Gender Stereotyping

Over Christmas when I decided to drum up readership for my blog at home (and at this juncture, I would like to thank both of my loyal readers), my friend C… um, let’s call her Cara asked why on earth I would wish to broadcast my thoughts to the world in this way. I was a bit stumped and one of the answers I came up with (laugh if you will) was that I was attempting to address the gender imbalance on the internet. In fact, rampaging megolamania was the real reason but I thought that my sociological reason sounded better. She laughed uproariously. She was not convinced. And now that I’ve been blogging for a bit, neither am I.

I note that all of my favourite blogs fall into one or more of the following categories:

Female/Pregnant/Looking for work/Freelancing/Mothers

There are three exceptions: Pepys (but he’s dead), Locotes (he’s from Cork) and the Iranian guy (sort of fascinating in a look into another culture kind of way). And I suppose the Belgian interest category I’ve just started, but that’s a bit different because it’s my way of trying to find out about the country I live in.

Anyway, I’m getting to the point, do bear with me, is it that I am naturally drawn to weblogs which fall into these categories or is it that most of the blogs out there are written by people who are Female/Pregnant/Looking for work/Freelancing/Mothers? Does anybody know what the ratio of male to female blogs is? Does anyone except me care?

And in related gender stereotyping stuff; as you know, I am looking for a job, in what can only be called a desultory fashion. To be fair to me, and I am more than willing to do that, it is a bit hard because I’m overqualified for the entry level jobs that are advertised and I’m having difficulty trying to speak to the people who need to be convinced of my genius. The other day, instead of sending out CVs I read an article about how women are bad at networking to get jobs. Useful stuff, clearly. Wait, wait, I’m about to reach a conclusion, as you know my friend D..(shall we say Danuta?) was here the other day. Now, she was over to attend a meeting in her company’s Bxls’s office. Did it cross my mind to ask her whether there were vacancies in company X which has a significant presence in Belgium (as they would say themselves, I’m sure). No it did not. It did occur to her, sort of as an afterthought really, and she said, “you know, I know the personnel officer and I’m sure there are vacancies, would you be interested?” Well, yes, I suppose, I would. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself. Is this mindset or stupidity? Answers on a postcard please… In the interim, think positive thoughts about Danuta to whom I am very grateful.

Finally, in matters unrelated to gender stereotyping, it snowed here last night and all around my part of Brussels looks absolutely beautiful. Took a number of pictures but they all turned out dreadfully so you will have to imagine how it looks. Princess is perplexed by snow. She put out her little hand to feel it and there was serious royal displeasure when it turned out to be both cold and wet.