Jenny of Fashion for Writers has a thoughtful post up on the recent Independent Fashion Bloggers conference, and it’s well worth a read. The part that I want to talk about is this:
Are fashion bloggers contributing and encouraging the normalization of heteronormative, pre-second wave feminism, socially conservative relationships between men and women? I think EVERY single successful personal style blog has 1) a two-person team consisting of a female personal style blogger and her steady, long-term boyfriend or husband, who was already a photographer or willingly became one over the course of time 2) who is also willing to bring the camera everywhere in order to help capture and stage photos for said personal style blogger who performs some aspect of her personal style over the course of hundreds of photos so that the final product looks totally effortless, spontaneous, and gives reader the illusion that they are actually peering in this style blogger’s life even though we are only seeing a planned and performed aspect of this blogger’s public life which masquerades as private life, which then entices and tillitates readership who are increasingly voracious to experience more of this blogger’s authentic private life.
I think she’s definitely on to something, but I think this is limited to a specific subsection of fashion blogging. I’m not interested in other people’s image machines, and so the blogs I read tend to be small and more personal than the “successful” blogs she’s talking about. I don’t think it’s hard to pick out bloggers who are primarily interested in selling an image of a perfect private life — there’s often little context, little depth, no faceted persona that ties it all together — and I skip past those blogs on my internet meanderings.
The dominant image of traditional femininity is one of cohesion. A traditionally ideal woman has it all together: she looks put together, with immaculate hair and makeup and stylish (but not challengingly so), has a spotless house and cooks delicious, nutritious food for her family. Her metaphorical ducks are not only in a row, but are perfectly matched and preened. The dominant image of an ideal style blogger is similar: she’s immaculately together, with a wardrobe that is stylish but not so challenging as to be inaccessible to her readers, and she has all the trappings of a perfect life: a loving, attentive husband, a warm and inviting home, a fulfilling job, an active social life. I suspect that traditional gender roles are not normalized by fashion blogging so much as mainstream fashion blogging, being overwhelmingly female and feminine, is informed by traditional gender roles. To that end, it’s at once surprising and expected that bloggers’ marriages are sometimes almost a third character (the blogger, her husband, and their marriage) — traditional adult femininity is deeply tied to relationships, primarily with a partner but also with others.
We’ve all mentioned our partners here, because they’re a part of our lives. But our partners aren’t a focus of the blog, and the appearances they make are minor. We take our pictures ourselves, for the most part, in our apartments and houses, with a tripod and patience; our partners, for blog purposes, are incidental. I say this not to brag, but to draw contrast between us and mainstream fashion blogging. We’re a small, unmonetized blog that we started on a lark and we do purely for fun; by many people’s reckoning, we’re wildly unsuccessful.* This isn’t uncommon amounts the blogs I read, either. Partners are mentioned in passing, and may or may not take photos for the blog, but there is more context and more focus not on blogger-as-woman-and-wife but on blogging-as-aspect-of-blogger’s-life. The women whose blogs I read are interesting and thoughtful in their own right — there’s no need for reinforcement from exhibiting how they conform to societal norms.**
I’m not looking to comment on individual bloggers’ lives, because that’s incredibly presumptuous and I’ve no business making assumptions about the private lives people I don’t know from Eve. But blogged life is by necessity a curated life, and I agree wholeheartedly that, especially in the mainstream, blogged life often masquerades as private life, and overlaps neatly with traditional femininity. I often find myself having to look for the woman amidst the carefully arranged ideal, and while I understand that the curated ideal is what sells and keeps the most eyeballs, I find it uninteresting. I am well versed in ideal Western femininity, since it’s been shoved at me from this culture since I was born; I don’t need to see it remixed (ha!) over and over again in fashion blogs. I find it frustrating that in spite of the strides that feminism has made to normalize the independent woman, the traditional image of femininity is still the dominant image.
As I mention in the footnotes (am I capable of writing a long post without addendums? It seems not), I had a post on the visibility of women in fashion blogging already percolating, and I think this issue of gender roles is very much a part of that discussion. That post isn’t fully formulated, but I’m hoping to have it done soon. In the mean time, I’m really interested about what you have to say about this. Thoughts?
