Ladies! Gentlemen! You may have noticed, I think, some changes on this our Tiger Beatdown. For one, you may have noticed that an increasing number of posts Not By Me have been appearing on the site! For two, you may have noticed that some new names, and a brand-spanking new e-mail address, are now listed in our sidebar.
But why? What could have caused such a thing? Who can you blame? Change is scary! Such are the things I imagine you all to be saying. And by “you all,” I mean “my grandmother,” and by “imagine you to be saying,” I mean “hope she never reads this site.” That may or may not line up grammatically, and, if I may reveal to you some top-secret information, the fact is that I do not care. I’m busy. Because Tiger Beatdown is bringing on new writers!
Here, in case you are on Google Reader and therefore cannot see the sidebar because you are A MONSTER and make EVERYTHING HARDER, are the contributors we currently have!
- C.L. Minou, our Senior Contributor, whose accomplishments include contributing to Feministe, Below the Belt, and the Guardian’s Comment is Free, running The Second Awakening, and taking charge of the template re-vamp we oh, so sorely needed.
- Garland Grey, whose accomplishments include being the only contributor ever to come on staff as the result of a single guest post (we make everyone else do at least two! But this one just worked), being a total nerd in the best sense, and running Garlandgrey.com.
- B. Michael Payne, whose accomplishments are many and varied, and are often linked to or mentioned at his Tumblr.
- AND THE REST! Meaning me, Sady Doyle, editor-in-chief and founder. My many accomplishments (by which I mean, of course, “blog posts, on the Internet”) are typically mentioned, with links, at my Twitter.
Now, since there are several of us, it no longer makes sense for all of the correspondence for the site to be directed to me, Sady; nor does it make sense for that correspondence to wind up in the same e-mail account where I plan drinks with friends and check out the cute pictures my mother just sent me of her cats. Therefore, PR people, readers with tips, and other assorted hooligans are invited to send your correspondence to our new address, tbd.ladybusiness@gmail.com.
Oh, but there’s more! We need MORE contributors! MORE writers! And I have the sneaking suspicion that at least some of them could be YOU! Yes, that’s right. Do your hobbies include:
- Writing frequent blog posts that are funny and incisive?
- Having an appealing and unique voice that meshes with the other voices around here, while not being identical to any one of them?
- Doing theory that is well past the 101 level?
- Meeting deadlines?
- Reading and responding to group e-mails about stuff we need to get done on this here website?
- Feminism?
Well, in that case, please do submit an idea for a Tiger Beatdown Guest Post! (To, again, tbd.ladybusiness@gmail.com.) If we accept your idea, you’ll be encouraged to write a guest post of between 800 to 1,000 words. And if that goes well, I will edit it and post it to the site! You may then be asked to do further guest posts, and audition a little bit more, and ultimately find your name on that proud Roster of Contributors mentioned above. I would really look forward to that, to be honest with you!
As to further information about what we’re looking for: Careful readers will note that the Tiger Beatdown Roster is 50% dudes and 50% ladies, at the moment. We are really looking to bring on additional ladies, before we bring on any more dudes. Not that more dudes wouldn’t be welcome, in the future! I just want to keep Tiger Beatdown leaning the lady way. We are also tragically short on guest posts and contributors who happen to be women of color. Which is, as many have pointed out, a recurring and serious problem for lady blogs. I would say it is probably more of a serious problem for Tiger Beatdown than for others, because as far as I am aware all of the women who have ever contributed or guest-posted have been white! That is one fucking obnoxious track record we have! So, ladies of color are particularly encouraged to pitch us.
Other than that: Uh, funny people? We tend to prefer those? People with areas of expertise we don’t share, but which could somehow be shoehorned into the concept of “pop culture?” Nice people? People with whom Sady Doyle has never had screaming Internet fights???? (And, suddenly, the list of potential contributors became 98.7% smaller.) I don’t know, lady. Just go ahead and pitch us! It’s easy! You never know what will happen next!
29 Comments
i will have a hard time adjusting to men posting about ladybusiness? i really enjoyed reading their guest posts, but that’s not really what i come here for. this will be interesting!
@Erin: Here’s the funny thing — a ton of the people who pitched us, when I first started soliciting posts, were dudes! And Garland is really funny and smart, and B. Michael is really smart and funny, and both of them were just the easiest to work with, and I thought they added a lot of value to the conversation. Plus: B. Michael is schooled in, amongst other things, philosophy and music to a degree that no-one else on the site is. And Garland is, I believe, officially schooled in Psychology, but also he can discuss comics, Star Wars, and Vampire: The Masquerade (Garland: We should DISCUSS THIS SUBJECT, in a private fashion) with a certain passion and erudition that I find charming and cannot match. So that broadens the range of subjects we can post on, considerably, which is good, because otherwise it would be like 20,000 posts about Tina Fey and Ke$ha. And I think I am now the only person on the TBD staff that doesn’t have a Masters’ in something or other? But, yeah: I think it’s good to have feminist men on board, as well as feminist women. That doesn’t mean feminist women, and particularly pro-lady women of color, should not be pitching the hell out of us right now! However!
This is exciting and wonderful! Yay change! I am thrilled to see what new fun things happen here.
