Amanda Marcotte

AMANDA MARCOTTE

Place of birth : El Paso, Texas

Amanda Marcotte, 32, is an American blogger best known for her writing on feminism and politics. Amanda runs one of the most talked about feminism and politics blogs. Marcotte shot to fame when John Edwards asked her to run the presidential blog.

While an employee of the University of Texas at Austin, she began a blog called Mouse Words, which focused on both music and feminism. Having won the Koufax award for Best New Blog of 2004 for her work on the site, she began to write for the popular weblog Pandagon, one of the first feminist blogs.

Amanda has written about political differences with her small-town family. In any case staunch union-supporting retirees like my in-laws and Catholics like my parents are precisely the kinds of voters that no Democratic candidate for President can afford to risk alienating, and putting someone like Amanda Marcotte in such a high visibility position in Edwards campaign risked doing just that.

Fortunately for Edwards, this happened so early and lasted such a short time that it probably won’t hurt him much–not that it matters much in terms of my deciding what candidates I can and can’t support, given that there never was (and still isn’t) any scenario that I can imagine under which I see myself ever voting for John Edwards On January 30, 2007, the John Edwards 2008 presidential campaign hired Marcotte to act as the campaign’s blogmaster.

Soon afterward, many bloggers began to quote Marcotte’s blog, especially posts in which she attacked the Catholic Church’s position on birth control and access to abortion. Her comments about other people’s faiths could well be construed as hate speech.

Amanda consciously or unconsciously contributed greatly in raising the reputation of blogs, and the impact of blogs can no longer be understimated.

I do not believe Amanda started her blog out of a desire to make money. I think she started her blog out of a need and a passion to express her ideals. As a result of this initiative, she was able assemble a readership, and create a buzz around the “touchy” subject matters she was not afraid to tackle.

A few thoughts to retain from Amanda’s success story…..

Are you passionate about what you do? What are your convictions…can you take a stand for them?

“Be strong and follow your own convictions. You can’t assume there is a lot of time to do what you like. This is what David Bowie is afraid of: that he will die before he gets a chance to make a real strong contribution.”
Marc Bolan

“Follow your honest convictions and be strong.”
William Makepeace Thackeray

“Have convictions. Be friendly. Stick to your beliefs as they stick to theirs. Work as hard as they do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Speaking about convictions…here are a few books from Amanda:

Get Opinionated: A Progressive’s Guide to Finding Your Voice (and Taking a Little Action)

It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments