a haraway moment

today i suddenly thought (while i was reading this blog), how do we know what someone’s gender is when we read their blog? i’ve sort of been thinking, off to the side of my brain there, where i don’t notice it, ‘wonder if this person’s a girl or a boy’ when i read a new blog.

and then i thought, ‘oh, i must be easy to pick’. what with that big picture of myself up there at the top. you’d be surprised how many of my readers (my readers – fahahfhfha)have said ‘hey, where did you get a picture that looks like yourself from?’ or ‘hey, that picture really looks like you!’. maybe i’m a more convincing artist than i’d thought?

does gender change the way i read a blog? i’m noticing that most of the ones that i’m getting from this site and sticking in my favourites (- blogs and friends’ sites – blogs to read) are by blokes over 35 with at-home jobs.

i was looking for some ‘feminist’ blogs, or at least blogs by women who weren’t writing cutesy stories about their goddamn motherfukking cats (sorry, but really – CATS?! what the goddamn fukk?!! how can i be expected to bear this bullshit…?). i’m liking reading the identity blogs, but i’m not afro-american, so i’m looking for some other sorts of resonances… oh, i should add that most of my most-read blogs are by gay men, or hetero men with kids.

what a tangled mess

i’ve just been reading some things about identity blogs. i went from here to here and then looked around, before getting stuck here, where i found a reference to an article i’d read for the thesis just recently.
things are just getting too tangled. i’ve been working with henry jenkins’ book ‘textual poachers’ at the moment, for my thesis which is on communications practices in swing dancing communities, particularly in reference to f2f and online activity. then i find like a million references to his column ‘digital renaissance’ in MIT’s journal technology review. i have a friend who’s a hardcore swinger/blues man, and he’s an MIT alumni. i discovered jenkins was at MIT after sol and i discussed the sorts of things MIT offered. one step back, and i went to see a paper by a guy called tommy defranz, on afro-american vernacular dance and media/film, which totally inspired me. he’s at MIT, a prof in dance. i was telling sol about tommy’s paper, and sol then notes that a friend of his was working on afro-american vernacular dance – lindy in particular.
so, now all i need is for henry jenkins to make a comment about lindy/swing on my blog, and the whole thing’ll be so tangled i have to give up blogging, dancing and my phd out of sheer frustration.

technical…

i’m still working on that left margin, kids, so hang in there. i know some people have said they feel they might be missing out on the very important stuff on that far left side of the front page, but really, you’re not.
i’m still learning – when i figure out how to change that margin, i’ll do it.
but right now i’m proud of the font on the blog entries – 150% rather than 200%, so there aren’t so many horrid spaces everywhere. i like clutter. :)