:: netwoman's blog ::

One of my daily reads Kairosnews recently posted an entry about Thoughts on Language in the Blogosphere. Dennis Jerz mentions 'link sluts' and 'link whore', I have also seen 'media whore' floating around.

These terms really bother me, yet they are thrown carelessly around the blogosphere daily. See Knitwitology, Ben Hyde, kadyellebee, Angela - and then there's RANTISSIMO, and here too to name a few.

Samisdata gives this definition:

Link whore
noun. A blogger (qv) who will go to any lengths to get other bloggers to link to them (the term is usually intended to be humourous). Also: Link slut. Both terms are in fact non-gender specific.

Whoring (for hits)
intr.verb. Posting things on a blog purely to generate an increase in visitors. The term is often intended humourously, but not always.

I don't find this humourous. Can someone tell me how this is not gender specific? Why does it make my skin crawl? Why does it make my gender inequality-spider-sense tingle? How about link giggolo? Not the same eh? That is because this tech discourse is gendered and loaded with power relations.

In my opinion, the blogging discourse is problematic and leaves much to be desired. Dale Spender (1995) states that because the Internet was designed within a masculine framework, an Internet 'discourse', much like the scientific/technological ones, was created to protect and perpetuate these elite interests. The language of the Internet is discouraging for women. Dale Spender and Helen Fallon (1998) also assert that terminology such as 'abort', 'chaining', 'thrashing', 'execute', 'head crash', and 'kill' portray negative images of sex and violence to women, creating an uncomfortable and unfamiliar terrain. The Internet is a powerful mechanism that reinforces gendered stereotypes. Using words that are specific to women (derogatory or otherwise) reflects sexism.

Blogging gender free? Not with language like this.

Food (Foucault) for thought:

"Power must be analyzed as something that circulates, or rather as something which only functions in the form of a chain... Power is employed and exercised through a net-like organization. And not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in a position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power...In other words, individuals are the vehicles of power, not its points of application" (Foucault,1980:98)

posted by Netwoman @ 7:43 PM