Prominent Male Blogger is a Woman!

James Chartrand, a popular blogger and experienced freelance writer who publishes a site entitled Men With Pens revealed that he is not a man after all. A Canadian woman in her early thirties is actually the one blogging behind her male pseudonym about the ins-and-outs of copywriting and online freelancing. Chartrand is hardly the first female writer to mislead her readers about her gender. Nineteenth century authors such as George Sand and George Eliot were actually women, but few would have thought that web and media-savvy women in the 21^st century would have to take up a male name in order to succeed.

Yet this is precisely what Chartrand claimed happened to her. In a blog post entitled “Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants,” the prominent blogger explains that when she wrote using her real name, she struggled getting her clients to take her seriously and she often found herself without freelancing projects. Chartrand claims to now be earning up to three times what she did when her name gave away her gender and far fewer clients or readers are second guessing her articles. While Chartrand feels that pretending to be a male blogger and freelancer ensured that more people accepted her work and advice, and appreciated her talent, she also used this as an opportunity to do away with the sexist innuendoes that came her way. Prior to becoming James, Chartrand feared being teased for working from home as a freelancer, and could not bare to consider the thought of what these same people would say if they discovered that she spent the whole day in her kitchen—working on her laptop—and that she was also a stay-at-home mother.

Only one question remains: will readers of Men With Pens learn to accept that their favourite blogger is not who they thought “he” was? The reaction to Chartrand’s actions is telling. Few condemn the blogger, but many more expressed surprise that this form of chauvinism still exists in the 21^st century.