nines. I don't compare myself to her because I am not her. And I don't stop interacting with her because of the good things she has going on. But I do focus on the things that I can rock and do well becuase I have confidence.
There are people who are blind with no legs in this world. People starving, dying, being abused, suffering. And you want me to get all up in arms about how people compare themselves to bloggers becuase they have an internal complex. Really? Come on. Kind of trite. You aren't breaking any ground with this article you're just trying to be profound.
Blogging is supposed to be a temporary escape from reality. Like Ally McBeal, Bon Iver and Glee. Like television, reading a story, music. Relax people, stop overthinking entertaiment and just live and ENJOY for goodness sake. If you don't like blogs don't read them and move on. And yeah I am anonymous because you need to hear my points without putting a face to my name. You need to move on and stop trying to drag down the fun things in life.
Seriously
Amen.
If you are so inclined, you can always find *something* to make you feel bad about yourself. Blaming this narrow subset of bloggers is just lazy. The amazing thing about the internet is if something is bumming you out, you can always change the channel. Over and over again.
I love sewing and flowers and am a raging feminist, and I don't give a sh*t about how "perfect" the other blogs I read look. What does that have to do with my life? I like seeing women making cool, pretty things, cause that floats my boat. If it doesn't float yours, you have about a billion other options out there.
This sort of negative "cookie-shaming" does very little to help us as ladies.
screaming defensiveness, much?
i probably shouldn't even bother replying to this because a) you refer to all the readers and commentors here as "ladies" and b) that argument that if you don't like it, just change the channel is pretty much the essence of boring liberal feminism lite.
the tagline for Bitch media is a "feminist response to pop culture." that means not simply changing the channel, but taking the time to dig deeper, to ask questions, and to articulate those frustrations you have. i'm surprised that someone who identifies as a "raging feminist" is suggesting someone who raises questions like the ones posited here (i.e. how race and class fit in to who gets attention as a blogger or not, how reproducing new norms is disappointing and very unfeminist actually, etc.) is just "lazy."
if you're going to bother to take the 5 minutes to leave a comment like that on a blog/magazine whose EXPLICIT GOAL it is to respond to major trends/conversations in all sorts of mediums - whether it be on television screens or computer screens, i suppose perhaps you should take your own advice: if it doesn't float your boat, you have a billion other
uncritical circle-jerksoptions out there.and one more quick thing.
and one more quick thing. why is it okay for you to make fun of the sucessful bloggers with your drawing. aren't you afraid you might give the people who do live their lives growing chicken eggs and using kombucha candles a complex? It is completely fine to call out people here on your site for doing work they love but it is so bad of them to 'give women something impossible to live up to?' Your article just perpetuates negativity.
and to emily matchar: sorry that 'sewing kiddie halloween costumes and baking brownies' is so simple to you. perhaps we could all take a moment to judge you for a bit. I'm sure we would all find you to be a bit too pretentious for your britches. please just relax.
ANOTHER article on homemaker/mom blogs??
seriously, folks, it seems like EVERY issue of this magazine has a lengthy article on women lifestyle/home/mom blogs. (not even counting the ones on political or work blogs.)
each and every one of these has the same structure:
1. there are a lot of (L/H/M) blogs written by women
2. wow, the women who are making money from this are mostly white, middle class, straight, and able bodied
3. and hey, the blog content seems to be kind of antifeminist; it makes other women feel bad because they don't measure up to being (mainstream).
4. we like women blogging. we don't like oppressive mainstream women hogging up all the space, or the way the medium forces women to conform.
5. so, it would be great if (L/H/M) blogs were a better tool of feminism and more anti-oppression in general. we would love to see a more feminist, less oppressive world, so let's read some less oppressive blogs.
this is getting tedious! do we need the same article over and over again? this basically boils down "capitalism is oppressive and hurts women, and guess what, pop culture is usually suffused with capitalism" which is TOTALLY TRUE, but how does that help us build a new world, other than the wishful thinking of #5?
