My First Blog

While procrastinating on work today I spent some time catching up on Feministing, one of my all time favorite Feminist blogs, and one which I have been reading for almost two years now, as I realized with a shock about a week or two ago. Feministing blogger Ann (a fellow DC resident - Hey-yeah!) had given props to another Feminist blog, Feminist Finance, which she recently discovered, and which I promptly read, enjoyed, and bookmarked under my blogs tab (where all good procrastinators go to die, or, at least, to find some interesting food for thought to power them through the long part of the afternoon).

While on the topic of Feminist Finance, the post I particularly enjoyed (on 'Marrying Debt') can be found here.

Finding a new blog I liked made me think a bit about my first one, and how I became interested in blogs altogether.

I know there's a healthy proportion of our population that don't do anything with (read, write, comment on, or discuss) blogs, but I think they have a lot of value. Although I was interested in blogging as an idea and a venue for writing (and for practicing writing), I probably wouldn't have ever become a blogger (albeit one who is thus far inconsistent, and as far as one can tell, unread!) or reader of blogs if it wasn't for the Washington Post and Bad Feminist.

Two years or so ago I read a Washington Post article on some vaguely feminist issue, and saw that the sidebar included a list of blogs that had recently commented on the piece. I don't think they have this functionality anymore (that, or I just haven't read the WaPo recently enough), because they probably realized they were driving some seriously valuable traffic away from their site. But the blog's name was "Bad Feminist," and the blogger was awesome.

Bad Feminist took some seriously, awesomely antiquated 1950's and earlier imagery and used it to spice up her blog posts, and posted about personal issues, in her own voice, in a direct and engaging way that inspired me. At a time when I felt a bit adrift in my own feminism, and relatively unsupported as an as-yet-unconnected (read: newly arrived) feminist in DC, Bad Feminist made me feel like I was not the only one wrestling with many of these ideas, or ascribed to the values that are to me what feminism is all about.

It is ironic, then, for me to recall that Bad Feminist was some level of Yale student, as I will soon be, and saddening that she eventually closed up shop, and stopped blogging. I keep her on my blogroll as a kind of tribute, and also for the other blogs she exposed me to.

From the Bad Feminist blogroll I eventually branched out to discover Feministing, F-Words, Broadsheet (for which I have some serious love and respect), Bitch Ph.D., Pandagon, Feministe, and many others, and started to develop an interest in blogging, myself.

That I would continue to discover new blogs by moving from these more well-established bases, and that this process would continue to unfold, has been exciting, as I love the moment when I read a new blog and something clicks. I know not all blogs will hit home with me (of the ones listed above, Feministing, F-Words, and Broadsheet have been nearly daily sources of information and inspiration for me), just as I know not everyone will like my writing, or my little blog project. Some people might think writing about personal experiences, and in the first person, is boring. But I like personal experiences, and I enjoy learning that my own experiences are common to others - it's reassuring, surprising, exciting, and validating.

I just hope that at least a few people will find my blog worth a read, once in awhile, and that I will continue to develop my voice, much as I have watched these other ladies develop theirs.