Friday, November 09, 2007

Women Too Ignorant To Blog - The Times

Just when we thought we'd seen the back of the whole 'women are too stupid/too busy cooking to blog' thing, LC has just sent me this article about this week's Society of Editors conference.

Apparently Anne Spackman*, the head of Times Online, thinks that online journalism (and that includes blogging) will be the preserve of men in future, because women lack the technological skills to, er, write stuff on the internet.

And I thought *I* was the one betraying the sisterhood!


* Insert your own joke.

18 comments:

ScroobiousScrivener said...

Oh it's not the skills, it's the *interest*. I mean, people who like tech, people who like writing about it, that's blokes like you, right?

Hang on...

patroclus said...

Having investigated a bit further, it appears that Ms Spackman thinks that people who are interested in new media formats (blogs, podcasts, online video etc.) are geeks who are more interested in the technology of the medium than they are in their subject matter.

In other words, people who like blogging like it because they like technology, not because they're interested in people, life or the issues of the day.

What utter rot.

QE said...

I blog because I like the technology of the medium.

That's why I don't often get around to posting anything.

LC said...

Wow, you got that up on your blog pretty quickly. Did James help you?

Sylvia said...

Oh good grief, someone has written a women can't cook article in this month's Waitrose magazine.

I have made my feelings known.......

Are my girls growing up in a world where people are still spouting this shite?

I see I've got some work to do.

patroclus said...

Oh, so we can't cook either? Is there anything we *can* do?

Whinge, I suppose. And give blow jobs. Probably at the same time - we're good at multitasking.

Arabella said...

Someone needs to print off a load of "Silly Cow" T shirts.

Annie said...

Jemima Kiss is a splendid name, however.

rach said...

Right, back to the kitchen sink...oh, I forget, are we any good at washing up?

patroclus said...

I don't know, Rach - Sylvia, what does it say in Waitrose magazine about our washing-up skills?

Sylvia said...

No mention of those, I'm afraid. Perhaps they're saving that up for next month.
I wonder if they'll print my rather vitrolic email which will put me in line to win a designer wooden spoon?

Sylvia said...

Thanks to netmums, here's an extract of the article:

Although I was a stranger to the kitchen, I soon found that preparing exciting, top-quality dishes was neither particularly time-consuming nor difficult, and within a few months I found my abilities easily surpassed those of every woman I know, even the ones who thought they were good cooks."

"As well as being incapable of experimenting, women are useless at following written instructions. Blinded by numbers and symbols, they add the wrong amount of sugar or salt - or substitute one for the other."

He also says that women don't actually like food and consider it to be just fuel, and that men are more greedy.

Ooh, so nothing about women and emotional eating, then?

Of course, this twunt has a book to sell, but my gripe is with Waitrose actually thinking that their mainly female readership actually wants to read this stuff. What an insult.

If you want to read this, it's the waitrose magazine with the toffee apple on the front cover. it's free to waitrose or J-Lo card holders

patroclus said...

Charming. What did your email say?

(I just went to your blog to see if you'd pasted your email up there for all to see, but got immediately sidetracked by the GW convention video, which I hadn't seen before!)

Anonymous said...

lemme at her, just lemme at her!
(er - will someone hold my specs?)

cello said...

Surely you don't expect us to take any notice of what some *woman* from the Times has written?

Sylvia said...

You had a look at my blog! I'm thrilled! You can look again now and my email to Waitrose is there in all its glory.

Ah yes, the GW convention. I think it'll soon have the iconic status of Woodstock.....

Billy said...

About the only thing I can do on a computer is blog. I remember trying to learn C++ once. I didn't get it.

Am I a traitor to the brotherhood? (I wish that term was used more often)

Spinsterella said...

For fuck's sake.

Which reminds me - whatever happened to that article that Mary Dejevsky was going to write about female bloggers to correct that load of auld bollocks she came out with while ago?