Not a lifestyle blog
I read/loved this article and posted about it on my new, non-lifestyle blog. When I started reading blogs a dozen years ago, they were non-niche life stories. Now it's hard to see the complete/complex lives of anyone online. Oh well, I'm trying to be a little antidote to all that. Thanks for writing on this awesome topic!
can you post links to the
can you post links to the other ones you've read? this is the first one of its kind i've come across myself, and i've been hunting for them for quite some time now.
Thank You
This was a well written article that made me think about why I read certain lifestyle blogs and what it says about us as women writers and readers. I don't think the author was trying to be negative at all. She was trying to be THOUGHT-PROVOKING, which is what I look for in good reading, and she definitely succeeded. Thank you for this.
I think blogs are a great way
I think blogs are a great way to communicate. I think it helps that people are judged solely by their ideas. We don't always realize it but we automatically judge people certain ways when we can see them. This can distract us from the true content of their message. Some people will refuse to even listen to a message, that they might even agree with, if it comes from a person that they have misjudged based on race, gender, and nationality. I think blogs are a great way for women to find and develop their own voice and to share it with like minded people.
Great read
What a great read. Amazing analysis of a phenomenon that has been on my mind/bothering me. Nice to see it put to words. This is why I love Bitch. <3
Great read
What a great read. Amazing analysis of a phenomenon that has been on my mind/bothering me. Nice to see it put to words. This is why I love Bitch. <3
Response from Joanna from Cup of Jo
Thanks so much for this article. I found it a compelling read.
The assumption that all bloggers are equal is surprisingly naive, however. Some may be privileged women who dabble in blogging as a hobby (which, of course, is fine), but many of us worked incredibly hard for years and years forging mainstream careers as well as juggling part-time jobs to earn our credentials and pay off student debt. We began by blogging on the side in the few hours available after our other jobs or on weekends, simply for the love of writing or the love for whatever it is we blog about. In the early days, it was an experiment. When our blogs became successful and acquired a readership, bloggers like me juggled our regular full-time office jobs with the increasing demands of blogging, and eventually we were able to turn blogging into our full-time career. We were modern women establishing an entrepreneurial niche.
Responsible journalists need to go beyond allegations and base their opinions on fact. If the writer had contacted me or other full-time professional lifestyle bloggers (my email is on my blog's homepage), she would have discovered that many of us work 50-60 hour weeks to produce our blogs, run the businesses behind them, and connect sincerely with our readership. Some of us address "imperfect" issues--for example, I recently wrote about my experience with postpartum depression, which was a difficult post to write. I know that for me, maintaining Cup of Jo is a full-time, demanding career. And my family is definitely a two-income family, and we count on both my husband's and my incomes.
So much goes on behind the scenes of a big blog (as with any big job) that people on the outside might never realize. People might be surprised to know that the *vast* majority of a full-time blogger's time is spent on the business side of things, behind a computer and/or on conference calls. For me, only about 25% of my time is spent on the editorial of the blog--which is the part, of course, that I really love and am passionate about. A lot of it--negotiations, contracts, lawyers, negative comments, feeling isolated when working alone--can be stressful and unpleasant, but is of course part of the job. Like other working moms, I miss spending time with my son during my full-time work days, but the career I have created allows me financial and creative independence, and, to me, that's worth it.
This article calls bloggers like me "privileged," and seems to assume we're secretly supported by our husbands. I'm surprised that a feminist magazine would belittle successful working women without doing research to discover any truths. Instead that these assumptions were just presented as fact. I know the writer must have had good intentions, but it's irresponsible and unprofessional reporting. It's frustrating to be called "privileged," when we are actually working incredibly hard to build successful blogs and businesses, support our families and children, and have financial independence. What could be more feminist than that?
I hope this helps with the overall understanding.
Thank you so much for reading, Joanna