Gretchen Glasscock, AdvancingWomen.com

Ok.  So some of women’s power is illusory.  Our foremothers not only got us the vote, we now have more women voters than men voters in the U.S. but we don’t have a single, monolithic voting bloc that can swing elections, although we can tip them.  Women have been successfully split along the lines of ideology, frequently by those who would use wedge issues to divide us, precisely so we don’t pull together as a decisive force.  (Remember: divide and conquer)  Other differences splinter us as well.  Some women who’ve clawed their way to the top don’t want to challenge the “old boy’s network” or “old media network”, because, essentially, they have become part of it.

But AdvancingWomen.com believes, for whichever women out there would like to challenge the status quo, you have to start from where you are with what you’ve got.  Wherever women are right now in our society and with whatever tools are at our disposal, we need to make a commitment to work for change and improvement in the lives of women.  In our government, women make up 18 percent of governors, 16 percent of senators and 16 percent of representatives. Not good enough!  There is one CEO of a Fortune 50 company.  There are another 11 women CEOs in the Fortune 500.  Not nearly good enough!

So that is where we are.  And that is where we have to start.  The ball is in our court.

Susan Estrich, first female president of the Harvard Law Review, first woman to run a major presidential campaign (Dukakis) wrote a book Sex & Power in which she questions whether women are ambitious enough or want power enough to do what it takes to get it. Her answer seems to be: “We don’t want it, or we don’t want it enough to pay the price, push up the mountain, do what it takes.”  And Estrich goes on to say: “You can’t change the rules if you’re not in the room. You can’t finish a revolution without getting in there and fighting. . . .”

Well, I’m not sure I agree with that.  The women I know are plenty ambitious.  Some are a little weighted down by having to work twice as hard as men to earn salaries which are not equivalent but, none-the-less, needed to support their families.  Often they are the primary care givers for children and elders at the same time.  But they are plenty ambitious and that’s why they frequently put in long hours and multi-task to a degree that might drop some men to their knees.

I think, perhaps, in the past, one major road block has been that women have always had to try to work from within a male dominated infrastructure, if they wished to effect change. If they wanted to be a journalist, they had to be accepted by a male publisher, their work approved by, frequently, a male editor.  Same with writing a book.  Or doing a TV show. Whether they wanted to create ripples in the media, academia or in corporate America, there were always male gate keepers and males in control and in charge.  Now, however, the Internet allows women to route around the male power structure and pursue their own objectives, however they choose.  We don’t have to ask anyone’s permission.  We just have to do it.

Today, women stand at a watershed moment facing a meaningful opportunity  to make their voices heard and exert more influence and dominance over their lives and future. The Net today with its enormous reach, its free platforms, automated tools and low cost of entry, combine to form an ideal platform for women to communicate, to build their communities into a powerful voice for change and women’s equity in many different arenas. They can also create businesses, write for profit, share knowledge and strategies, dispense advice and create their own platform on the Net.

Back in 1995, in the infancy of the Net, Australian author,Dale Spender, wrote a clarion call to arms in her book Nattering on the Net, urging women to stake their claim to power on the Net; to seize control and help write the rules of the new platform with its virtually unlimited potential. “In the real world men dominate communication. Men talk more often, they talk for longer periods, they adopt ‘centering positions’ (forcing females to hover around); men define the topic, assume the legitimacy of their own view, and override women who do not see the world in their terms. Much of this dominant status is achieved by interrupting and correcting. …Women are being kept out of cyber-communication with an electronic version of interruption and intimidation … women are being silenced on the net.”  In that long ago, but in many ways seminal book, Spender basically urged women to jump in and start the communication revolution on the Net to assure women would have the same voice and power as men.

The results have been dramatic.  As Cath Elliott points out in Women’s move from the ballot box to the blogosphere: ” Where we once had a very real fight on our hands to get our voices heard above the masculine fray, women have now created a space where we not only can be heard, but if we choose, we can shut out the brouhaha coming from some of the more unreconstructed men on the net. As attendees at the recent Blog Nation ( Ed. in England ) debate discovered, not only is the feminist blogosphere enjoying rude health, but women bloggers and writers are a growing force on the web.

The fact is there are now more women blogging than men. There are those, like ( the author,Cath Elliott ) who have opted to engage in some of the more male-dominated corners of the blogosphere, and there are others who have chosen to create more women-friendly spaces – virtual sanctuaries where women are free to debate their issues without having to worry about being shouted down by men, and where any would-be trolls and harassers are swiftly and mercilessly dealt with.”

But let us be clear.  Women-only spaces online are fine.  They may be as relaxing as a day at the spa or as warm and cozy or arch and competitive as one’s high school reunion.  They may be transcendent in their contemplation of women’s issues or perspective or philosophy.  But AdvancingWomen.com believes women can not afford not to engage in the rough and tumble of real-world debates involving all genders, all ethnicitys, all ages, straight, gay, pro-choice, pro-life, whatever. It’s a big diverse world out there and however much of a Mulligan stew it might be, every one has a vote in the future and we are all going to share it together, so we need to make our voices heard by all, not just the believers.

As Cath Elliott notes, ” In the same way that women have had to jump in to other male-dominated arenas in order to get our message across and to ensure our involvement in public and political life, we can’t afford to ignore the enormous potential the blogosphere affords us for both communicating our experience and making our voices count. And while there will always be a place for (women only) spaces which I cherish — what we can’t afford to do is isolate ourselves completely, and shut ourselves away in a virtual world where all we’re doing is preaching to the converted.

The blogosphere is the biggest public space we’ve ever had; we owe it to the women who fought so hard to secure us the vote 80 years ago to make the most of the opportunities a forum like this gives us, and to ensure that women are and always will be playing an equal role with men in the political and public life of this country, in all its manifestations.”

AdvancingWomen.com agrees wholeheartedly.  Now go out and start writing that blog or signing people up for your own community.

For more, read the following:

Community on the Net – The Platform To Network, The Power to Mentor

Yes, Some Blogs Are *Very* Profitable – And Some Of Them Are Women’s Blogs