At the risk of seeming like every post of late here is about the BlogHer site, I just thought this was worth mentioning....

Never mind the cheesy sci-fi poster imagery for a moment (more on that below), it's some pretty good ink, getting on the cover of Texas capital's paper. The Austin Chronicle article opens with the topic that BlogHer founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory are addressing in sessions at SXSW:

SXSW Interactive is evolving. Alongside the exhibitions of better-faster-more emergent technologies, from BattleDecks and DOM scripting to Darknets, with a nod to all the dollars appertaining, panelists are keeping it real about what brings us online in the first place: ourselves.

But which selves do we place online? That's the question before the three co-founders of BlogHer. Last year, Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort, and Jory Des Jardins created BlogHer.org, a cluster site in which women (and some men) write about everything from technology to travel to religion and race, food, shopping, and current events in order to "create opportunities for women bloggers to pursue exposure, education, and community." All three intermittently describe themselves as "evangelists" for personal voices, for the transmission and sharing of ideas about women's lives, and for the craft of blogging itself.

Marrit Ingman's article gets into some of the ways blogging can affect one's personal and/or professional life -- as well as how women bloggers are treated differently from men bloggers.

Camahort and Des Jardins also theorize that the consequences for getting personal might be different for women and men if they reveal details of their romantic and family lives in a business setting. When a blogger like Technorati darling Robert Scoble mentions his spouse or child, his credibility is unaffected, they suggest, and possibly even enhanced.

"Women who write about family are 'mommybloggers,' while men who write about family are 'personal bloggers,' incorporating personal elements into their blogs," Des Jardins says. "It's so easy to call someone a 'mommyblogger,' to say that they write 'just' about family."

"As though so much of our great literature and art isn't about family relationships," Camahort points out. "When Arthur Miller wrote All My Sons, nobody said, 'Oh, he's just a 'daddy playwright.' Nobody calls him a 'male playwright.' I think that's why women are rightfully apprehensive."

Interesting stuff worth a look.

It's just too bad the whole thing is branded with the cheesy drawing of a half-naked vixen, with a title that evokes the plethora of science fiction flicks featuring evil ambitious women who enslave men while striving to rise above their station and dominate the universe. I know it's all in fun, and captures some of the cut-loose and let-loose spirit, but the imagery carries a rather unfortunate overtone of using sex appeal to subjugate men.

But hey, it's Austin, city of cheese. We can laugh, since it's all done with a wink. Who knows? I think I'm probably older than most bloghers, and might be one of only a handful of people who remember those movies from Saturday afternoon television (sans Mystery Science Theatre commentary). In this modern day, I think more people have seen the posters than the pulpy adventures themselves, and I don't think anyone would seriously believe that BlogHer is a throwback to bad 1950s B movies -- though I'm sure some folks would love the idea.

• Laura's blog
•