If you follow the parent blogging world at all, you can’t have failed to have noticed the launch of the MADs Awards. That stands for Mums And Dads. You can read about them here. Stage 1 was nominations, when anyone could nominate anyone. And we did. Literally hundreds of blogs were nominated. We’re now at Stage 2. The most popular 5 blogs in each category have been named, and we’re all invited to vote on those top 5. Voting closes on 6th June.

When I looked at the list of finalists, I was very struck by the preponderance of Dads. Don’t get me wrong. There are some very fine Daddy bloggers out there, and their presence adds to the parent blogging mix. But I’m honestly a little puzzled why they feature quite so prevalently in the awards. I mean, it can’t be, can it, that they’re really so very much better than the Mummy bloggers?

Do the maths with me, if you will. There are 50 finalists. That’s 5 in each of the 9 categories, and 5 nominated for overall Best Blogger of the Year. Of these, 8 are male. That’s 16%. You’re thinking that’s not a very high percentage? Well, let’s put it against the percentage of Dad bloggers in the parent blogosphere, which I’ve taken to be British Mummy Bloggers. BMB has over 1,300 members now, and there are around 25 Dads. That works out at less than 2%. Is that 2% really so gifted that they deserve the disproportionate 16% of finalist places? If the ratios were proportionate, there would be over 200 Dad members of BMB – nearly 10 times the actual number. And what about this? For the top accolade of Best Blogger of the Year, they are in the majority. Yes, 3 out of the 5 nominees for Best Blogger are Dads. Is it not surprising, in any sphere, if a 2% minority of the population produces 3 out of the 5 candidates for top recognition?
What to make of this? Well, I’d like to be really angry about it, because that would have given the opportunity for a clever title to this post along the lines of “Why I’m truly a MAD finalist”. But I find it hard to be angry, because the awards have been designed very democratically. Bloggers nominated fellow bloggers, so who can we point the finger of sexism at here? It’s at ourselves, isn’t it? And when I look at myself, I can see how that happens. It’s partly the novelty value of a man’s viewpoint in what is predominantly a woman’s world. A Dad blogger arrests the attention, as a woman in the board room does, or a lady doctor used to (did we really call them that?). They stand out simply for being different.

I think it’s more than that, though. I sense in myself something that wants to reward a man for being a good father more than a woman for being a good mother (and I’m not, by that, implying that blogging equates to good parenthood). If I see a father accompanying his child on a school field trip, I feel that he must be a good dad, as he’s taken a day off work to do so. If I see a mother who has a full-time job on a field trip, do I feel the same? I don’t think I do. How often have I read in the blogosphere of a mum who is going away for a week-end on her own, and there’ll be a comment “How lovely that your partner is so supportive and is happy to look after the children on his own for a whole week-end”. Do we feel the same way when a husband goes away? I don’t think we do. I know a lot of this stuff is wrapped up in practicalities, bread-winning, role patterns and daily norms, and of course it may be a bigger hurdle for the woman to let go of her parental responsibilities and duties than for the man to step up to them (I’ll put my hand up to that one.) But at an emotional level, I think we love to love a man who’s being a father, more than we allow ourselves to love ourselves for being mothers.

It’s the same syndrome by which men who are chefs or primary school teachers seem to do so well in those careers. It’s almost as if we’re so flattered that these individuals will enter our women’s world, that we want to reward them with our favour. I know it’s more complicated than that. Those men may typically have more time to devote to their careers, or may be more ambitious, or may value promotion and publicity more than their female colleagues. But I do also sense that there’s some kind of self-destruct button that we women press, to allow them to thrive so successfully. It seems we get all star-struck by the dads in our female midst, and assume that their voices are more worth listening to than our own, and that their achievements are more valuable.

It’s interesting to see which other categories the men fared well in. There’s 1 nominated for Best Writer, 2 for Most Innovative Blog, and 2 for Funniest Blog. Am I reading too much into these to see them as representing the characteristics that we admire in men? Perhaps. I don’t want to get carried away here. I hesitated to write this post. It’s going to sound awfully like sour grapes if I don’t win, isn’t it? That’s why I’m publishing it now, before we know who the winners are. Of course I’d love it if you voted for me, but I hope this post will persuade you to do so on the basis of my writing, not my gender – because that would miss the point rather, wouldn’t it?

Iota Manhattan blogs at Not Wrong, Just Different and is a UK-to-US transplant. She describes herself as “an erstwhile civil servant, then fundraiser (arts and voluntary sector). Now Mum/Mom at home.” She likes reading, going to the cinema and a good cup of tea.