Just two quick hits about women as op-ed writers and women as sociologists (how’s that for a connection?!) before I really sign off:

1. San Francisco Gate: The Opinion Pages: Mostly A Man’s World

When it comes to the opinion pages of some of the most influential American newspapers, it’s far too often a man’s world. One reason for the disparity is obvious: Women are still breaking through glass ceilings in business, government and academia.

2. Inside Higher Ed: Women in Sociology – Satisfied, but Not Equal

Women in sociology, 10 years after earning their Ph.D.’s, are achieving substantial professional success and high levels of research productivity, but also differ from men in some ways in their career trajectories, according to a new study released by the American Sociological Association.

Among the key findings:

-Male sociologists in the cohort were more likely than female sociologists to be married or living with a partner (83 percent vs. 68 percent), or to have children living with them (62 percent to 50 percent).

-Among sociologists who are parents, women are much more likely to be divorced (21 percent vs. 1.4 percent). Roberta Spalter-Roth, director of research at the sociology association and one of the report’s authors, said one reason for this was that many more women than men come to graduate school as single parents, having already been married and divorced.

-Many sociologists who do have children do so before their tenure reviews, with the largest group having a first child 3-4 years after earning a doctorate.

-Parenthood does not appear to limit research productivity, at least as measured by the number of articles published in refereed journals — a key measure for the discipline. Mothers and fathers reported an average of 10.0 refereed journal articles since they earned their doctorates, while childless men and women reported an average of 9.5.

-Mothers appeared, on average, to earn less than others in the cohort. The income question was asked with categories, not exact amounts. The median income for sociologists who are fathers, and for sociologists who don’t have children, was between $70,000 and $99,000. The median income for sociologists who are mothers was between $50,000 and $59,000.

-On many issues, mothers and fathers both reported high levels of stress related to advancing their careers while also caring for their families. Child care, the tenure process, and teaching loads were key issues for parents.

(Go Katie O and The Op-Ed Project! And thanks to Rebekah Spicuglia of the Women’s Media Center Daily News Brief for the tips.)

Ok GWP readers out there, make my day. I’m so SAD about missing the BlogHer conference this year (timing, timing) and would still very much like to somehow be involved. So here’s what I’ve come up with: Would anybody who is planning to attend the conference in SF like to do some live-blogging here at GWP while I’m off getting hitched that weekend (July 18-20)? If so, please email me at girlwpen@gmail.com and we can discuss!

Pity party over. And happily back to wedding planning. This weekend Marco and I are staying at the home of the friends whose backyard will be the scene of our wedding–it’s so beautiful here. And I’m getting all verklempt.

So I’ll be signing off now for the weekend. I wish everyone a VERY HAPPY 4th! ENJOY!

Those MotherTalk-ers have got it going on. They’ve just launched a matchmaking service for Books Seeking Reviewers, called Connections. The listings it seems are typically from authors or small presses who are looking for online reviewers but not a full-blown blog tour. To submit your own book for a listing, email info@mother-talk.com with 500 characters or less and include the book title(s) and contact information. To become a reviewer, get in touch with Melissa at melissa@mother-talk.com. Among others, they are currently seeking reviewers for Mama PhD for a blog tour that starts July 30.

And yet another reason I’m BUMMED I won’t be at BlogHer this year: The MotherTalk “First Drink On Us” party at BlogHer on Thursday, July 17th from 5-8 pm at Caruso’s. They’ll be giving away nearly 300 fabulous books, and author Shari MacDonald Strong will be on hand to sign copies of The Maternal Is Political.

I know, I know. I have a good excuse. I’m getting married. (Have I mentioned that?! YIKES – it’s now 2 weeks away!)

My dear fellow WGL (short for WomenGirlsLadies) Kristal Brent Zook wrote a great piece yesterday over at the Women’s Media Center, Blogging While Brown (and Female). In case you missed it, here’s the summary:

In a preview of the “Blogging While Brown” conference (Atlanta, July 25-27), WMC author Kristal Brent Zook spoke with Gina McCauley, founder of www.whataboutourdaughters.blogspot.com and one of the organizers of the upcoming conference. McCauley’s foray into blogging began one year ago, when the Texas-based personal injury attorney was compelled to respond to the demeaning characterizations of black women that she saw making headlines. McCauley’s blog demonstrated the power of individuals to speak out and demand change, when she took on offensive programming from BET. McCauley’s righteous indignation helped to generate a wave of protest, leading BET to reposition, and then cancel, the show.

Then, in the midst of their success, everything changed for supporters of What About Our Daughters as its readers and writers were blindsided by a tragedy that would dramatically alter the tone and content of the site. As Zook reports, a tragedy at Dunbar Village, a West Palm Beach, Florida, public housing complex, helped bloggers at What About Our Daughters and other sites to find their voices on issues of misogyny and violence.

Read the article here.

And by the way, the WGLs (aka, our traveling panel “WomenGirlsLadies: A Fresh Conversation across Generations”) appear next in Washington DC, at the Association of Women in Communications Conference and at Georgetown on September 26. Details coming soon!

Thanks to those of you who wrote in with links for blogs from women’s orgs and research centers–there were bunches I didn’t know about! Like the National Women’s Law Center’s blog, Womenstake, which launched in May 2007. It’s one of my faves, and I’m giving it this month’s Organizational Blog of the Month Award from GWP (I just made that up — you like?!).

What I like about this blog, and what I believe makes it successful (ie, lively! interesting!) as an organizational blog:

1. It has a range of voices. Contributors include legal interns and senior counsel, program assistants and directors, communications staff and law clerks and policy fellows–in other words, not just the executive director.

