An unsolicited, somewhat spammy-looking email I received this morning said:
Greetings!
Dust off your shelf and make room for a Chapeau Blog Award!Be one of the first to enter the exclusive Chapeau Blog Award contest, solely dedicated to honoring the creative and inspired art of blogging.
Entering is an easy 2 step process.
Step 1
Enter one or many of the 12 industry categories.
There is a fit for each and every blog, including:
- Arts & Design
- Technology
- Marketing & Advertising
- Hobbies
- Travel & Leisure
- Entertaining
- Health & Beauty
- Parenting
- Real Estate & Development
- Finance
- News
- Web Design & Development
[rest of the email snipped for irrelevance to this post]
A fit for every blog? Really?
Personally I see a lot of things missing. Politics, anyone? Music? Food? And yet “Web Design & Development” is a separate category from “Technology.” And what does “Entertaining” mean?
And, of course, the perennially-missing-from-everything category: sexuality.
But I can’t say I’m surprised. We’ve been there before. I used to get really angry but mostly at this point I’m just sad and deflated, and frustrated at how people seem so invested in maintaining the negative compartmentalization of sexuality - and always, the ones who hurt the most are women, queer folks, trans folks, and anyone with non-traditional (whatever that means anyway!) sexuality.
I know these awards don’t matter - I mean WTF is this, anyway? - but it’s not about these particular awards. It’s about a pattern. But I’ve said that before, too.
ETA: Ren, I’m going to need a new Typical file!
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