Internet, Women | featured news

Sheryl Sandberg's explosive "Lean In" — a muscular manifesto on the gender inequities of the professional world — is being published within weeks of the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique." It's a convergence destined to invite disparaging comparisons, to prompt people to holler about how they knew Betty Friedan and that Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook and one of the most powerful women in the tech world, is no Betty Friedan.

"There are some problems with this binder," complains Ruth from New Hampshire. "First, there are no women in it." A remark made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney during Tuesday's debate brought us a meme that just keeps on giving.

I’m sure you’ve all seen the gaudy statistics when it comes to the gender split of Pinterest’s following – anything ranging from 72% to a staggering 97% of its user base has been reported as female.

Marissa Mayer's move from Google exec to Yahoo! CEO made her one of the most powerful women in the tech industry. Her announcement just three hours later that she's expecting her first child made her "the most powerful pregnant woman in America," says Lisa Belkin of The Huffington Post.

A boom in users on the social media site — and the fact that more than two-thirds are women — is attracting political messages to the site best known for recipes, crafts and I-want-that images. In political persuasion, as in marketing, "it's always the next big hot thing," says Zac Moffatt, digital director for Republican Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. "And it's kind of hot right now."

The site, which allows users to pin images of products they like on online scrapbooks, has seen its traffic grow almost sevenfold in five months and is ranked by one research firm as the No. 3 social network behind Facebook and Twitter.

Like many expectant mothers these days, Autumn Yates posted updates about her pregnancy on Facebook. “It’s nice for my extended family to see pictures from time to time of me getting bigger and little comments like, ‘34-week check-up went well!’ ” said Yates, 29, a Spanish teacher from Oakton. “I don’t see anything wrong with that. I think there is kind of a line sometimes, though.”

It wasn't what you would call a casual get-together.  A popular New York blogger attended a brunch with fellow "frazzled moms." They took in tips from a style expert and listened to a nurse extol the virtues of Mirena, a birth control device sold by Bayer Healthcare.  The nurse was on Bayer's payroll.

A report from comScore paints a clear picture of the information superhighway, and women are in the driver’s seat. Statistics related to social Web use show more women visit social networking sites than men (75.8% of women vs. 69.7% of men). Furthermore, women spend 30% more time on social networking sites than men do.

If an agency has ever pitched you on outreach to women's blogs and they don't mention the BlogHer network, there's something wrong with them. BlogHer and its 2,500 contributing blog affiliates are celebrating the network's 5 year anniversary with the combined traffic of 21 million unique visitors per month and some huge lessons learned along the way.