Wanted: some respect!
I was, I think, one of the first, back in February, to point out that the complicated system put in place in Iraq by Paul Bremer's bizarre and almost unilaterally imposed Transitional Administrative Law was seriously hampering the ability of Iraq's elected leaders to form a government. Then on March 2, I started the "Democracy denied in Iraq" watch on the main sidebar of this blog.
It seems to be only recently that the mainstream US media and other bloggers like Juan Cole have noticed that this delay is indeed, in itself, an issue.
Does anyone cite or give credit to my earlier work on this?
Or, come to that, on the whole issue--now much remarked-upon in the US MSM and blogosphere-- of the disgraceful absence of women's voices from the op-ed pages of major US newspapers.
I wrote about that, and started my "Women getting WaPo-ed" watch back on Dec 21. I wrote about it a bit more in January, including Jan. 3rd.
Do I get any mentions, any citations, any respect for my pioneering work on that issue, either?
Hah! (That was a snort of disgust.)
Some respect, "guys", please!
(I actually first posted this rant on JWN yesterday. But commenter Dick Durata suggested-- wisely-- that I should have made it a separate post. So here it is.)
Not sure if it's any consolation, but when I first saw the posts on women commentators on Kevin Drum and others' sites, I of course immediately thought about your counting of the Washington Post editorial page a few months ago. I didn't mention it because I don't generally comment on posts unless I have something meaningful to say. Will be sure to back you up next time! And I did vote for you on the Koufax Awards!
It's been an interesting problem since "forever". The female strength, intelligence, foresight, wisdom, etc. is pre-empted by Male Loudness. Historical instances Hypatia of Alexandria and Anna Comnena of Constantinople.
Please do not be discouraged. We quiet ones out here need your knowledge and wisdom. Just yesterday, you, Riverbend and Juan Cole were cited as the voices my sister and I go to for an update we trust on the Middle-East.
Thanks.
I found the adress to this site (found again perhaps, I have been here before) from Juan Cole. I followed a link titled "Veteran Middle East journalist and blogger Helena Cobban has been warning for some time about the dangers that Paul Bremer's interim constitution makes forming a government too difficult."
Dear Helena, of course I and others have been saying, less publicly than you have been saying it, the same things about the TAL from the day we first laid eyes on it. Just about the only credit we get for our foresight is from each other.
Helena, I think your knowledge, judgement, and writing ability deserve quite a bit of respect. I think the country would be better off if it paid more attention to your opinions. At the same time, it's a little undignified to demand respect, but then what's a blog for?
I'd be very interested to hear your and other's opinions on who the neglected female commentators are. I'd like to check them out.
It's not just women who don't get the attention they deserve, but all commentators whose opinions don't fit easily into the standard mindset. William Pfaff is a very perceptive writer who used to be a regular columnist at the LA Times, but is now published very intermittantly in the International Herald Tribune. I suspect that his editors found his critiques of US foreign policy to be a little too sharp. I also admire Robert Parry, who is now seems to be published mainly on his own web site.
Helena, I thought this recent Robert Parry article might resonate with you:
NYT Backs Off Bush-Iraq Praise
Don't you love the way Kevin Drum and others of late have bemoaned the fact that there are so few women pundits on the blogosphere with high popularity ratings, and then they blame women for that fact. Even though the Drums et al link to very few women if any and rarely cite them. Grrrr! And when would you hear the Drum-types use the same argument to explain why there are so few African-American, Asian-American, etc., pundits on the blogosphere with a gazillion visitors a day? They wouldn't do that, because they know they'd be called racist. But somehow they think it's OK with women. There are plenty of good women writers on politics, who are often overlooked.
By the way, I love your blog and I'm a regular [woman] reader. Plus, my blog has a link to yours and other women too. Promotion has to start somewhere, even if half the audience refuses to notice.
P.S. To reader above, there's nothing undignified about asking for a show of respect, especially if it's deserved and it is.
Muaons, are there any particular woman columnists and/or bloggers you recommend?
Some have pointed out that British papers don't have the same dearth of female commentators that US papers do. A glance at today's Guardian Comment page bears this out.
Why is this the case? I think that part of the problem is that major US broadsheets like the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal are so damned official. They take themselves so seriously. They want to be the paper of record. They want to be hommes sérieux. And they're serious, all right, and they're damned dull. This might not matter if they were, as they think, authoritative voices on what's happening in the world. But the fact of the matter is that they are wrong, wrong, wrong much of the time.
Women might be less likely than men to take themselves or official voices in Washington so very seriously. (I'm not talking of snark a la Maureen Dowd, which isn't that helpful in public discourse).
The Boston Globe at least has a couple of good female columnists in Joan Vennochi and Eileen McNamara.