Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

blogging solo: new media, ‘old’ politics

  • Article
  • Published:
Feminist Review

Abstract

This article focuses on the blogosphere as an oppositional field where the meanings around contemporary Western women's singlehood are contested, negotiated and rewritten. In contrast to dominant narratives in which single women are pathologised, in the blogs by, for, and about single women analysed here, writers aim to refigure women's singleness as well as providing resources, support and a textual community where others can intervene and contribute to the re-valuation of single women. These blogs also function as alternative forms of knowledge, seeking to (re)legitimise women's singleness and to trouble their aberrance and social liminality. Rather than only considering the form in isolation from its content, this article analyses the discourses deployed by bloggers and within blogs and how women bloggers publicly perform their very singleness as part of a personal and political strategy of re-signification. In this way, while cautious not to overestimate the democratic potentialities of the so-called blogosphere, it underscores the important cultural – and indeed political – work being undertaken by single women therein. Moreover, by demonstrating how these blogs use discursive tactics commonly associated with feminism's second-wave – women's consciousness-raising; identity politics; deploying and reiterating the famous feminist dictum: ‘the personal is political’; naming discrimination; and empathy and community-building – it argues that they are using so-called ‘new’ media for what is now problematically believed to be ‘old’ (feminist) politics.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. My use of this term is consistent with McRobbie's (2009), that is, post-feminism both takes account of feminism – presuming its work has been done – and performs its disavowal.

  2. However, this use of the term ‘ordinary’ is not entirely unproblematic. Such celebrations of the ‘ordinary’ person's ability to make media, or to become its object as a celebrity, have been critiqued by Graeme Turner in his work on the so-called ‘demotic turn’ (2006, 2010).

  3. http://www.singlutionary.blogspot.com/, last accessed 28 March 2011

  4. First Person Singular's Wendy Braitman, http://firstpersonsingular.org/, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  5. Living Single's Bella DePaulo, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  6. For further analysis of how single women are positioned and pathologised in mainstream media culture, see Taylor (2011, forthcoming), Single Women in Popular Culture, (Palgrave Macmillan). This article is based on Chapter Six of that work; I am grateful to Palgrave Macmillan for their permission to use this material.

  7. Onely, http://www.onely.org/; Single Women Rule, http://www.singlewomenrule.com/; Quirkyalone, http://www.quirkyalone.net/, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  8. See Ringrose & Walkerdine's (2008) work on how the borders of certain subject positions are policed under neoliberalism, making some appear more ‘inhabitable’ than others.

  9. http://onely.org/2009/10/07/another-reason-institutionalized-couplehood-sucks/, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  10. 30 July 2009, http://onely.org/2009/07/30/reality-tv-idea-1-i-complete-me/, last accessed 28 March 2011

  11. 8 September 2009, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/200909/singles-tv-what-s-the-story, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  12. 29 September 2008, http://onely.org/2008/09/29/get-out-the-onely-vote, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  13. ‘Singles, Go Vote!’, 5 February 2008, http://singletude.blogspot.com/2008/02/singles-go-vote.html; accessed 31st March 2011 see also Sololady's ‘Single Women Must Vote!!’, 4 January 2008, http://www.sololady.com/blogs.aspx?blogid=187, last accessed 31 March 2011.

  14. 19 and 28 March 2008, http://singletude.blogspot.com/2008/03/tax-tips-for-single-filers-part-i.html, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  15. 18 March 2008, http://singletude.blogspot.com/2008/03/singles-penalty-tax-code-discrimination.html, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  16. e.g., ‘The High Price of Being Single’, 5 October 2009, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/200910/the-high-price-being-single, last accessed 31 March 2011.

  17. Original emphasis, 21 September 2008, http://www.rabe.org/overcoming-singlism/, last accessed 30 March 2011.

  18. See Reynolds for a consideration of women's singleness and identity politics (2008: 153).

  19. 31 March 2009, http://www.singlewomenrule.com/2009/03/sisters-in-the-struggle-single-women-blog-up/, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  20. http://onely.org/2009/09/18/better-than-a-pub-crawl-national-singles-week-blog-crawl/, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  21. http://www.singlewomenrule.com/about/.

  22. 31 March 2009, http://www.singlewomenrule.com/2009/03/sisters-in-the-struggle-single-women-blog-up/, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  23. 30 July 2009, Onely, http://onely.org/2009/07/27/more-on-marriage/, last accessed 28 March 2011.

  24. http://www.rabe.org/about/my-story/, last accessed 30 March 2011.)

  25. Onely, 11 October 2009, http://onely.org/the-practice-of-being-onely/, last accessed 28 March 2011.

References

  • Budgeon, S. (2006) ‘Friendship and formations of sociality in late modernity: the challenge of “post traditional intimacy”’ Sociological Research Online, Vol. 11, No. 3.

