BlogWho?

If you read blogs regularly, you've probably noticed ads running vertically down the side of some with the heading "BlogHer Ad Network". BlogHer is a community networking site for women bloggers whose mission "is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment."

Or, as the cynic in me reads that as: "pursue fame whoredom, learn the dirt on celebrities, surround yourself with other fame whores, and earn minuscule amounts of money for slapping huge ads down both sides of your blog."

I never signed up with BlogHer because they really have nothing to offer me, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual. The content of this blog can't be crammed into one of their twenty categories (one of which is "Astrology and Horoscopes"). This is also an Ad-Free Blog, which is more important to me than any potential exposure I might get from signing up with BlogHer.

Besides providing a meta-blog of blogs, and selling advertising space on BlogHer blogs deemed worthy (i.e., enough hits), since 2006 BlogHer has held an annual conference for women bloggers (and a few select feminist-identified men). This year's event will be held in San Francisco in the summer, and the preliminary schedule is now posted. The BlogHer Conference (henceforth abbreviated as BHC) seems to be focused on the professional, money-making aspects of blogging - getting traffic to your site, advertising, and spinning blogs off into books.

There are five program "tracks" for the BHC: #1 - Who we are, #2 - What we do, #3 - What we believe, #4 - Technical Topics and Tools, and a genre track... #5...wait for it... "MommyBlogging".

"MommyBlogging." All one word, with a capital M and a capital B.

Why does there need to be an entire conference "track" dedicated to this blog genre? Why? And why do they have to slap a cutesy-poo label on it?

Right now there are some readers who may be thinking, "Oh, of course she wouldn't understand a MommyBlogging track, because she's BITTER and BARREN and HATES children."

Well, yes, that's partially true. I'm often bitter, am hopefully barren by this point, and sometimes hate children. However, it's more often that I hate the ignorant parents who are SUPPOSED to be raising the children, but are too concerned about either (a) keeping up their hipster lifestyle, (b) trying to be a MILF, (c) being friends with their kids instead of being parents. A nine month old baby by itself isn't irritating, it's the mommy with the $900 stroller who cuts the line at the coffee house because she has a child with her and therefore deserves special treatment that is the irritating factor. I actually have met some very well-behaved, smart, decent small people, with the commonality between all of them is that they are being raised by actual parents who have the word "no" in their vocabulary. (Sorry, I digress.)

By featuring only a specific MommyBlogging track at the BHC, aren't you reducing women to baby-making machines, and marginalizing all the other female bloggers who aren't MommyBloggers, but still may have children? Having a MommyBlogger track at the BHC also devalues the work of fathers in raising children, and completely ignores the men who write parenting blogs, which I refuse to call "DaddyBlogs".

Why was MommyBlogging chosen as the "genre" track, when there are many other topics that could have fit the slot: cancer blogging, feminist activist blogging, international women's blogging (the entire BHC has a very U.S., first world focus), handmade and creative blogging, women in tech blogging. Why was something that has such a sharp divide chosen? Why is there an entire track on MommyBlogging, but only one session each on "Childless in the Blogosphere" and "Race and Gender", and no obvious sessions specifically for lesbian or transgendered bloggers?

What, if anything, do MommyBloggers bring to the blog milieu? Instead of writing what I call the pointless "I took a shit today blogs", they're writing "My kid took a shit today blogs". Nobody really cares if little Dillinger or Heatherly was weened today and how happy your boobs are about that. However, I will say that MommyBlogs may be helpful for parents with children who have special health concerns, both to help them find information and other people who are in their situation. (Similar to how gay and lesbian teenagers have found a lifeline through the internet .) In addition, there are people who do use blogging tools to keep distant family and friends up-to-date on their kids; however, these people are using the blog as a communication tool, and really don't expect them to have an audience beyond that.

How many of these MommyBloggers are just desperately trying to become the next Heather Armstrong (aka "Dooce") to cash in on their blogs? It's been reported that Dooce.com (which is part of Federated Media Publishing and ad-driven) receives 4 million hits a month. While I do find the pictures of her dogs amusing, her writing does not appeal to me. At all. She's famous mainly because she was fired from a job for blogging about it, getting extremely depressed after giving birth and having to be hospitalized, and talks about poop and sex a lot (although not together, thankfully). I consider myself to be a well-read person - books, essays, magazines, blogs, anything with words on it - and Dooce.com is just not funny. I can easily name at least five other female bloggers whose work far surpasses that of Heather Armstrong. But they toil away in obscurity while she gets book deals (and a possible movie deal). It's not a huge surprise that she will be the keynote speaker for the BHC (and, as the posting indicates, celebrating her birthday as well).

(But then, what do I know? I'm bitter and barren and hate children so I can't relate to Dooce.)

Finally, how many MommyBloggers are able to attend the BHC anyway? It's certainly not a cheap conference - ranging from $348 for a full pass, $149 for a one-day, and $50 for cocktail parties only - and San Francisco is neither a cheap place to reach nor stay (the special hotel rate is $200 a night).* With those prices, only MommyBloggers who have the money, time off from work, or childcare arrangements (there is nothing on the BHC site about childcare being provided) can really comfortably attend.

It's probably not a grand extrapolation to say that there will be few single MommyBloggers, few poor MommyBloggers, and few non-white MommyBloggers in attendance.

With those prices, there will probably be few poor, cash-strapped, or non-white female bloggers in attendance at all, mommies or not.

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* If you're looking for a more all-encompassing media conference that includes all types of media, from radio to print to blogs to video and beyond, try the annual Allied Media Conference held in Detroit, MI. It's cheap to register ($100 suggested, but $60 will do), has cheap dorm rooms for let at Wayne State University, and bowling!