Nominations open for Campaign for Gender Balance Blog Awards (CAMPAIGN FOR GENDER BALANCE)

CAMPAIGN FOR GENDER BALANCE <info@genderbalance.org.uk>

Nominations open for Campaign for Gender Balance Blog Awards

December 20, 2007 8:00 AM

Ros Taylor is an editor on the Guardian's Comment is Free website.

By Ros Taylor. I was delighted when the Campaign for Gender Balance asked me to help judge the first Gender Balance Blog Awards - and relieved, because the dearth of women blogging about politics has had an uncivilising effect on the internet. Too many established bloggers, unconsciously or otherwise, consider the web a perfectly egalitarian place where women suffer no discrimination and should not expect special treatment.

You have until 1 February to submit your nominations

Unfortunately, like every other utopia, that meritocracy simply doesn't exist. Call it an innate unwillingness to pronounce on subjects in which we don't have a doctorate, blame it on a lack of time, point to the lack of women at the highest levels of politics - whatever the cause, and despite the best efforts of a few individuals, the political blogosphere is still dominated by men. On a few non-Liberal Democrat blogs, scepticism about female bloggers has hardened into outright misogyny.

So the judges - Jo Swinson MP, Ros Harper, Olly Grender, James Graham, Baroness Jane Bonham-Carter and me, an editor at the Guardian's Comment is Free - are looking for entries in four categories, of which we will judge three: the best blog and blog posting by a woman Lib Dem and the best blog by a woman outside of the party. The fourth category, the people's choice, will be chosen by you in a popular vote.

Nominations close on Friday February 1 and the shortlist will be published a week later. After you've had a chance to vote, the winners will be announced at Spring Conference in Liverpool.

If you already have a blog, tell us about it. If you don't, why not start one now? Rarely has politics been so interesting. With a new Lib Dem leader, an embattled Prime Minister, financial turmoil and the polls going haywire, the time is ripe to weigh in. If a voice over your shoulder is whispering that you have nothing to say, then hush it. Cultivating opinions, and defending them, is the sine qua non of politics, and that's exactly what blogging is all about. Shame we can't call them the Orange Prizes, though.