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* I don’t give a fig about what “most people” would say about our blog — we’ve got a group of lovely, thoughtful commenters, we’ve built a space where we can explore our choices, and it’s great fun. By my reckoning, we’re wildly successful, and the naysayers don’t have to read us if they don’t want to. Pbbbbbbt to them!
** And that’s not even touching on how people who don’t conform to societal norms in one way or another are (in)visible in fashion blogging, but I’ve had a post turning around in my head on that before I read this, so more on that later.
Enjoyed extremely thoughtful post, particularly that a blog is ‘by necessity’ a curated reality, a shaped information. Really considered think along about women-as-bloggers might consciously or unconsciously (re-)shape themselves with stereotypical means to gain/sustain audience, thus, losing the independence of self that can be a gift of blogging.
Great post, Millie. I read Jenny’s comments and had a similar reaction to them on a superficial level, but I hadn’t given it as much thought as you do, here. I check these types of blogs that she’s talking about periodically– and by that I mean: I come across a new one, I find her style interesting, I read it for a few weeks, and then I inevitably delete it out of my reader because I’ve lost interest. The ones in which the ladies work harder to construct this type of “successful self-employed female” role get deleted even more quickly. The blogs I read regularly, like yours, are ones I return to time and again because their bloggers are willing to think seriously about issues that I also think seriously about.
One of my literary studies interests is in autobiographical identity construction– when I first found out that Charlotte Perkins Gilman completely made things up and changed them for her autobiography, I started to wonder to what degree other writers did this, too… and what you start to realize is that the autobiography is almost always a construction of an idealized self, even when the author intends to include the “truth” about his/her weaknesses, etc. It strikes me that a fascinating dissertation could be written in a digital studies department about how all types of lifestyle bloggers– fashion and home improvement ones, especially– construct a version of themselves and offer it up as a commodity for their readers to consume.
These “successful” blogs don’t seem to give a lot of thought to anything they’re advertising on their blogs. I mean the retailers for which they run ads, but also on a deeper level, what kind of lifestyle and what construction of self identity they’re marketing. I wonder what the possible “damage” could be of this type of marketing of traditional gender roles and patriarchal femininity. I don’t actually know any teenagers who read blogs, so young girls probably aren’t ingesting these ideas about what it means to be a “successful woman,” but judging by the comments left on the blogs like the ones Jenny mentions, there are plenty of young professional women who DON’T recognize it as a construction and wish they, too, could hop around NYC with a beautiful man taking beautiful photos of their beautiful outfits… AND get PAID for it! And that worries me. I suppose that one good thing about the internet, though I don’t think it’s as democratic as some people like to claim, is that it continues to allow a space for blogs like yours, even though it’s not monetized.
Thanks for getting me thinking, this time, and always!
You’re spot on about how mainstream blogs advertise a very specific image, and I was trying to say that but couldn’t quite find the words for it (thanks for articulating what I couldn’t!) I find the goal of having, like you say, a beautfiul guy taking photos of beautiful outfits hopping around downtown rather baffling — it’s miles from any goal of mine, and I just can’t wrap my head around it. But then again I have a hard time wrapping my head around the notion that “feminist” is an insult…
I agree that the internet is not nearly as democratic as yaysayers would have you believe; it’s not like the power hierarchies of offline life suddenly vanish the moment you go online.
And I totally agree that a study of how bloggers contruct a version of themselves and offer it to their readers would be fascinating, and I think really enlightening too. Anyone looking for a thesis topic? :p
And what if we extend this to facebook, too? I probably have “friends” who think it is entirely self indulgent to post photos of myself online several times a week, but who actually go out of their way to participate in activities just so they can photograph them and post them on facebook. In our generation, it seems, people are putting more effort into constructing ways that they want to be seen than have ever before been possible.
It’s not so different from clothes, either. Most of us who blog about style acknowledge that people form judgments about us based on how we appear, and we are consciously engaging with that judgment in our dress– to challenge it, to change it, to appease it, etc on any given day. But plenty of people don’t put any thought into what they wear, just like there are plenty of people who don’t put any thought into what they post on facebook.