  • Budgeon, S. (2008) ‘Couple culture and the production of singleness’ Sexualities, Vol. 11, No. 3: 301–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruns, A. (2006) ‘Introduction’ in Bruns, A. and Jacobs, J. (2006) editors, The Uses of Blogs, New York: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, K. (2006) ‘A welcome for blogs’ Continuum, Vol. 20, No. 2: 161–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, S. (2005) ‘Blogs and the politics of listening’ Political Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 2: 273–280.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cullen, R. (2001) ‘Addressing the digital divide’ Online Information Review, Vol. 25, No. 5: 311–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Paulo, B. (2006) Singled Out: How Singles are Stereotyped, Stigmatised, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, New York: St Martin's Griffin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, S. (2010) Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism's Work is Done, New York: Times Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fitzpatrick, K. (2007) ‘The pleasure of the blog: the early novel, the serial and the narrative archive’ in Burg, T. and Smidt, J. (2007) editors, Blog Talks Reloaded, Norderstedt: Books on Demand: http://www.plannedobsolescence.net/wp-content/files/fitzpatrickblogtalk.pdf, last accessed 15 July 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1991) Modernity and Self Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gokulsing, K.M. and Dissanayake, W. (2009) Popular Culture in a Globalised India, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grant, L. (1993) Fundamental Feminism, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurak, L.J. and Antonijevic, S. (2008) ‘The psychology of blogging: you, me, and everyone in between’ American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 52, No. 1: 60–68.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henry, A. (2004) Not My Mother's Sister: Generational Conflict and Third Wave Feminism, Boston: University of Indiana Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hermes, J. (1995) Reading Women's Magazines, Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herring, S.C., Kouper, I., Scheidt, L.A. and Wright, E.L. (2004) ‘Women and children last: the discursive construction of weblogs’ in Gurak, L.J., Antonijevic, S., Johnson, L., Ratliff, C. and Reyman, J. (2004) editors, Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs. http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/women_and_children.html.

  • Hindman, M. (2009) The Myth of Digital Democracy, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hodkinson, P. (2007) ‘Interactive online journals and individualization’ New Media and Society, Vol. 9, No. 4: 625–650.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hogeland, L. (1998) Feminism and Its Fiction: The Consciousness Raising Novel and the Women's Liberation Movement, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Karlsson, L. (2006) ‘Acts of reading diary weblogs’ HUMAN IT, Vol. 8, No. 2: 1–59.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karlsson, L. (2007) ‘Desperately seeking sameness’ Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2: 137–153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lopez, L.K. (2009) ‘The radical act of “mommy blogging”: redefining motherhood through the blogosphere’ New Media and Society, Vol. 11: 729–747.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Loewenstein, A. (2008) The Blogging Revolution, Carlton: Melbourne University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, P.D. (1997) Celebrity and Power, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeil, L. (2003) ‘Teaching an old genre new tricks: the diary on the internet’ Biography, Vol. 26, No. 1: 24–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McRobbie, A. (2009) The Aftermath of Feminism, London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Meehan, J. editor (1995) Feminists Read Habermas: Gendering the Subject of Discourse, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, L. (2003) The Rhetorics of Feminism, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Plummer, K. (1995) Telling Sexual Stories, London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Perlmutter, D. (2008) Blogwars: The New Political Battleground, New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, J. (2008) The Single Woman: A Discursive Analysis, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reynolds, J. and Wetherell, M. (2003) ‘The discursive climate of singleness: the consequences for women's negotiation of a single identity’ Feminism and Psychology, Vol. 13, No. 4: 498–510.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ringrose, J. and Walkerdine, V. (2008) ‘Regulating the abject: The TV Make-Over as Site of Neoliberal Reinvention Towards Bourgeois Femininity’ Feminist Media Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3: 227–246.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Serfaty, V. (2004a) ‘From self-explanation to self-justification: online diaries and blogs in America’ Recherches Anglaises et Nord-Américaines (RANAM), Université Marc Bloch, Vol. 37, No. Octobre: 247–256.

    Google Scholar 

  • Serfaty, V. (2004b) ‘Online diaries: towards a structural approach’ Journal of American Studies, Vol. 38: 457–471.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Serfaty, V. (2004c) The Mirror and the Veil: An Overview of Online Diaries and Blogs, Amsterdam: Rodophi.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, S. and Watson, J. (1996) Getting a Life: Everyday Uses of Autobiography, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sorapure, M. (2003) ‘Screening moments, scrolling lives: diary writing on the web’ Biography, Vol. 26, No. 1: 1–23.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, A. (2011, forthcoming) Single Women in Popular Culture: The Limits of Postfeminism, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Travers, A. (2003) ‘Parallel subaltern counterpublics in cyberspace’ Sociological Perspectives, Vol. 46, No. 2: 223–237.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tremayne, M. editor (2007) Blogging, Citizenship, and the Future of Media, New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, G. (2006) ‘The mass production of celebrity: “celetoids”, reality TV and the “demotic turn”’ International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2: 153–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turner, G. (2010) Ordinary People and the Media: The Demotic Turn, London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Dijck, J. (2004) ‘Composing the self: of diaries and lifeblogs’, The Fibreculture Journal, Issue 3.

  • Wei, L. (2009) ‘Filter blogs vs. personal journals: understanding the knowledge production gap on the internet’ Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Vol. 14: 532–558.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Willis, S. and Tranter, B. (2006) ‘Beyond the “digital divide”: internet diffusion and inequality in Australia’ Journal of Sociology, Vol. 42, No. 1: 43–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wood, E.A. (2008) ‘Consciousness-raising 2.0: sex blogging and the creation of a feminist sex commons’ Feminism and Psychology, Vol. 18, No. 4: 480–487.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, S. (1997) Changing the Wor(l)d: Discourse, Politics and the Feminist Movement, London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Youngs, G. (2009) ‘Blogging and globalization: the blurring of the public/private spheres’ Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives, Vol. 61, No. 2: 127–138.

    Article  Google Scholar 

blog addresses

Download references

Authors
  1. Anthea Taylor
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Taylor, A. blogging solo: new media, ‘old’ politics. Fem Rev 99, 79–97 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2011.33

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fr.2011.33

Keywords

Search

Navigation