Women's work on the Web--does it have to be a labour of love

Is internet cultural work like women’s work?  Is blogging like dish-washing?  Or rather like cooking? That is to say, important work that has to be done, that you sometimes enjoy, but you never expect to get paid for?

For so long, the labour of women has gone unpaid and uncounted in the household--and now on the internet, it seems the pattern is being reproduced. 

The feminist blogosphere is a vibrant ecosystem—that like epiphytes grown on air.  Few women make a living of note beyond Dooce and her stories of inconsequence.  (There could be more, so please tell me.)

Many women bloggers get uncomfortable when talk turns to making money. Yes, certain aspects of the internet we expect and want to be free; but why should cultural production--just because its transmitt edelectronically-- be unpaid.  If ithas value on paper, it should have value on pixels.

Many women bloggers do it as a hobby, on top of their job and school.  How sustainable is that?  How long can they continue?  Won’t they burn out eventually? And when the 20ish bloggers buckle down to have kids (and experience the loss of income that comes so quickly with motherhood), then they will really throw inthe dishtowel. 

Of course, journalism circles are very concerned with these issues of income streams and survival—as more and more dailies stop printing.How odd isn’t it that people will pay a buck or two for a newspaper but not for screen time with reporting? (Note that they’ll pay to view a screen of games or movies.)  It’s a well-accepted given, that  societies need newspapers to fund investigations and plain old reporting of city council meetings. 

Why do so many women bloggers demur at the thought of charging for their work? Maybebecause they don’t consider themselves cultural workers, or journalists.  And if they don’t actually do time-consuming difficult journalism—maybe they shouldn’t be paid to muse or journal on-line.  Yet again, ifthere’s an audience for musing, a sizeable audience, it does have value that could be translated into dollars. And what would be so wrong with that. 

Like all those much more-educated-than-me scholars of journalism, I don’t have a clue about how to fix the crisis in journalism.  I just want the women engaged in producing internet culture and commentary, to startconsidering this problem. I’d like the femisphere to get engage in the debate.   I want women bloggers to help figure out the solutions.

Old media suffered from the lack of women’s voices, let’s not allow the new media to move in that direction. And let's figure out a way for women to stay on the web and get paid for it.  Why give away our intellectual milk, when people really should buy the cow?

Amy Cross