2. The posts are SHORT (3 paragraphs max) and supertimely.

3. Posts are full of links to items and articles currently in the news as well as to other blogs.

4. They’ve figured out Web 2.0 and social networking (at the bottom of each post you’ll find these options: Digg This! • Save to del.icio.us • Subscribe to this feed • Email this • Share on Facebook)

5. The blog has a sidebar with links to what’s going on at the organization.

Orgs creating blogs: take note! And gratitude to Robin Reed over at NWLC for the heads up.

When I did an image search and found this one, I must admit, at first I thought the champagne glasses were a kid. They’re not. They’re champagne glasses. As in cheers, and celebration. (Um, only child, much?!)

So Mom, Dad, wishing you bubbly and happiness and much nachas and joy in each other today, with love…from your one and only!

Image cred

It’s not often you hear an author says she loves her publisher, but I do. I just got a lovely mailing from mine–a big ole postcard featuring “New Books in Gender Studies from Palgrave Macmillan” and guess what’s smack dab in the middle!

Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild is in great company, flanked by Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminsm, Popular Culture, and the Posthuman Body (a book that has the creepiest cover ever, but I’m pretty sure that’s the point), Stripping, Sex, and Popular Culture, and two more academicy sounding titles: The Gender Politics of Development and Gender, Violence, and Security. Also on their list are The Happy Stripper: Pleasures and Politics of the New Burlesque; Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics; and Third Wave Feminism–the expanded, second edition!–and news of a forthcoming gender series from Linda Martin-Alcoff and Gillian Howie. More info on all of these at www.palgrave-usa.com.

A quick heads up that author Claire Mysko will be reviewing the new anthology from Seal, About Face: Women Write about What They See When They Look in the Mirror, in this space soon! Meanwhile, read more about it at The Seal Press Women’s Interest blog.

A number of folks lately have asked me how to submit essays for these things. Calls for essays are often listed in the back of magazines like Poets & Writers, Writers Digest, and the like. But me? I hear about them mostly through word of mouth, and on listservs like WAM!, and I often post any that come through my Inbox here on GWP. So if you see them, please do send me these announcements and I promise to post them here, to share with all.

And now, another post in the Blog U series from blogger Elizabeth Curtis — this one, on wikis. Enjoy! -GWP

Contribute your expertise to increasing web knowledge through WIKIS.

The internet is quickly becoming the premier information repository that people utilize in their daily life. Here’s how you can help shape what information is available online and how it’s presented by contributing your expertise to the creation and editing of wikis.

Wiki Definition: A wiki is “software that allows users to create, edit, and link web pages easily. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.” From the entry about wikis on Wikipedia: Wikis are used in business to provide intranets and Knowledge Management systems. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as “the simplest online database that could possibly work.” And a note for the linguists among you: Technically speaking, Wiki Wiki” (/wiːkiː wiːkiː/) is a reduplication of “wiki”, a Hawaiian word for “fast”. It has been suggested that “wiki” means “What I Know Is”. However, this is a backronym.

The most popular generalist wiki is Wikipedia. Got suggestions of other wikis you think GWP readers should know about? Please post them in comments.

So ok, now how to jump in.

Step 1: When you are using a wiki to find information and seen an inaccuracy, correct it! As open public-created documents, wikis give you the power to edit erroneous information.

Raise Your Voice: Statistically, female internet users outnumber male internet users. Women are underrepresented, however, as contributors to wikis. This means that women’s voices are left out of the social reality that is created in the catalogues of information wikis contain.

Step 2: Create entries on topics that have been left out of popular wikis.

Women Missing: In a survey of 200 Wikipedia biographies, futurebird found that only 16% were about women. Further, articles on feminist topics were reported to be of poor quality.

Step 3: Start your own wiki on a specific topic.

You can create your own wiki in just a few seconds through one of a number of publicly-available “wiki farms“, some of which can also make private, password-protected wikis. PeanutButterWiki, Socialtext, Wetpaint, and Wikia are popular examples of such services. For more info, see this List of wiki farms compiled by Wikipedia.

And one more thing for you scholars out there: Wikis are currently an active topic of research. Two well-known wiki conferences are

• The International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym)
• Wikimania, the Wikimedia Foundation conference

Happy wiki-ing out there!

This weekend Girls Write Now held a blogging workshop for our girls. Sadly, I had to miss it. But I did a little Q&A with them, which I’m posting here for kicks. – GWP

GWN: How often to post; do you set a schedule for yourself?
DS: I post daily, and I limit myself to spending 1 hour on it each day–usually the first hour of the day, after oatmeal and before heading off to do my work.

GWN: What to post about/ what makes a topic “post-worthy”?
DS: Timeliness, most of all. I use my tagline (“Bridging Feminist Research, Popular Reality, and the Public”) as a filter. If it doesn’t fit within that rubric, however, doesn’t mean I won’t post. I’ve created guidelines for guest posting on Girl with Pen and I try hard to hold myself to those standards as well.

GWP: How do you edit your blog posts?
DS: Quickly. I edit as I go. I’ll preview a post and check for spelling errors and do some quick rewriting. With posts I write for places other than my personal blog, though, I’ll have Marco or my mom (BEST editor ever) read it first.

GWP: How do you get the word out about your blog?
DS: Network, network, network! And here’s my 101 on link love: When you find a blogger you admire, link to them in a post and send them the link. Chances are, they’ll likely check out your blog. Form a relationship with them (comment on theirs, email them them directly). Ask if they’ll consider including you in their blogroll. If the admiration is mutual, you’ve got link love.

GWP will be teaching a blogging & journalism workshop for kids through Writopia Lab in August – more soon!