In my niche – personal finance, I can only really think of one top female blogger out of the group that comprises “full time” bloggers. Even below that it seems the majority of personal finance bloggers in general are male. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe men place a higher value on personal finance, or is it, in your opiinion that more men blog? I suppose I don’t have any answers, just questions.

Personally it doesn’t make any difference to me what sex the blogger is as long as they’re providing interesting content. I certainly do not respect male bloggers any more than their female counterparts.

How do you feel about this now? I know you didn’t hire James only because you thought she was a man, but it was one of the determining factors. Do you feel duped?

I wonder how many others hired James because they wanted a male voice and now feel duped. I doubt it will happen but if James misrepresented it can be gounds for a lawsuit.

Thanks again, Deb. And since you’re going to be keeping an eye on the biz, you’re going to need these *hands her a pair of sunglasses*. It’s looking mighty bright out there.

I want to thank you for coming and telling your side of the story. I’m sure it took a lot of guts since there’s so much publicity about this right now. I’ll be watching to see how well your business takes off. Would you ever be interested in writing about the differences between working as Harry and working as Deb? I think it would make for a very interesting read.

I think you raise some very good questions in general about the importance of trust and authenticity in any business. I also think there is a difference between a professional business relationship and personal friendships and in the world of blogging a lot of times those distinctions begin to blur, making it confusing. Personal bloggers have every right in the world to take on pen names, hide behind characters and create any fantasy world they desire. When it comes to doing business…well, it can become a gray zone to some people’s way of thinking. We have entered a time of discloser for every little detail. Sigh. Accountability and Disclosure in business has really been ratcheted up in the last year. I commend Deb and James both for knowing when enough was enough each in their own way. Deb is a quieter person who preferred to just go quietly into the night and James..well, I think Copyblogger yesterday speaks for itself.

They both had the right to handle it in their own way in what worked best for them. As for their work ethic and professionalism. As a past client of MwP who worked closely with Harry/Deb, there was always the highest level of service and integrity, the pen name/ gender issue didn’t effect the quality of work in any way in my opinion and when I found out about both of them, knowing they were a different gender didn’t change the previous opinions I held about each of them regarding their work ethics. It didn’t change a thing. Both of them are exactly the same.

Having said that, I spoke with James at length about this whole idea early on, just after they made the switch from JCME to MwP. It was after I discovered who James was. Even then, she believed that gender played a big role in their success. There was no talk back then of being outed or anything like that. In fact, I had a discussion with her last year about coming out on purpose in order to generate some heat, and she was against it. Whatever else may be going on here, it’s not about PR. I can promise you that.

There are other elements of your theory that are off, but I’ll leave those to others to discuss (or not) as I’ve got no real dog in this fight myself.

Now, before I go much further, let me make it perfectly clear: I am not doing this to start any kind of flame war, nor am I doing it for the publicity. If I wanted that, I would have done it a long, long time ago. ‘Nuff said.

Men with Pens started as an experiment. Most of my ideas start out that way, with a simple “What if?” James and I had two businesses at the time and I posed the question “What if we presented one business as men? You think it would do better?”

At the time, I had a day job. A very good one. Working for an advertising agency doing graphics here in Vegas. I am not a mom. Have no kids, so my motivation had nothing to do with supporting a family. Just me, and the opportunity to do something more worthwhile than “working for da man” (or woman – it’s just a manner of speech).

Although James is a very talented writer, the ball didn’t start rolling until we put up our first redesign. After that, the graphics jobs started coming in fast and furious. And you know what? It had nothing to do with whether or not we were men or women. The work spoke for itself.

This was great. I don’t think there’s a single one of you here who wouldn’t have been happy to see that happen to yourselves.

There were several times over the years where I suggested that we let go of the pen names. But James was the one calling the shots, and I abided by the rules of the game. Tell no one. And I didn’t. For many years.

A coming out, if handled properly, could have had a very positive spin instead of what we’re seeing now. We had a lot of offers from a few top names to handle the PR on this. Still, the answer was no.

When I resigned from MwP in early November of this year, it wasn’t because I felt in any way, shape or form “over my head”. I’d had enough of the personal conflicts that James and I fought so hard to keep out of the public eye.

All I wanted to do was go quietly and start over on my own merits. There was no motive for revenge involved, only the desire to recover and build myself up using the skills and talents the world already knew I had.

Was it scary? Hell yeah. How do you start over when the blogosphere is really a lot smaller than everyone thinks it is? Out of respect for James’ position, I couldn’t use any of the work I’d done over the past 5 years. People aren’t stupid, anyone could put two and two together. In fact, many already had.

