How could I say I'm at all disappointed with how mediagirl.org has done? Since January 24th, when I turned the Statcounter back on (it had been hanging up page loading back in November so I'd deleted the script from the site), we've had a respectable 84,000+ hits. We went from an insignificant microbe to a Large Mammal on TTLB, who ranks mediagirl.org at #1429 as of this writing. (They even took the color-bars icon from the site to decorate our profile page.) Out of all the sites it's tracking, Technorati ranks mediagirl at 5,050 (although Alexa puts us wayyyyyy down at 979,383, which I hope is suspect, considering they see our 84k+ hits as being a 3-month change). Blogshares values the site down at $18,841.64 (which would come in real handy right now). And the Blogads trickle in bit by bit -- probably one of the better $12 values out there, and a far cry from the cool half million a year pace of dKos (which would really come in handy right now).

Overall, a pretty good showing for a green and wet-behind-the-ears blog online magazine like mediagirl.org.

Yet I couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of disappointment when mediagirl.org did not rate in the new Report - The Emergence of the Progressive Blogosphere.

Yeah, silly me, I heard about it today in a conference call (more below) and had to surf around for links to it (thanks Rox) to find it, and I immediately skipped the blog summary and Blogads survey results and went straight to the pdf and went through the rankings. Of course, no mediagirl.org.

It's something of a relief, though, living in obscurity, unnoticed, ranting away in one's own corner, getting notice from only a few loyal readers and corporate censors. I mean, what happens when you end up on a list? You're then "on the list," and people start calling you an "A-list blogger" and suddenly what started off as a more constructive, literate and thoughtful way of shouting back at the television becomes a precious fucking thing. And then people start liking you for no reason except that you're famously opinionated. And then you have to fight the temptation to go waggling your finger at everyone, telling them how wrong they are about everything, and saying it with the authority of The A-List Blogger, and then people realize just how fucking stupid and arrogant you are, and then you resent them and start calling them names and attacking what they believe, and before you know it you're a fucking has-been blogger, which must be down there with used napkins and pre-owned bubble gum.

So no, it was a relief. I think the day I make the list is the day I shut down my blog and start a new one, anonymously. Really. There's better stuff to read out there, folks. Just check out the blogroll for a thousand betters.

So imagine my shock when, yesterday, along with the normal email-list literature, I got a personal email from Rachel Perrone of NARAL inviting me to participate in a conference call on current affairs in reproductive rights. To be honest, I wanted to reply:

Thanks for inviting me, but really, I just rant silliness and don't really have anything profound or germane to add to what must be illustrious company.

Instead, I said yes, of course! But the, today, work issues tied me up and I missed the first half-hour of the call -- which was pretty much the entire thing. So I got the wrap-up with Vicki Saporta, president of NAF, Alice Cohan of the Feminist Majority and Nancy Keenan of NARAL saying, in effect, "Okay, ladies, take what we discussed and run with it!"

I missed it all.

I hung on for the post-conference strategizing among the other bloggers, and quickly gathered that Liza (who live-blogged the call) and Rox and Bitch and Jessica and a few others whose names I did not catch were involved, and I immediately felt totally out of the loop (for having missed the essence of the discussion), stupid (for having missed the essence of the discussion) and, really, dumb (for having nothing to contribute to the discussion). So I listened, and maybe said like 10 words.

But of course, now I'm blogging, so I don't feel such inhibitions, and so now I'll say what I would have said:

The importance of talking loud and clear about reproductive rights is not because of Roberts, though he's certainly important, but getting the topic out there as a wake-up call. A lot of people don't really get it that the dominionist right is on the verge of making women into 2nd class citizens at best, breeder slaves for the state in the main.

We really are on the verge of a dark ages. And a lot of people seem to just not understand that. I'd go on here, but instead I'll just cut and paste what I wrote yesterday in response to Kos' complaint that we women with our "pet issues" are destroying the Democratic party:

There's a saying out here

"Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining." Yet that's what it sounds like so many of you all are trying to do.

If the Democratic Party bails out on something as fundamental as gender equality, then it's not a party I'm going to back.

If the Democratic Party continues pandering to people who would make women into breeder slaves of the state, then it's not a party I'm going to back.

I think all this carping on NARAL by so many here reveals to me that the Democratic Party is not a party that endorses the progressive values I hold dear.

You guys can all go on with your pissing matches, winning at any cost, selling out whatever you want. But don't be expecting me to be tagging along. You go to the dark side, you're dead to me. I don't need to be chasing around a kinder and gentler Sith Lord.

And don't be expecting silence from me. Or NARAL. Or other women and men who despair at the idea of making A Handmaid's Tale into a fucking political platform.

Frankly, all this "I'm pro-choice, but--" baloney smacks of the same shite we hear about race. "Some of my best friends are black." Uh huh.

This is not trivial. This is not marginal. This is at the very core of human rights.

It's not the government's business to decide.

You either believe that, or you don't. You either back up what you say with deeds, or you just more political baloney. "Hurting the party?" Let me tell you who's hurting the party: Every single person who suggests yet one more moral compromise all in the name of victory at any cost.

In other words, the oft-repeated sanctimonious challenge from the self-proclaimed left -- "Do you want to be right, or do you want to win?" -- has the whole equation backwards. You can't win if you don't take a position on the important shit. And if you don't think that gender equality and women's freedom and equal protection are right up there at the top, then you are destroying the party and you are destroying any chance for a meaningful win in 2006 (and 2008 and beyond).

I was honored to be in on that call. Whether I'm invited again after my no-show, who can say? But the agenda is clear: If women aren't free, nobody is free. What kind of "win" would that be?

About author

media girl also blogs at other places.