8. Crotch shots, upskirts and sports reporting. An older post of Sam’s with all the right words for the search engines. But remember they have to click on a blog post with the word “feminist” in the title before we hear about it. So there’s that.
The blog has been going for over eight years now and on Sam’s prompt, we are reblogging some favourite posts. I don’t have one favourite post among the more than 700 of mine that I have to choose from. But I chose to reblog this one because even though it’s a bit “meta,” and not about fitness, it’s a meaningful (to me) reflection on what we are trying to do here and the limits of what we can control. It was also a real turning point for me because it required an awareness and admission of my own bad behaviour, calling myself out for having conducted myself in a way that was decidedly NOT conducive to “what we are trying to achieve.” Thanks for your continued support of the blog! Tracy
Image description: Colourful drawing of five women in silhouette, suggestive of diverse ethnicities/races.
We here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue like to talk about our “big tent feminism” and how we try to make space for everyone. That’s a lofty goal, I know. One of my favourite questions in feminism is “is an inclusive feminism possible?” I use it as a thematic frame for most of my teaching in feminist philosophy and women’s studies, as a way of pushing people in my classes to think about inclusivity and intersectionality not just as theoretical ideas, but in their actual material practices.
It’s hard. We struggle. People get defensive. There are misunderstandings. Hurt feelings. Anger. Difficult conversations. People are called on their privilege and need to look at that. People are afraid to speak for fear of offending, excluding, saying the wrong thing on a multitude of other levels, sounding closed…
We’ve been here on WordPress for 8 years and a bit. In that time we’ve had 4598 posts! And 2,747,658 views of posts. Our busiest day ever on the blog was July 24, 2014.
21,032 people follow us on WordPress. We just celebrated 21k followers last week which is what started me down this rabbithole of numbers.
Also, 16,026 people follow us on Facebook. We’re also on Instagram with just 1336 followers and Twitter with 1745 followers. Follow us if that’s your thing.
But it’s not all about followers. There are other numbers too. From followers I started tracking what people liked and shared this list of our most liked blog posts of all time.
In 2012 our posts averaged 580 words but in the 2013 they’d grown to 690 words on average. Post length seems pretty consistent through the years though. Last year, in 2020, it was 681 words on average.
Weirdly, post likes have varied quite a bit. Posts got an average of 2.4 likes in 2012. In 2014 they got an avereage of 21 likes, and last year in 2020, 13.3 likes.
Comments also vary through the years. We hit a high in 2013, 9.1 comments per post on average and just 2.9 in 2020.
Where are all the people from? By and far, most of the blog’s readers through the years are in the United States (1.3 million), next is Canada (584k) and then the UK (225k), Australia (120k), Germany (41k), India (35k), New Zealand (22k), France (21k), Netherlands (18k), Sweden (17k) and Ireland (16k).
After that it’s Phillipines, South Africa, Finland, Singapore, Spain, Italy, Norway, Belgium, Brazil, Switzerland, Japan, Malaysia, Denmark, Mexico….and lots more.
Oh, and the blog is busiest, in terms of views, either Monday morning at 9 am or Wednesday afternoon at 2 pm.
Just a couple of more sets of numbers.
Our total word count in 2013 was 293,809
And in 2020, with a lot more bloggets, it had grown to 448,250
Finally, let’s look at the number of posts through the years.
In 2013, 426 posts.
2015, 587
2018, 616
2020, 658
Moving beyond numbers, I also sometimes track search terms that bring people to the blog. This week’s include ‘workout feminist beginner’ and ‘how does renpho calculate metabolic age’ and ‘fit feminist hiit’ and ‘biggest loser new season 2021’ and ‘is it normal to have a period at 53’ and ‘you are not your biological destiny women.’
All the statistics and data aside, we love your engagement. Bloggers at Fit is a Feminist Issue like your comments and your feedback. You might even consider writing a guest post. Drop us a line some time soon!
Our most read posts of the year, not necessarily written in 2020. The popularity of some early blog classics lives on. Not surprisingly many of the 2020 popular posts were about covid-19.
The most popular post of the year was COVID-19 and the gym, written by guest bloggers and building engineers Cara and Sarah. (2020)
JLo and Shakira are very fit older babes. They performed at a football game, controversy ensued, and Sam blogged about it here in our third most read post. (2020)
Our fourth most read post was all about Sam watching Brittany Runs a Marathon so you didn’t have to. (2020)
My metabolic age is WHAT? Nicole’s post on weight and metabolic age, whatever that is supposed to be. It’s all not very clear what it is and why Nicole should care.
What are the changes that prompted the new schedule? Kim is stepping away from a regular blog commitment but will post as/when inspired. Bettina is back from parental leave but is re-joining gradually with one post a month. Mina, Susan, and Nat are also posting once a month. Some of the blog regulars are moving to have a consistent day–I’m Mondays, Cate is Thursdays, and Catherine is Sundays. Others are keeping a regular day but writing every other week. That’s Martha, Christine, Marjorie, and Nicole.
Thing were getting messy and it was starting to be harder than usual to keep track of who was supposed to be posting and when. We’re hoping this makes it easier.
See the guest spots? That’s where you can come and join us if you like. Read about how to do that here.
Image description: Colourful drawing of five women in silhouette, suggestive of diverse ethnicities/races. 
