Two of the new iVoices are men. Now, I have nothing against men and I am a big fan of active dads. I shouldn’t even say these particular men are an exception to me being impressed. They both seem to be great dads with great stories to tell.
I even know one of these winners and he is a very active online dad who clearly has a voice he thinks needs to be heard. I’m not begrudging him that. In fact, more power to him and all the dads who want to try out for things like iVoices. Dads have as much right to be heard as moms.
I just am a little disappointed that iVillage thought they deserved to represent moms. These are not just guest writers or interview subjects. My understanding is that these ten people are meant to represent the iVillage community. They are literally the Voices of iVillage.
iVillage has always been a site for women. In their about us section they are in their own words:
“the largest content-driven community for women online reaching 30 + million unique visitors per month (comScore).”
They held a hottest dad contest where women readers could nominate their partners. They have health and beauty tips clearly aimed at women. Their past iVoices were all women who reported on news events through a woman’s eye. There are men in the stories and in the videos but they are not a main feature. Go to Technorati, Yahoo! or a million other online sources if you want the dads’ POV. Let’s not pretend men aren’t everywhere giving their opinion. Do they also need to be on women driven sites?
Now, anyone who has ever been here knows I’m not usually the voice of feminism. In fact, often the opposite is true. I am all for equal representation AND gender roles. I’ve never had a problem with dad bloggers. I don’t feel like they are usurping my territory and if they are better writers than me, they deserve everything they get.
But this time I felt like I needed to say something. This time it’s different.
iVillage is a place that is women centric and while I may think men can play a part in that, I’m just not sure they should be our Voices.
Augusta National Golf Course is a men centric golf course. While I think women can and should be able to play golf I'm not sure they should be able to play Augusta
I suspect Martha Burke would disagree with me on this. Exclusion of a group or class is discriminatory regardless of topic.
Becky, I totally agree. I just think this particular role is supposed to be Voice of the community and the community is women. I think have that men should be on the site offering all points of view, just not the voice of the site.
I don't have much to do with the iVillage community, so I could be way off base, but it says FOR women, not BY women. And I think it can be important to have a guys point of view in the middle of a discussion of women's issues and content. It would be hard to have a discussion about how to include men in parenting decisions without actually getting a man's POV, right?
I completely agree!!
Exactly!! So well said. Thanks for saying this.