Blogging and Pseudonymity
Today I learned that The Chronicles of Dr. Crazy have ended, but the author has started a new blog, also pseudonymous, here. She explains here that while her "Dr. Crazy" pseudonymity allowed her to a sense of freedom to talk about her personal life, it also meant that she couldn't write "in a real or authentic way about [her] research or about the material [she] teach[es]...." Instead, she felt she had to "fabricate and embroider in ways that are obfuscating," so that her real identity would not be revealed. She considered revealing her true "meet space" identify on the blog. However, last semester she picked up a malicious troll who almost caused her to stop blogging altogether, and that reminder about "the number of weirdos in the world," in conjunction with her untenured status make her unwilling to blog under her real name. Her solution has been to start fresh with a new pseudonymous blog at which she will "feel free to talk about exactly what [she's] working on and what [she's] teaching and how [she's] doing those things."
I'm glad she's going to continue to blog, and I'm really happy that she will discuss her academic life in more detail, because her observations about teaching, scholarship, and the culture of academe as she experiences it are very interesting. Though I completely understand her reasons for remaining pseudonymous, I'm sorry she won't be joining the "real namers" of the feminist blog world - terrific, erudite, feisty folks like Lauren and Jill at Feministe, Amanda Marcotte and Pam Spaulding at Pandagon, Roxanne Cooper at Rox Populi, Jessica Valenti, Vanessa Valenti, Samhita Mukhopadhyay, and Ann Friedman of Feministing, Lindsay Beyerstein at Majikthise, Morgaine Swann at The-Goddess, and Elayne Riggs at Pen-Elayne. These women, and many others like them, are really reaching people with their blogs, and making wonderful positive contributions to the feminist movement.
I enjoy blogs like Bitch, Ph.D., Echidne of the Snakes, Pinko Feminist Hellcat, One Good Thing, Angry Black Bitch, and The Happy Feminist, but I dread the inevitable day it is discovered that a seemingly feminist pseudonymous blogger is actually an anti-feminist man, who has been lying profusely and manipulatively about his background, a la James Frey or Asa "Forrest" Carter, or JT Leroy. I don't think this is a very likely outcome with respect to Dr. Bitch, Echidne, Sheezlebub, Flea, Shark-Fu, or Happy, but their pseudonymity also precludes them from evolving into the visible, "public intellectual" feminist leaders that they certainly seem to otherwise have the drive and talent to become. Sometimes I wonder how much energy and sleep they lose worrying about having their true identities revealed, or how much trying to avoid identifiable disclosures causes them to self-censor, or even lie about their lives.
I know something about the perils of blogging under my own name. The abuse I received from some "readers" is part of the reason this blog doesn't have a "comments" function operational right now. Siva is considering bringing back comments, and I'm thinking about how I will handle the trolls, as I continue to field the occasional harassing phone calls and e-mails that didn't stop when the comments did. The feminist "real name" bloggers give me courage, and they give me hope, and I applaud and thank them for that with all my heart.