It’s not the constructing that bothers me– it’s the not thinking about what type of construction we’re performing, and what the results of that construction might be, that bothers me. But here I go again– getting bothered that people don’t think about things enough. One of the most rewarding things about joining the blog community has been finding out that, in fact, I am NOT the only one who thinks about these things at length.
Here is a thesis on narcisim and Facebook. Well, not the thesis, but an article about woman who wrote the thesis and said results.
Soraya Mehdizadeh, undergraduate psychology student, finds Facebook fiends tend to be narcissistic and insecure
Thanks for the link, Chelsea! Her formal analysis confirms my own informal one. : )
I also read an article a while back suggesting that one reason Hannah Montana, the show, was so popular with young girls was because they kind of imagine themselves as being “normal” IRL and “famous” or at least “popular” online. I think that was more dedicated to the myspace phenomenon, though, and I never participated in that, so I couldn’t be sure if I agreed.
There have been some interesting studies on the rise in young girls wanting to be famous as a life ambition (i.e. of the Paris “I’m not actually famous for any sort of tangible talent or hard work” Hilton), and what’s sad is how often they’re finding that desire for fame connected to an absence of love and attention from the people immediately surrounding them. Not necessarily surprising, but sad none the less.
Very smart and well written post. I also read this post and read similar sentiments from other folks that attended this event.
While in some ways, style/fashion has been critical of conventional/normative femininity (or reflected widely held criticism/rejections of such norms- like flapper dress, pant suits of the first wave feminist 1970s), it has more often reflected and reinforced the normative. Blogs that reflect dominant tastes will always be popular. Essentially, many of these blogs offer free alternatives to style/lifestyle magazines, with the added bonus of some interaction. Good for them, especially those that make it their living.
But like you, I am interested in truly independent blogs, a smaller community of women who consider dress, consumption, gender, and fashion within a broader context. OK, not every blogger I read is super political, but they offer some diversity to the style world beyond model-esque young women with magazine style photo spreads of the “very successful.”
Having fun and building a community and relationships with commenters/readers, in my humble opinion, makes your a very successful blog.
I wish more blogs were occasionally (or not so occasionally) political! I find the political, sociological, and ethical aspect of fashion much more interesting than discussions of outfits and actual garments.
I like that blogs give a diversity of perspectives, ideally, and that people who don’t fit into the dominant picture have a place to be visible. I’ve got a post that gets to the heart of that in the works, so I’ll save it for that rather than writing an essay here.
hello! excellent post! I’m too tired to write anything coherent/intelligent just now, so I’ll just say that I had never noticed this boy photographer/girl model thing before, which is probably because I don’t read the big blogs. I want to be able to interact with the blogger and the blogs that are very brand-managed like that don’t give me enough personality for any sort of interaction.
Brand-managed is exactly the right term! Hope you got some sleep
This is thought provoking and good post, Millie.
I agree with Franca, in that bigger blogs create a barrier of interaction where the reader may feel more distance from the author.
It is interesting that while we strive for individuality, we also strive to fit into a definition (intentionally or unintentionally), or to push the boundaries of said definition and create something unique. But in this we are the same in that we are all striving for the same goal (again, intentionally or unintentionally).
In the same way I think we like to dress and fashion our environment in such a manner that is esthetically pleasing to ourselves and makes us feel good about ourselves, and this is what we should be focusing on while being true to ourselves.
My favorite thing about blogging is that it gives me a closer sense of community, especially to us (the authors – Katie, Millie, Sarah), in our geographic distance, and keeps me feeling connected and involved.
That’s a really good point about our blog being rooted in community not just with our commenters, but also between the four of us. I feel a lot more connected and involved with your guys’ lives too since we’ve started this. Our blogging patterns tend more towards “here’s what I wore, but also the context of it” rather than just an enumeration of outfits, and while those contexts are probably more significant to the group of us, since we’ve got more context of each others’ lives beyond the blog, but that’s what gives the outfit meaning, to me, and it’s that context that I find interesting on other peoples’ blogs too. I totally agree with you and Franca that making your blog a brand puts distance between you and the blog community, and it’s the loss of context that I think does it.
