Philobiblon

Where are all the female bloggers? Here, in my weekly “top ten” posts. I’m now approaching a collection of 300.

FFF seems to be multicultural in the broadest sense of the term this week.

First, to what I can proudly proclaim as a Femmes Fatales first, from OC Hairball a pictorial post from a women’s skateboarding competition. A bit further down the blog there’s also some great surfing pics, from a day when broken boards seem to have been just about the norm – must have been pretty hairy out there!

Then Dangereuse Trilingue, who lives up to at least the latter half of her name, is having daytime “nightmares” about an unusual subject. This post’s in English – if you’d like French she’s also writing about a meeting of bloggers. (A good way to find new bloggers in French, if you fancy.) And her design is an interesting variation on the usual string listing.

Finally, in terms of linguistic leaps, With All Due Respect is written by JCB, “an outspoken Puerto Rican, lesbian lawyer”. She blogs in Spanish and English (sorry you’ll have to explore the Spanish for yourself – some French and a bit of very rusty Thai are as far as my linguistic skills extend). She finds a mirror exposing her kaleidoscopic soul.

Meanwhile, Vicki on Just in From Cowtown, (and she’s got a lovely cowskin logo to match) wonders if some people are too smart to blog. Then, Mary Ann on Five Wells looks at the digital divide, within, not between, countries, reminding us that broadband is still nowhere in sight for many – including some trying, ever so patiently, to read our websites and blogs.

Turning political, Ancrene Wiseass offers a couple of suggestions for grassroots action. (If you need a hint about her name, she’s a medievalist, or on the way to being one.) On Blackfeminism, Tiffany writes about the Bill Bennett thing.

Noli Irritare Leones has a discussion of clerical sexual misconduct, which reminds me of a case that as a journalist I couldn’t report. It was brought to my attention several years after the magistrates’ court had thrown it out. (The magistrate played golf with the priest and race was also a factor.) The problem is court reports only have libel protection if they are “contemporaneous”, and I couldn’t work out how to make it work legally. Still one of my great regrets as a journalist.

Then, like many people, I try to buy and eat organic whenever possible, but you do have to wonder how much of it is fake, or at least not quite what you are paying for. Conflict Girl has the bad news on organic food.

If that’s left you a bit depressed, visit Candida Cruikshanks, “CEO of Wealth Bondage”, she’ll deliver a quick sharp shock to snap you out of it.

Turning personal, This Woman Writes has a heartfelt post about the issues arising from open adoption (which as I understand it means the birth mother stays in contact). Adoption is something that affects my family, and while I think open adoption is a great idea for the children, it obviously isn’t easy.

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If you were counting you’ll realise you got a “baker’s decade” of posts today (11), but since many of these bloggers linked to the first Carnival of Feminists, I wanted to give them all a run.

You might be wondering about the difference between the carnival and FFF. In the Friday collection I’m introducing new women bloggers – on any and every subject – each week, but the carnival is a twice-monthly collection of the best explicitly feminist posts from around the blogosphere. Also, each edition of the carnival will have a different host – you can find more about it here.

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You can find the last edition of Femmes Fatales here.

Nominations (including self-nominations) for Femmes Fatales (as for the carnival) are hugely welcome – I’ll probably get to you eventually anyway, but why not hurry along the process?