And someday I may request to write a guest post, if’n I ever get through my law finals with any sort of brain matter intact. And I get better at this writing blog posts thing. It is an elusive art. But it would be an honor to post on the site of Sady fucking Doyle. Sady, thanks for making this such an inclusive place.
Awesome. I believe you and I have never had a screaming internet-fight, Sady, so to my Gmail drafts I go…
I am not on the Google Reader, and yet I have no sidebar…? Where is my sidebar?
lizm: the sidebar is only visible on the main page, not individual posts.
LizM: It looks to me like the sidebar shows up on the home page but not on the individual article pages?
Hey, I’m working on accepting change here. I’m working on it but I’m your grandmother sometimes, can’t help it.
Might work up the curage to pitch even.
/Anna-Frida all the way from Sweden
Over at Womanist Musings, a commenter made the excellent point that older women tend not to be represented at the feminist blogs. I don’t know how one blog can be expected to be the alpha and the omega, especially if the pitches just aren’t there, but, eh, I did take zie’s comment to be worthwhile.
By the way, did you see this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n3ow4I8L08
My favorite tv-series hands down, it has problems in the sexism department but is bloody awsome compared to most stuff and that girl is Katie FUCKING Fitch!
While I have not had any screaming matches with Sady Fucking Doyle (yay!), I’m yon typical white middle-class mid-20s feminist, who doesn’t write all that much (boo!).
So I will just have to enjoy by reading, as per usual, and giving up my $10 whenever Sady Fucking Doyle wants it.
@Maggie – My motivation is when people depend on me. I’m also a typical white middle class mid 20s lady but I’m pitching myself anyways… I can post about video games and the software industry, which you know to me is the ONLY pop culture there is ;P
I shall look forward to more writing, by Sady F. Doyle or otherwise! This is one of the best blogs I read, and that is saying something, because I read a lot of blogs. Keep up the Beatdown.
This is exciting! I enjoyed Garland Grey’s post about the de-gaying phenomenon, and I consistently enjoy B. Michael’s comments. And hopefully this means that you won’t be as stressed out, Sady. So change is good!
@Sady: Yep. B.S. in Psychology from Texas A&M University. I hang it next to the CERTIFICATE OF HONOR the steakhouse gave me when I ate all those hotdogs in a row.
I wish you luck.
Small question… is the invitation open for international feminists? Because although I am much interested in many of your topics my point of view is… well, very different. Discussion which are so heated in here, at home are not even understood (male and men studies are very good example of it).
So?
man, I’ve been really procrastinating about finishing my pitch, but I promise it’ll be good! maybe! oh god, I would make a fuckawful contributor anyway. procrastination up the wazoo.
plus, my post is about nerds. who hasn’t written about how much nerds suck? am I a football coach now?
With all these changes, I was wondering if perhaps posts might start to be tagged/categorized?
@Eneya What Sady has communicated to the contributors is that she is interested in pulling in as many perspectives as humanly possible – to avoid recycling the same dialogue that permeates the feminist discourse. I think an international perspective would definitely be appreciated on the Beatdown.
@Garlandgrey
I thought so but I prefer to ask – just in case. 🙂
Thanks for the response. 🙂
“With all these changes, I was wondering if perhaps posts might start to be tagged/categorized?”
I second that. It would also be really, really helpful if the contributor name appeared at the top of the page (I access the site from an RSS feed so I never see the sidebar).
@Andy G: It does, now! Look above! And, yes, we’re going to start tagging posts more often.
I’m white-looking, and I guess white-writing? but I’m actually white on my Dad’s side and American Indian on my mom’s side.
I’m sure you didn’t have time to read it, and I totally don’t blame you because I know you are very busy and, hell, you might just have been like, “That Chelsea is sooooo 101-level, I can’t believe I ever asked her to write anything,” but I wrote something in honor of Columbus Day that I sent to you last November that talked about my Indianness some. Not that I’m saying you should have posted it, because it seriously was too personal and more the sort of thing that should have been posted to my own damn blog.
I’m sure I come off kind of bitter in this comment, but I assure you I’m not, and I still love Tiger Beatdown and your writing in particular, Sady. But I just wanted to mention that I did a guest post once, and I’m not (entirely) white.
Oh, I guess I meant October, looking back at my gmail. One of those months, you know, toward the end of the year.
“With all these changes, I was wondering if perhaps posts might start to be tagged/categorized?”
I second that. It would also be really, really helpful if the contributor name appeared at the top of the page (I access the site from an RSS feed so I never see the sidebar).
@Eneya What Sady has communicated to the contributors is that she is interested in pulling in as many perspectives as humanly possible – to avoid recycling the same dialogue that permeates the feminist discourse. I think an international perspective would definitely be appreciated on the Beatdown.
Oh, I guess I meant October, looking back at my gmail. One of those months, you know, toward the end of the year.
“With all these changes, I was wondering if perhaps posts might start to be tagged/categorized?”
I second that. It would also be really, really helpful if the contributor name appeared at the top of the page (I access the site from an RSS feed so I never see the sidebar).
@Eneya What Sady has communicated to the contributors is that she is interested in pulling in as many perspectives as humanly possible – to avoid recycling the same dialogue that permeates the feminist discourse. I think an international perspective would definitely be appreciated on the Beatdown.