Before we started this blog I spent a lot of time thinking about the types of contributions I wanted to give. Upon looking at my own reader and really thinking about which blogs were my favorites, I realized two things:
1) I’m not in love with fashion. I adore clothing as a way to express myself, and fully believe that since getting dressed is the one form of artistic exploration that everyone engages in every day (unless you’re a nudist), we should make the most of it, but couture, high fashion, Fashion Week, etc. don’t give my stomach butterflies.
2) I am in love with people. People who are smart, thoughtful, funny, inquisitive and willing to have compelling discussions are just awesomesauce.
Those thoughts led to the decision that my contributions to the blog were going to feature what I wore, but more than that. I wanted to find people to talk with. It’s the community that I love, and the community that drives me to be a more eloquent and thoughtful participant (sorry, still working on it). The incredibly calculated blogs have no life and/or story I want to be invested in and so, for me, they never stick.
These two points so perfectly encapsulate the way that I feel about blogging. I am decidedly NOT a “fashion person”. And though I’m shy as can be, I AM a “people person”. I care about the relationships I have, and for that I adore the blogging world and community.
I admit that my boyfriend takes most of my photos and that we’re in a heterosexual, long-term relationship. Do we get any credit for living in sin? No? Damn my conventionality!
On the bright side, my blog is unpopular, un-retouched, and ad-free, so I doubt anyone’s inspired to imitate me.
My favorite blogs are written by real, witty women with more to do than practice pouting for the camera all day. Like, say, this one!
Those fancy fashion bloggers worry me, I can’t help thinking “She DOES have a retirement fund, right? And she’s not relying on her husband for money? She’s caught up in her dental work? Completely out of debt?”
I am all for living in sin! Before I had a tripod, A. took my pictures for me, and the tripod thing is a pain in the butt. I’m in a longterm heterosexual relationship too, and I’m not saying that all style bloggers should be unpartnered or not heterosexual, cause that’s ludicrous. I am saying that there’s a very specific dynamic that I see that is typified by a woman, her photographer partner, and their idyllic relationship, and that’s troublingly congruent with very traditional gender roles. I think the fact that you consider bloggers’ dental hygiene (or lack thereof) is solid proof that you don’t fall into this category :p
Whew. I THOUGHT that’s what you meant, but I have a paranoid fear of turning into one of those bloggers— that maybe companies will suddenly start sending me products to hawk, or I’ll start spending an hour on my hair every morning or talking about Fashion Week like it’s the Second Coming. And sometimes my boyfriend DOES take pictures of me when I’m not watching, so I’ve worried that people think I posed for those shots…
If a woman gets her boyfriend to follow her around city and country taking pictures of her frolicking girlishly, does she create her own perpetual Male Gaze?
Lacan, Foucault, and Mulvey would be so proud of us! I think that all style bloggers create a situation where they are placed under the scrutiny of “the gaze,” male or not. We create scenarios that we then put out into the ether for anyone to see, with no control of how they interpret, react or treat those images. In the true style of the gaze, we have no interaction with most of our “gazers” and become simply objects.
For a moment, that depressed me horribly— and then I remembered that walking down a city street is just as bad, which was strangely comforting. “Oh good, I’m ALWAYS being judged!
Ha! So true.
Yeah, I feel like I didn’t articulate this quite clearly enough — for some reason, I’ve lost my words lately.
I’m not sure it’s a full on Male Gaze, because the audience is overwhelmingly female, but I think there’s a male filter on the gaze. Now how much of that is due to the pervasive male gaze in society at large, and how much of that is specific to blogging, I don’t know. But I know that I acted/posed/felt differently about A. taking photos for me than I do when I take them myself, and while I’m not everyone, I suspect that’s not uncommon.
It’s a lot to articulate!
That Female Gaze is dangerous.
