You know when something is spreading online when your friends ask you about it spontaneously. That's how I heard about feminist Robin Morgan's online rallying cry for Hillary Clinton, "Goodbye To All That (#2)," which has been circulating widely since she posted it on the Women's Media Center website on February 2nd. And then Chelsea Clinton started forwarding it around...

At the New York Times, Katharine Seelye wrote Monday, "Are more men engaged in politics online than women, and if so, why?" Is it, as commenter Michael writes,

Because men are more interested in wasting time in debating abstract ideas, principles, and other high-sounding but vaporous stuff. Women are more interested in the concrete work of dealing with real people and real relationships...

I'm cross-posting two posts from BlogHer.com, both of which highlight Conservative womens' blogs.

My Republican co-editor Dana Tuske started out with this mission: "Since so many Republican bloggers are men, my idea became a quest for female conserva-bloggers."

Her finds range from the lame and venal.

Gender is seeping into discussion of the netroots in a major way. As today’s Washington Post quotes Yearly Kos Executive Director Gina Cooper on her conference: "It's mostly white. More male than female," says the former high school math and science teacher turned activist. "It's not very diverse."

Indeed, there’s a growing chorus bubbling up online. I think Garance Franke-Ruta summed it up brilliantly with the title of her recent Yearly Kos panel: “Blogging while Female.” Political blogging, while female, is not the norm.

The candidate most effective at reaching women online will have a serious edge in the primary election. Why? More women vote than men. More women are online than men. Given the importance of reaching women online, all of the presidential campaigns have weak online operations for targeting women. Women make the key difference to primary victories, and although each presidential campaign has staff focused on women, they are doing very little to effectively target women online.