I personally was a bit disappointed when I looked at the top 20 feminist blogs on Feedspot. While some of them were good, I found that many of them were very surface level, and kind of supported the sort of corporate, mainstream, milquetoast feminism we encounter in mainstream media. Despite not identifying as a feminist myself (I don’t identify for a number of reasons) I have a respect for conviction and the more academic aspects of feminism. I love reading theory, studies, different points of view, etc as long as it feels like the person put serious effort and thought into it. I didn’t feel like that was the case for a lot of these blogs.
The Ms. Magazine blog was particularly interesting. I’ve known about Ms. Magazine for years, as it is seen as of great historical importance and it launched the careers of numerous feminists. Perhaps Gloria Steinem. While preparing for this post I re-read the wikipedia entry on Ms. Magazine just as a primer and in the second paragraph of wiki entry it says the following ” it enjoyed great popularity but was not always able to reconcile its ideological concerns with commercial considerations”, this seems pretty accurate to me. While I am sure Ms. has done many good stories in its time and was a trailblazer, the blog is in my opinion brain dead.
The majority of the posts in this blog seem to be a “Today in feminist history” story. I don’t mind these personally, as I’m a bit of a trivia nut, and I’m happy to read about Shirley Chrisholms 1972 presidential run for the 300th time (I do not mean this sarcastically), but after a while it would be nice to sink my teeth into something a little meatier. the Ms. blog rarely delves into an issue that could be controversial to its readers and mostly seems to write about mainstream Democrat stances and anti-trump statement. Now I am not saying that either of those are wrong just that they get a bit tiring.
What I do like about the blog is that it does cover both modern events like the 2020 American presidential election and also brings up history (like the series of posts I mentioned above) and this is definitely something I would like to incorporate into my blog, as one I am interested in both and two, I think in order to really be informed you need to have a good knowledge of history and what is happening currently. I just wanna do it in a more in depth way than the Ms. Magazine blog does it.
Now about myself, my name is Nick and I am a student at UMASS Dartmouth as a history major, I work at a public school as a ASD (autism spectrum disorder) paraprofessional. History and politics are two hobbies of mine. I annoy all of those around me by constantly arguing, info dumping, or watching anything related to politics. I hold libertarian views and believe in small government. I live in New Bedford Massachusetts.
For those who don’t know, New Bedford is a small city on the water. One of New Bedfords main industries is fishing, especially Lobster which is popular in the area. New Bedford is actually the most popular fishing port in the country, This means that damage to our waters would hit New Bedford particularly harshly. There can’t be a fishing industry without fish and right now fish are struggling. Throughout the 20th century New Bedford factories dumped toxic chemicals into the harbor, which in addition to potentially causing cancer in humans also caused the death of harbor wildlife. While dumping in the harbor has obviously stopped today, the dumped chemicals still reside at the bottom of the harbor and resident are forbidden from catching and eating fish from certain areas of the harbor. Clean up has been discussed but the city and state government has done little to actually clean up the harbor and make it safer. I’m a fishkeeper myself and have 6 aquariums (totalling about 70 gallons of water and over 100 individuals fish, snails, and shrimp). This coupled with being a New Bedford resident has made me become very passionate about clean oceans, protection of endangered fish, and clean water in general.
To any of my readers, I hope this post didn’t feel like a waste of time for you, and while a lot of the subject matter above probably came off as pretentious, I assure I do my best to be approachable, modest, and considerate. I don’t like hurting feelings, I don’t like cruelty, and I don’t like arguing for the sake of arguing, what I do like is leaving my echo chamber and communicating with people different from me.
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Hi Nick, reading your post about your thoughts on the feminist blogs was very interesting and definitely gave me something to think about. I didn’t consider this type of standpoint, as I read through some of these blogs while choosing my own I felt like most of the posts aligned with what I expected to see. I do see where you are coming from with your point that some blogs contain more surface level content as you stated. I even looked back as some of the most recent posts from the blog I chose, Everyday Feminist, and recognized what you might have meant by certain blogs catering to specific demographics of feminists.
I also wrote about impacts of water pollution, but it is different from your perspective due to living in such a popular fishing port for the country. Your passion for clean water is evident and it is very unfortunate that little efforts have been made to further clean what is left of the chemicals in the harbor that are clearly creating lasting impacts.
On one final note, I also work with students on the autism spectrum, as well as other learning differences at a secondary education facility in New York called Transitions. It was very cool to read that little bit about your profession! I look forward to reading your future discussion contributions in this class.
Hey!
First, I also wrote about Ms. and the New Bedford Harbor.
After reading your post, I went back to Ms. and can see how some of the articles could be more substancial. Personally, I think the Political posts are overplayed.
However, there are other posts about motherhood and birthing, abortion, etc…that are informative and substancial. I think those outweigh the rest and for that reason I think Ms. is great.
Regarding the New Bedford Harbor- I agree they should be doing more to clean up the water. In a recent post in SouthCoast today, they said the water is a lot cleaner now than it was 20 years ago but I think it’ll take a long time to stop seeing the effects of the pollution, possibly never. In the summer, a company set up a floating water park near East Beach (at the end of the harbor) and I think swimming should not be allowed in that area either.