And you know what? Nobody really cared. That’s it, the bottom line right there. There were also quite a few people who knew the truth already and I ended up being the one shocked to find out that they did.

I can’t help but understand what many public figures go through now. Everyone making assumptions about what went wrong, who was to blame, who was responsible for forcing who’s hand and whatnot.

That’s all it is, though. Assumptions. Unless you were there, you’ll never know what the real truth of the matter is/was. And even the two people telling that story will have their own perspectives.

James has her own reasons for being so overly protective of her name, and if you want those answers, you’ll have to ask her for them. As for me, I’m not afraid. I’m done with the constant cover ups, even though I was never the one in the public spotlight. But being in the spotlight was never me to begin with. Sure, I’m only human and who wouldn’t want 15 minutes of instant fame? Deep down inside though, I’ve never been a public person, and I’m still not. Anyone who’s followed MwP from the beginning will know this.

“Harrison McLeod” was a pen name. A character. At no time did I let the name slip into a persona. Those are two very different things. I would like to believe that all the people I’ve interacted with both on and off the blog were treated with the utmost professionalism at all times.

Maybe this is why I was met with more laughter and understanding when I came out to that small handful of people I regarded as friends. I don’t know. Every one is going to have their own take on this.

And my name? It’s right up there at the top. Yes, I do have a new business and a site of my own, but in keeping with just setting the record straight and not using this as what might be misconstrued as a publicity stunt to gain more recognition for a new biz, I’m not linking it to my site.

My main objective here was to give you, Josh, a straight answer. You were the first person to read between the lines and ask some very good questions. Thank you.

Take it for what it is, folks. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.

Deb
aka: The Artist Formerly Known As Harry

Ah, anecdotal evidence, is there anything it can’t do? Blogging and other web publishing is still a field that is overwhelmingly male in participation, so it is no surprise that the “top” of the field is likewise dominated by men.

How about another respect article? Have you ever noticed that very specific topics also dominate those top lists? Perhaps if I pretended to be a SEO/Technology/Politics/Freelancing/Make Money Online blogger, I could make the top ten Ever see a dog grooming blogger in the top 10, a local charity blogger, or even a home & gardening blogger?

Honestly, I never really thought about it. Perhaps it is because I’m a man, or more likely, because I very rarely follow “people” online so much as I follow specific sites. For example, I am a huge fan of Freelance Writing Gigs, but I honestly have to sit and concentrate for minute or two before coming up with the name of the owner, and I don’t know the name of any other writers on the site. Unless someone goes out of their way to push their name instead of their website name front and center, I usually don’t pick up on it.

There is a online marketing/SEO/make money online blogger by the name of “Court” that I read forever before realizing that it was short for Courtney. The only reason I knew the writer’s name was because it was part of the website name.

Maybe it’s just me.

Unless someone corrects me, I’m going to assume Harrison McLeod is the other woman pretending to be a man who “outed” Chartrand. I make this deduction because no one has seen McLeod in weeks. Methinks McCleod got in over her head and wanted out.

Exhibit A: Chartrand’s original blog was part of a generic writing site. Why take it further and make it so obviously male dominated if they weren’t setting out to prove a point? They were doing well and even won an award, it seems unnecessary to create the extremely masculine Men with Pens. Why not continue with Web Writing Info?

I don’t understand why two poor working moms who only want to support their kids went to such extremes by taking their pretend masculinity up another notch with a name that indicates a very male perspective and a very male design.

Exhibit B: Something else isn’t sitting right with me. Why did Chartrand “out” herself on Copyblogger instead of Men with Pens? Could it be because CopyBlogger reaches more readers and will generate more buzz and publicity?

Exhibit C: Why is Chartrand so fiercely protective of her name?

There’s more here that meets the eye. Count me among the newly former MwP readers who think Ms. Chartrand pulled a fast one. Someone was going to expose her and she created a sympathetic work at home mom story to head off the publicity.

Nice work, “James.”

Can’t wait until the book deal.

Also I didn’t mean to post my first comment under yours – it was a general statement on the original post.

Mommy blogger? Mommy what? Get real. Do you think your attorney walks around saying “I’m a mommy lawyer!” Does your surgeon say “I’m a mommy doc?” I can almost bet you she says “I’m a cardiologist.”

You are a professional writer. Start acting like one. Unless you are writing specifically to other moms, for a parenting audience, drop the mommy-writer act and don’t even mention your parenting status. I doubt men introduce themselves as dads first, writers second. Walk the walk and talk the talk of a professional and you will be treated like one.