FLAME ON!

Remember back in sixth grade, when a couple of kids would engage in fisticuffs, the cry would go up - "FIGHT! FIGHT!" - and kids from miles around would flock to the scene. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, Soul Asylum once said, and clearly the blogosphere likes a bit of the old rhetorical pugilism. I'm not astride a high horse, folks; I'll jump in on occasion, though it usually takes some pretty blatant hypocrisy on a blogger's part to set me off (and for the record, yes, making fun of Sweetney's kid was a shitty thing to do, but one would think that if one suffered so from a cruel "joke", one might be less inclined to make cruel "jokes" about others - or if one chose to make fun, one should probably be prepared to take a few shots).

What's interesting about the recent Flame Wars (artwork by Jack Kirby, story by Warren Ellis) is that it points out one of - perhaps the greatest - difference between mommybloggers and their male counterparts.

Us guys, we noble few, we band of brothers, we don't flame each other.

To be sure, we may have some disagreements (these typically involve the ethics of shopping at WalMart, or the current state of affairs in Iraq, or who would win in a fight - a new BSG Centurion or an Imperial Stormtrooper), but look at all of the daddyblogs out there and you'll be extremely hard pressed to find the cattiness and vitriol present on many of the mommyblogs. Hell, the guys on this site alone rip on a lot of people and lampoon a variety of topics, but the comments section has been refreshingly free of bitchy comments (though I'm sure that'll change once Pierre reads Whiff's take on George Lucas below - MetroDad is a HUGE Jar Jar Binks fan).

Now, normally this would be the part where one might say "We're all parents and we're all in this together and we should all be nice to each other and let's all hold hands and sing Kumbayah". Please. One of my favorite sites is Trainwrecks, and frankly there are few things more amusing to me than reading a snide blog post, wading through the return-fire comments, and then reading the inevitable mea culpa from the offending martyred blogger. It's unintentional comedy on a Grey's Anatomy scale. I'm by no means calling for us to all get along; just wondering why it's the moms that seem to call down the airstrikes.

So, readers, what's your take? Are dadbloggers more civil than mommybloggers? And if so, why?