Lynne Featherstone

Two postings today that have caught my eye - as they mention myself!

First - Alex Foster on that issue of the moment - the monarchy and sexism.

Second - Jo Swinson has her latest piece publicising the (Lib Dem) Campaign for Gender Balance blog awards.

The existence of these awards has caused a bit of a fuss I know (why have awards just for female bloggers?) - but I think they are a good idea in highlighting good female blogs and in encouraging other women to blog. The proportion of Lib Dem political bloggers who are female - for example - is much lower than the proportion of our members who are female or our councillors who are female and so on. I could write all night on the different possible reasons for this, but overall - to me it says that there's something here worth doing a little to remedy.

If the Lib Dem blogosphere is an expression of views from across the party, it's good if that expression reflects reasonably the different parts of the party - new and experienced, elected representatives and armchair members, young and old and so on - all the different characteristics which can lead to different views and perspectives and yes - that also include male and female.

So yes - some encouragement is good. I didn't need the existence of such awards to encourage me to blog obviously - but similar awards in other areas do have a good impact in encouraging greater diversity. So here's hoping that these awards too do their own bit to help move us forward.