I used to be concerned that my blog posts did not receive many comments from men. A high percentage of the responses on the blog’s Facebook page come from women. I’ve written about this before. I suppose my underlying concern was that, for some reason, men didn’t take my blog seriously. It was’t worth the trouble of engaging.
Why this would bother me is probably something I should give some thought to at some future date.
While I am grateful for all the people who read the blog and interact in the comments, it seemed odd to me that it was somehow viewed as a “women’s blog”. My topics are not stereotypically “women’s topics.”
Yesterday was, perhaps, a reminder of why I should be happy with what I’ve got.
I had several visits from angry white men who were there to set me straight. One was aggressive and accusatory and went after other commenters. One took the approach that my comments section was a place for him to post multiple arguments, links, etc, to prove me wrong. I began to wonder if my page should have a “post no bills” warning.
This was less like commenting and more like spam.
The thing that never fails to amaze me is that it’s only the angry white guys who come to my blog and admonish, “You can’t say that!” Of course I can say that. It’s *my* blog. By the end of the day I was actually searching the Internet for some kind of a meme that articulated the sentiment:
Do I look like a woman who was just waiting for a man to tell her what to think?
There isn’t one. Yet.
I have banned only three people from the page since I put the comments on Facebook. All are angry, agressive white men. Part of the reason I moved comments from the blog to Facebook so that folks like this could no longer troll in anonymity. It has helped quite a bit.
There is no requirement that readers agree with what I write. I’ve had many fascinating conversations in the comments that began with disagreements. I do object to boundary-violating behavior, though. Some people are amazed that I enforce that.
So far, they have all been men.
Tomorrow I may write about cupcakes. Get your good arguments ready.
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