I definitely think that it’s the influence of a Female Gaze, constructed by a Male Gazing Society (I keep wanting to write “graze” and “grazing”). It’s the women who are actually doing the potential presuming and constructing of self and image, but based on a patriarchally (what? It SHOULD be a word) established sense of gender norms and “success”.
mebbe it could be called ‘the patriarchical gaze’?
How about “the withering gaze,” if its purpose is to sum people up and write them off for any perceived imperfections?
As a fellow wildly unsuccessful style blogger, with a tripod, unhelpful cats who refuse to learn to take pictures, and non-ideal body type, I totally see where you’re coming from with this. I have gotten comments recently along the lines of “I like your blog because you look like me!” So it seems like it’s good that people who don’t fit the dominant paradigm, whether it’s in looks or partnered-ness, are willing to put it out there. I tend to wonder where some of the most obviously free-spending and non-obviously working bloggers get their resources from, too.
Yep, post on visibility of diversity in blogging is coming shortly.
Interesting discussion!
I tend to stop following the bigger bloggers too. They are often stunning with outfits that give me inspiration and food for thought but when it all feels too “perfect” I get turned off. I’m more interested in becoming involved in a community than developing (or witnessing) a persona, I guess. Although I don’t care if boyfriends take pictures (goodness knows, if my guy was always around and willing when I was ready for pictures, I’d hand the camera to him every day! It is easier and faster and they turn out way better).
But I can see where they were coming from. My blog is small and dinky and unpolished right now. But if I suddenly had thousands of followers? I’m sure I would become a lot more particular about what I posted and how I came across. Right now I think of most people who read my blog as my friends. But if I had thousands of readers, I would start to be aware of this large “audience” and I can see wanting to create a “brand” in that situation. If only to keep the blog impersonal – so I would have “real Kelly” and then “blog Kelly” so that I didn’t feel so exposed. I could divorce myself from my online self, so I could feel like I still had my private self. But also, vain as this may be – I would suddenly become aware that I had thousands of people seeing my not-so-hot moments. Right now my blog has a lot of posts that start out “these pictures are shitty” or “wow this is unflattering” but I don’t really care because my readership is small and I feel comfortable letting my “flaws” and unpolished parts out in the open. I don’t know if I could feel that comfortable if there were thousands of people tuning in every day.
I know I went on a tangent that isn’t totally related to the discussion about the portrayal of relationships, etc. But I do think it’s all related. If I was wildly popular I would probably become interested in creating an online “persona” of my relationships, etc.
I’m not so sure that’s much of a tangent, really, and it’s a really good point. As much as I’d like to say I’d blog the same way were I to suddenly have a large audience, I suspect I wouldn’t either.
I balance my camera on the kitchen counter and set the timer. It’s all very technical.
My dad recently snagged a tripod at a yard sale for me (!), but before then the camera was on a teeny, tiny tripod borrowed from The Rocket Scientist balanced atop an empty Cheerios box set on a bar stool. Professional all the way.
I attempted to make a cradle out of playdoh for my camera to sit on end in, which a) cracked and b) didn’t work in the slightest. I got a perfect sized tub to store my eyeliner in, though! We are definitely professionals.
Gah, this is so fascinating. I’ve loved reading all the comments.
I’ve thought loads about the main point you make in your post. The perceived perfection of the lives of the big bloggers is sort of odd to me. I think it really goes beyond relationships, though, and to the issue of not expressing the negative.
But I think it’s more than monetization, size, readership, etc. While I don’t by any means or stretch of the imagination have a “big” blog, I have a pretty steady, and relatively steady-growing readership, and have for awhile. I’m in a heterosexual long-term relationship. I am open to sponsors. But I don’t identify myself as one of those blogs that creates a brand of herself. I am just me, and I write about myself and my life and my clothes, and I write TO my readers, often with specific people in mind, and I feel very much a part of a community. I’m not selecting what version of myself to present.
I hope that doesn’t sound too snarky, or toot-my-own-horn-y (horny, haha), but I really think that it’s writing style, real-ness, and presence and activity in the blogging community that ultimately makes a bit of a difference.
Soooo, I ended up not saying anything at all about gender roles. And I actually have a lot of thoughts about it. Oh well. Everyone has said it better already anyway.
