Real Blog for Real Women: Jade Walker's "Afterthoughts"
Weblogs geared towards women fill the void left by women-oriented websites that tanked.

by Genevieve Ranieri

Readers are welcomed with open wings: JadedWritings.com logo Photo courtesy of Jade Walker

Apparently, I think of little more than recipes that will get my boyfriend in the mood, or whether pink is my color.

Women-oriented websites such as iVillage, Oxygen and Women claim to provide the information and services women want, which apparently is advice on how to drop a few pounds or who wore what at the Oscars. iVillage provides links to the latest hairstyles and weight-loss role models and Women offers quizzes to help a reader discover how sexy she is or what her personal kissing style is - in other words, whether she's a hunk magnet.

In many ways, online services such as iVillage and Oxygen have doled out the same superficial advice and one-dimensional articles dished up by glossy women's magazines such as Cosmopolitan. This failure to take into account women's interests range beyond beauty and gossip has inspired the growth of an online alternative to the airhead content of most women's media: weblogs created by women. A weblog, or blog, is a site that typically consists of daily commentaries on a wide range of topics, with links to some of the sites or stories mentioned.

"Afterthoughts," created by the New York-based writer Jade Walker as an offshoot of her weekly personal-opinion column, Jaded Writings, is a textbook example of a blog.

Walker, who is a night editor for The New York Times on the Web and a contributor to such publications as E-Media Tidbits and Salon, created her site in March, 2000. As a self-proclaimed liberal raised in a midwestern suburb, Walker has created a blog reflecting her wide-ranging interests, as well as those of her readers: in recent columns, Walker has written about Pablo Neruda's poetry, a South African law that allows gay couples to adopt children, a humorous site called Says God, which features God's new ad campaign, and a study at Swarthmore College revealing that it takes 144 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

"I'm a hard-nosed journalist who also writes romance novels," says Walker. "I'm a Gen X-er who doesn't slack and a workaholic who loves to play. All of these elements come out in my writing."

Due to her no-punches-pulled opinions and the controversial topics in "Afterthoughts," Walker receives a wide-range of responses from her readers.

"Some agree with my opinions or ponderings, others are angry at the words I use and the ideas I convey," she says. "I enjoy receiving these letters because it shows [that] my writing has affected people." It's Walker's honesty about her life and passions that has made "Afterthoughts" popular.

"My readers are an interesting bunch, with no set demographic," Walker says. "They live all over the world. Many of them are writers or [at least] voracious readers. It's a delightful mix."

"Afterthoughts" isn't alone in the world of blogs; like Walker, many female bloggers address their female readerships in ways unimagined by mainstream websites. Some are unapologetically political, a slant taken by few magazines for women. Laura Crane's passionately political column, laura crane, in which she discusses her views on national security, is one such blog; Jane Galt's Live from the WTC, in which she sounds off on the recent scandal that brought down Senator Robert Torricelli, is another.

While women's blogs have no claim on soap-box political tirades; opinion sharing, personal confessions, and other forms of journalism are the lifeblood of many blogs."Weblogs reflect the interests and personalities of their writers," says Staci D. Kramer, contributing editor to The Online Journalism Review. "Blogging calls for opinion, anecdote, personal involvement, and a sense of self."

Of "Afterthoughts," Walker says, "I try to bring a unique perspective to my blog, one that sets it apart from millions of others. [Disparate interests] come out in my writing, yet somehow, they connect with people from a variety of backgrounds."

It's the idiosyncrasies of female bloggers like Walker, as well as their refusal to stuff their ideas and interests into the shopping-dating-dieting-driven websites reserved for women's voices, that makes their work so appealing to readers who worry about more than who in Hollywood has the hottest body.

RELATED LINKS:

Subterranean Homepage News, a similar blog created by Sheila Lennon

Genevieve Ranieri is a journalism major at NYU. Her byline has appeared in Maxim and Washington Square News, NYU's daily newspaper.

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