Suffering from "Neutrality Obsession"

Somewhere in Tehran, Selma has come back to tell us that her blog came up 8th, in a recent survey based on 8000 readers voting to pick the best 100 blogs from among 1040 Iranian women bloggers.

I'm not surprised. Selma is a poet and translator and her blog entries, while often rare in appearance, are always imbued with her very luminescent talent.

She says:

"One thing to remember here is that not all blogs written by Iranian women were included in this survey. The women bloggers are thousands, literally. But many of them have to conceal their identities because of the content of their weblogs. At the gathering we were representing a very small part of the population of women bloggers in Iran. We were more or less among those who keep their content “safe” and out of most of the political and legal issues.

In that sense I think I’m suffering from neutrality obsession. Every post I write, I have to keep checking and double checking it to make sure I’m not getting myself into any kind of trouble. Specially since I use my real name and identity.

I’m hoping someday, every woman in Iran would feel safe and free to stand up for her weblog … no matter what she writes about, or how openly she protests or expresses herself, politically, socially, personally or sexually …"

The blogpost includes a small photo gallery of the blogger's event. Please take a look.