Bloggers on Blogging: Part 6

And another blast from the past -- pale! Of course, we remember you, pale.


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Hello! It's pale from A Creative Revolution here….. I am not even sure if anyone remembers me now.

The Batcave has moved a couple times, I lost the blogging thread because I have just been so busy. New job, new towns. New….life.

But I got an email a few days ago from Fern, wondering if there was anything past bloggers had to say, to reflect on the glory days of blogging? 

Before Twitter. 

I think Twitter has killed a lot of the conversations we used to have, the sense of community that used to be a part of what blogs were. I miss all the friends and camaraderie.

ACR was a soapbox where we could also explore larger issues. We had theme weeks such as the Think Tank series. We could swear, and we certainly did a lot of that. I taught myself how to make videos and graphics, the platform that ACR ran on was way too powerful for what we ended up doing. At one point a lot of bloggers got together and started another aggregator. 

My partner in ACR for the first few years was Prole. She is a highly intelligent, bare knuckle kind of blogger. I always admired the way she could turn something around in her mind and come up with posts that were deadly serious, but really informative and fun to read at the same time. Both of us are very pro feminism. Anti corporate. The Harper admin was a scandal a day, faux pas ridden goldmine for blogging. 

When we first started, there was a largely male blogverse here in Canada. They all knew each other and were dismissive of women bloggers who talked about things that they, men,  considered unimportant. This stuff started happening:

At Status of Women Canada–the government agency charged with protecting women’s rights– the Harper government closed 12 of 16 regional offices. It also cut funding for over 41 women's organizations. These include women’s shelters and advocates for women's health, equality and security. It also cancelled funding for legal challenges to enforce the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Harper pushed a bill through that undermines the principle of pay equity, and scrapped the national child care program initiated in 2005. Finally, officials have repeatedly brushed off calls for action in response to 1,200 cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and destroyed the federal long gun registry.

Canada lost its place as a progressive and feminist country for many years. We lost our place on pay equity, healthcare for women….

One of the “progressive” bros told me in a text conversation that there were much more important items to be covered, and that women may have to….(I kid you not, he said this)…..CLOSE THEIR LEGS FOR FOUR YEARS.

Most of the Blogger Boyoz were not as blatantly dismissive of 53% of the population, they were a little more subtle. 

Quite a few labelled us as “RADICAL feminists” They portrayed us as hysterical females. We were called “angry” and told we were too emotional. 

We were not behaving like nice ladies. TSK TSK. 

That was from “our” side.

The data speaks for itself. 

A whole generation was subjected to struggles and poverty, created by a government determined to destroy women, and an apathetic opposition that could not walk and chew gum. They seemingly could only cover issues that appealed to the wealthier of their supporters. 

This attitude even spread to the blogger awards that were being held for Canadian blogs…..A lot of us said that we wanted a category for best feminist blog. 

It was like a frat boy fest of back slapping and congratulatory BS, they laughed at us….So we started the F-Word awards. 

Feminism, which to some is a BAD word. 

The F-Words were fun, we got to meet a lot of bloggers who were speaking on the same issues, and also being dismissed. The F-Words ran for two years, but alas, things shifted for Prole and myself, and we could not dedicate the time to this endeavour. We were working hard to make our .71 cents on the dollar after all…..

The Trudeau Government has been a massive improvement on social issues for women. Still a long way to go. A lot of damage that occurred during the reign of the Harpercons and their enablers is still being felt by those who grew up in poverty, and their mothers who struggled while their rights were being cut. 

I remember the day that the Canada Child Tax Benefit was increased…...That was a months's worth of groceries to me and my kids. Suddenly. In my bank account! Did you know I cried that day? The political is always personal.

Does the Trudeau government scandal sheet even compare to the Harpercons? 

Not even close. But as always, the delicate flowers that embrace conservatism squeal like stuck pigs whenever it has to do with Trudeau, their false equivalency is glaring. 

But, about that long way to go…..

We still need to keep yelling at the menz who would ignore what is happening in real time, because it seemingly does not affect them directly. We still have so called progressive boyoz’ telling us to sit down and maybe….Just maybe they will get to our issues. The last election was a sigh of relief. 66% of Canadians didn't vote for Scheer and his regressive and divisive politics. 

And maybe. Just maybe…...Ill get my soapbox up and running again. I still own the domains…….I like to think that we all played a part in calling out the bullshit over so many years, a part that the traditional media mostly abandoned. 

I read the other posts in this series, and I just want to say, I miss you all. 

Love, pale.

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ADDED by fern hill: Alison provided a link to the first F-Word Award vid.