Like May Day, International Women’s Day apparently originated in the United States but is now observed mostly elsewhere– although I’m pleased that Agnes and her trailer-park friend and neighbor Trout celebrate it.
Anyway it’s an opportunity to note what I hope most long-time readers of Harry’s Place will acknowledge is a change for the better in our blog’s approach to women and women’s issues.
Back in 2006, we at Harry’s Place reacted rather defensively to a Guardian column by Catherine Bennett mocking the Euston Manifesto as a virtually all-male project, and HP and other “muscular liberal” blogs as bastions of sexism, smutty jokes and other stuff that men supposedly get up to when they think no women are around.
Although I think a lot of what she wrote was bullshit, I’ll acknowledge there was a grain of truth to it. And I think it’s an observable change that HP is less “laddish” (although there’s still some of that) and more open to dealing with women’s rights– especially in non-Western countries, which are too often overlooked by the larger Left. I think there’s a more general appreciation that progress for women means progress for everyone.
I’m especially pleased that in addition to our two female HP authors (Sarah AB and KB Player), we have a lot more women regularly commenting than we once did. And I don’t think anyone will disagree with me that many of them are among our most intelligent and thoughtful commenters.
Although there is still room for improvement, I think this excellent post by Sarah in 2009 helped change things for the better here.
So Happy International Women’s Day: to our female and male readers alike.