I’ve noticed the pairings thing as well, probably because Tieka @ Selelctive Potential had started highlighting it by featuring the men behind the camera, when I was still reading that blog. And my first response was, “Who the hell are these dudes who have nothing better to do than take pictures for someone else’s blog all day?” And I still do think that. Unless they’re all wanna-be/real-life/hobby photographers, I’m unsure I see the draw for the guys.
Let alone the “package deal” it makes the female blogger seem like. At first I was going to say it might be nice to see men involved in a tertiary way in an industry that is female-dominated; let them take the back seat for a bit? The men don’t come off as self-important or as people, even.
But that can also be seen a few ways – if it’s a successful monetized blog, it’s possible he’s framing/taking the pictures (the male gaze or female-gaze-based-on-what-males-think as mentioned above) to participate in the monetary side. Or it’s possible he just enjoys taking pictures of his gf in a way that does reinforce Western gender roles because that’s what he’s attracted to (this can be either elevated dude-status of an almost-model gf OR just the goodness of his heart because he cares about his gf and her projects and respects them). I mean, there are just so many variables with boyfriend-photographers.
“The dominant image of an ideal style blogger is similar: she’s immaculately together, with a wardrobe that is stylish but not so challenging as to be inaccessible to her readers, and she has all the trappings of a perfect life: a loving, attentive husband, a warm and inviting home, a fulfilling job, an active social life. ” <– but they definitely need to be present to make this happen, that's for sure!
I wish I had seen this post earlier. Good stuff and the commentary is just fantastic.
A couple of weeks ago Emily Kennedy interviewed me for her MA project about the style blogging community, and one of the issues that came up was that of the male gaze held in opposition with the fact that the fashion blogging community is primarily a female space. My blog has tried repeatedly to reach out to men, and we have two male contributors. They rarely get the number of comments that the women do. My husband does take my photos. I don’t have a tripod, and I don’t care to mess with a self-timer with a camera on the table. We are both interested in photography, and bought me a DSLR when I defended my PhD that was for both of us to use. Yet, our routine is frequently me asking him if he can take some outfit photos, and we do it somewhere in or near our house. No perfect images are snapped because they really don’t exist in our home. I’m also the one who uploads the images and selects which ones to post. M. has been supportive of my blog(s), but I have (almost) never asked him to spend time driving around looking for perfect locations for outfit photos. Because at the end of the day, I don’t have that kind of time for creating perfect images. I have classes to teach, committee meetings to attend, research to conduct, miles to run, and so forth, and currently, I am the sole breadwinner. My husband is unemployed, though he will adjunct in the spring. I blogged a while back about how it infuriated me to no end that people assumed he was the one with the job that brought us here. Just because I married a man doesn’t mean I want to be transported back to the 1950s.
I think in that sense blogging is like everyday life. Many people build up a façade that they never let down, and others occasionally rely on a carefully built up persona. Of course there are others who are truly honest all the time, but nevertheless you can never fully grasp a personality in passing by occasionally. So once again, via blogging you see a certain zeitgeist and we see that our particular zeitgeist is still tainted by patriarchy.
But, I def. agree with you on ‘big’ vs. small, personal blogs. I always prefer the latter because there’s a certain kind of untainted tangible honesty.
Anyway, loved the discussion in these comments! I love blogs with an avid interest in these issues.
Bravo – incredibly well written and thoughtful post.
There are so many style blogs out there, from widely popular to fledgling, from those that take a snapshot of the stylish day to those that artfully arrange moments and outfits, from those shot by a partner in a city to those shot inside with a tripod, from those who have sponsors to those disinterested in sponsorship… and everything in between. I am inspired by many different aspects of this thing we do and I love that there is such a variety.
For my personal blogging experience, I love that my blog is all me – my pictures, my words, my header, my buttons… Which is not to say that I don’t enjoy reading blogs that have help from a partner, because I do, and on some days (usually the cloudy ones where my camera can’t find me in the gloom), it would be very helpful to have someone take the picture of me. I just mean that I like being solely responsible for my blog.
