Friday femme fatales

In answer to that endlessly circulating question "where are all the female bloggers?", I've decided to make a small weekly collection that answers: HERE!

Why "femme fatales"? Because these are killer posts.

This week's is drawn from my own blogroll, but in the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger (and no I'm not doing chromosome tests so I can only do by self-identification) and think "that deserves a wider audience", send me an email (natalieben at gmail dot com) or drop a comment here.

I'm trying to get a wide sample of subjects and approaches, as I hope this selection indicates. This is not only about blogging on "women's topics". I'm going to limit it to ten, to make it manageable.

So this week's ten (in no particular order - this isn't a competition):

* Shakespeare's Sister directly, and passionately, addresses the refusal of male bloggers to link to women.

* Green fairy has an unpleasant encounter with the "old" media, in the form of her appearance in Marie Claire, in between "Murder in Suburbia" and "Sandra Bullock".

* Veiled4allah briskly dismisses the claim that jihad means simply "holy war".

* Echidne of the snakes sees how the US Budget debate has exposed the fact that "some Republicans really are Democrats and some Democrats are Republicans".

* In response to the claim that women don't like to get into arguments, Bitch PhD leaps up to say: I DO!

* On Break of Day in the Trenches Esther describes her role in the naming of a bus after a local war hero.

* On Early Modern Notes Sharon explores what Women's History Month does and should mean.

* Real E Fun is a non-religious funeral celebrant who is an absolutely inspiring, unmissable read. (Really!) In this post she's attempting a little neighbourhood match-making.

* Patia Stephens, in a heart-wrenching post, describes what it has been like to "struggle with beauty for what feels like my whole life".

* Melinama recalls a disastrous St Patrick's Day, in which her idea of Irish music was found to be not in concord with those of Florida partygoers, then how a visit to a funeral parlour led her to change her mind about "Danny Boy".

P.S. My hit level is only modest (60 to 80 a weekday, since you asked), but I am also going to post this on Blogcritics, where it will hopefully garner a much wider audience.