Sexism is so universally internationalized that it prompted you to write, “Getting angry about the story being placed in the Style section instead of the Business section is almost like being sexist against yourself.”

Oy!

Ponder that for a second…you’re saying (implying, and I am inferring) that women belong on style and fashion, regardless, because it’s the women’s section.

At least five levels of wrong occur to me in the first three seconds of thought.

I also have to echo Backpacking Dad 100%.

Anonymous (above) sort of makes the point that Lara David did: it’s not so much abotu WQUALITY as it is about EQUITY.

But more than that, it’s about niching properly.

A conference about cosmetics can go on Fashion. A conference about interior design can go on Style. A conference about the psychological implications of properly arranged and designed interior space for people recovering from PTSD can go in about three places, including Style.

But BlogHer, a conference that contained panels about the business of blogging, the technology we use, politics, and writing…belongs on Technology.

It ran on Fashion & Style because the writer is used to that niche–and so, unfortunately, an otherwise well-written piece launched with a negative caricature and stereotype of something that was really a drop in the bucket at the conference (massages, makeup and made over bathrooms)—and it was about women, which, sadly, to too many minds, meant it went in the section formerly known as the Ladies’ Section: Fashion and Style.

On the other hand, most of the women bloggers I read do blog about the subjects of personal life, fashion, weight-loss, etc. If we’re talking about the professional business world, neither men nor women generally consider personal life topics in the same arena as things such as medicine and politics.

As a feminist, I came to the conclusion that part of the problem is that feminists are asking for women to be judged as highly as the men with the same criteria as the men’s world but they want to do women things. No, if women want to write about personal life, we need our own scale that is for valuating personal life topics.

Now if most women bloggers sites were more like SimplyRecipes at elise.com, a blog on cooking and not personal chat, that would fit in the standards of the business world. If women prefer the personal life topics over that, then what is wrong with being in a different category?

If you read the Business section, yes, most of the articles are about big corporations and global economics. I dunno but asking to be in the business section might even make it seem like women don’t have a clue what business is about. I have not seen an article on individual male blogging in the Business section.

http://poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=147887

- Amy Gahran

People start by reading the posts but all too often certain niches are completely discounted, regardless of the quality of writing, simply because of subject. If you’re a woman, you write and have kids, then you’re pejoratively tagged as a “mommyblogger.” If you’re a single woman sans kids you’re tagged as a SATC knockoff. The stereotypes and feeble attempts at classifying women’s writing are so numerous and ridiculous I can’t keep track of them all anymore.

That is garbage. There is an incredibly low barrier to entry to blogging. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. There are a hundred different free blogging platforms.

None of that involves gender. Great content that engages and attracts readers is not contingent upon gender. When people find a blog they start by reading the posts. They rarely begin by trying to determine the sex of the author.

I don’t like the placement of this article. I feel it makes an assumption about female bloggers, and many of us take on culture, current events, politics, race and gender along with shoes, lipstick and diapers. However, placement at all in a major newspaper is a win, and an opening for an article on the front page if things follow their current trajectory. This writing is changing how we relate to one another. This writing matters.

So you’re saying it’s all in the packaging, regardless of how many serious issues they actually cover? I’m intrigued because I’m not a female, not a New Yorker or an avid reader of the Style section, but I am a blogger and my knee-jerk was definitely pretty skewed toward the “this is bullshit” end of the spectrum.

Maybe this is another facet of the problem, but it sounds like the writer already had a relationship with Mr. Gabriel. As a writer, you’ll get your pieces published where you can, so if it was the choice between Style section or zero visibility in the NY Times at all for the piece, it would be tough for the writer to suddenly find morals there.

I get your point, though. Someone went wrong at the Times. Just tough to pin the blame on any one person, imo.