Again, great post and great conversation in the comments!
You’re all such thoughtful commenters! I’m impressed at how much discussion this has sparked, and it’s great to see such thought-out responses.
just got here from orchids in buttonholes and it’s a very interesting conversation! Rad’s point about ‘free fashion mags online’ and the type/values of people reading these ‘successful’ (big #s and $$$) blogs is very valid, imo. Kelly and Eline both make great points about the relationship of private vs . ‘constructed public’ life. plus many thoughts about the attractiveness to these posters of a unique voice….
and i laughed when i got into the meat of this post – i have an ‘About This Blog’ manifesto of sorts at the top of my site. the first words are: ‘i’m not young, thin, tall, documented by artistic professional photog lover/husband….’….ha!
i, too, take the time to read fashion blogs to see something OTHER than the typical fare served up by the dominant culture. and when i saw some, but not a huge amount, of people blogging about clothes who were a little older, bigger, less awash in cash…..it encouraged me to give it a go. and to not gloss over things like my physical disabilities or small wardrobe. i also started a blog as a way to keep up with far flung family and friends, which is a lot of fun. it’s a bit like a diary with pictures.
so i’m guessing my ironing board doesn’t really COUNT as a tripod?
; ) i think my internal clock is now set in 8 second increments!
Great post! This reminded me of a friend I had in college. She took pictures everywhere we went (much to my annoyance), and somehow made every night look like the most fun, glamourous night anyone had ever had…ever. The funny part was, I would look at these pics after the fact and think, “wait, that night wasn’t fun at all…we stood around and didn’t talk to anyone!” In a way, it made me respect her less, and now I see her pictures posted on Facebook and don’t even bother looking anymore.
That being said, I too am a “tripod with a remote control” blogger. I feel my blog has something to offer my targeted niche, and I want to get it out there, and yes…be “successful”. I’m feeling the pressure to produce beautiful perfect images to keep up with the big girls, but still want to keep the helpful core of my little blog, which is what the readers keep coming back for.
Does anyone else find it interesting that fashion/style blogging is the female breakthrough in the male dominated web industry? Although my topic is feminine, and I’m concerned about appealing to a female audience, I’ve built websites, and stepped into the male dominated tech world, which I find empowering. I’ve chatted fluently with male web developers about SEO, SEM, building a phpBB forum, affiliate marketing, all quite to their surprise.
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amazing piece millie, really!! you raised some great points and gave lots of room to reflect upon the role and purpose of this medium. the post about the burqa ban in france, in combination with this, is starting an amazing dialogue about women, men, fashion, independence, choice, and all those other wonderful words that bring to the surface important and necessary dialogue. i do want to throw in a few things to the discussion:
1. its important that we recognize that not all cultures try to fabricate and align women and men the same way. i agree with you that when i reflect on my own gender training my entire 28 years, that a lot of my community and environment did spend huge efforts to train me on the notion that in order to be a girl i need to seriously consider grooming my looks and givings to others, rather than encouraging a more independent interpretation of ‘woman/female’. but around the globe and in our backyards there are cultures and ideas that envelope varying definitions of gender, and for some, being fancy-pants-molly-housewife isn’t one of them. it also comes from a very ‘western’ sounding point of view, which can create a barrier to opening up a dialogue that encourages feed back and reflection from all blog, style, and curious discussion makers alike (regardless of gender, sexual orientation, age, culture, likes, dislikes, etc) no need to unpack a global anthropological survey at this moment, but just something for thought. which leads me to…
2. the original suggestion that fashion bloggers are women, and further that, women with male partners, is just another example of how we often perpetuate and allow gender stereotypes and assumptions into our thought process, normalizing them rather than questioning. again, it further implies a gender stereotype that to be forward in your fashion love you need to be a woman, and have a man who ‘puts up with’ taking your photo, rather than 1. perhaps being single, or in a same sex relationship and loving fashion and b. having a partner (male or female) coming up with new styles and outfits themselves, or better yet, starting their own blog!
just wanted to put these ideas into the mix, and hope it encourages all of us to sit and digest things in a different light.
love*
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