Yesterday, The Awl pointed out a list on Kikolani.com of the top 125 Fearless Female Bloggers. It’s a long list, but we felt that it might not be quite long enough — some of our favorite music bloggers, feminist muckrakers, and snarky opinionistas didn’t make the cut. Sisters aren’t just doin’ it for themselves, you know. So, of course, we decided to make a list of our own. Below the jump are our picks for 10 fearless female bloggers.
Lauren Beck One of The L Magazine‘s crack music critics and writer for their blog The Measure, Lauren Beck attacks the nebulous and often ridiculous New York music scene with élan and humor. We share her love-hate relationship with Weezer, and we love reading her album reviews, particularly when she conjures up imaginary scenes between famous people. Our favorite recent comparison was Matt & Kim as Brooklyn’s Black Eyed Peas.
Emily Gould Gould tore it up as a blogger for Gawker, and now she’s more or less a free agent, contributing occasionally to the likes of The Awl and n + 1 while running her own site where she posts anything else she feels like writing about. Her video series Cooking the Books, in which she makes meals with current authors, is one of our favorite things. She writes with verve about everything from the Carter family to creamed spinach to her cats, which is the kind of blogging we can get down with.
Jessica Grose The managing editor of Slate’s lady blog Double X, Grose is pop culturally literate, funny, and a good tweeter to boot. Plus, she’s willing to take a stand on feminist issues without the whole thing dissolving into an inter-blog hissy fit type fight (though, please, we like those too).
Amanda Hess As a writer for The Washington City Paper , Hess’s column “The Sexist” took on everything from condom use to abstinence at Catholic University. She’s at TBD now, still providing a brave, interesting look at the messy field of sex and gender issues. Her blogging often hilarious and usually thought-provoking, and sometimes just a little heart-wrenching.
Maura Johnston Former blogger for Idolator, Maura Johnston blogs frequently at places like Village Voice, The Awl, Gawker, and The Daily Beast. Her music writing is razor sharp, and her opinion pieces on Katy Perry and the slow death of American Idol really funny. In fact, go read her countdown with Christopher Weingarten of the worst songs of the year. You won’t regret it.
Molly Lambert Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording, an alt-pop culture blog that considers things like the collected criticism of Pauline Kael and the borough of Brooklyn. We particularly like her television writing, which neatly skewers the bizarre tropes of sitcoms, and her collections of relevant gifs.
Ann Powers Pop music critic for the LA Times and blogger for Pop & Hiss on the paper’s website, Powers is a compelling and ferocious voice in a field dominated by dude rockists. She’s whip-smart and also co-wrote a book with Tori Amos about the women in music. What’s not to like?
Moe Tkacik Tkacik raised a storm of controversy with some of her antics as a blogger for Jezebel (a sister site of Gawker’s she also co-founded), and after a hiatus she’s back and blogging for the Washington City Paper . Aside from her counterintuitive takes on lady issues, Tkacik is a great finance reporter, explaining the dry-as-burnt-toast news from Wall Street in a tone that’s lively and avoids condescending to us non-economically literate plebs.
Mary Elizabeth Williams Entertainment and pop culture writer for Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams offers considered opinions on the most relevant issues of our time: Justin Bieber’s hair, for example, and M.I.A.’s ginger-killing new videos. After a recent diagnosis of skin cancer, Williams detailed the harrowing process of treatment and recovery in posts as unflinching as they were mesmerizing.
Edith Zimmerman Former Vulture blogger and current head of The Awl’s new sister site The Hairpin, Zimmerman is the kind of blogger that we’d like to have a beer with. She’s irreverent, clever, and unabashed in sharing some of her less successful experiences for the sake of a good post. See: “My Quiet, Mostly Disgusting Adventures with Natural Deodorant”.
Who would you add? Leave ’em in the comments