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- Sphinn It!
Went Hot: July 22, 2008 - 11:36 am
Posted By: Harith 82 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.wolf-howl.com)
Category: Blogging
"To those organizers I challenge them to look in the mirror and realize that you’ve now become the same evil and sexist pigs you started out with the goal of overcoming.
So whats my gripe, that Blogher limits their conference speakers to only women. Don’t believe me go to any of the past speaker lists (link, link, link, link) and try to find a speaker who is a man, do an on page search for “his”, “him”, or ” he”, now try searching for “her” her’s” or “she”, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s not that I don’t think that women aren’t qualified to speak, nothing could be farther from the truth, but I do ask the following question, if you want to provide the best conference are only women qualified to speak.
Now Blogher doesn’t completely discourage against men attending, here’s a flickr set of the BlogHer men attendees, including people like Robert Scoble. However if you are a man and you want to attend BlogHer, you’re treated like second class citizen, only to be seen and not heard."
14 Comments
Comments
Anytype of discrimination should be reprimanded, anytime anyday.
I see Lisa Barone has posted on Twitter a comment to GrayWolf present post:
"Moderately infuriated over @graywolf's BlogHer post. Give me a f'n break, Michael. Why don't you attend a show before linkbait whining? Pfft" :-)
There's more than one way to apply this article I think. It's funny how something so simple can be used in so many ways if your mind is open to it.
Fav quote from article:
if women get to speak on panels and men dont how is that not being treated as a second class citizen @lisabarone? (replying to desphinn comment which is wierd)
You didn't say it in that context. You said that male attendees were treated like second class citizens, and that's simply not true. I spoke to a handful of men at the show and they were all treated with respect.
Also, did you attempt to speak? Did any male? I think it's ludricuous to "out" BlogHer for not including male speakers when we don't know if males would been rejected had they applied for a speaking spot. Yes, the show is geared toward women, hence all the woman speakers. At least they're open about it, unlike the vast majority of tech conferences that are 90 percent male without anyone noticing or thinking it's "odd".
We live in a culture where "negative" discrimination is horrible, and "positive" discrimination is praised. If one were to follow the stereotypes, then I have an amazing fashion sense, and "my people" turn blah city areas into yuppy real estate gold mines. I know the who's who in Hollywood, and know more about personal hygiene and grooming than all of BlogHER combined. Well those are all nice assumptions to make about a person, but if I were to take all those, I wouldn't be in much of a position to bitch at people assuming I'm a slut, couldn't catch a football if my life depended on it, have no respect for family life, and have AIDS.
I'm hoping in another 20 years or so we'll all grow up enough to stop shooting each other (and praising each other) based solely on stereotypes. I think with enough of these types of discussions, it could happen.
What @ChrisMiller said. And I agree with the spirit of what is being said in the post. Separate but equal is inherently inequal. No matter where it comes from or in what form. So to have BlogHer - whether there is a BlogHim or not - I feel contributes to the ghettoization of the contributions of women overall - online and offline. And Michael's right - a BlogHim conference that excluded women (in appearance or fact) would have people up in arms. But it doesn't seem like BlogHer excluded men - sounds like it just didn't pander to them. The way it *seems* to pander to stereotypical female characterizations - shopping, babies, shoes, etc.
Now I wasn't there, and I don't blog - about anything (though one day, I do hope to have the time to setup my yourenothelping.com domain/blog). But when I heard that the activities surrounding the event focused primarily on ....shopping...I certainly felt no empowerment. And wondered how the women at the event could. I think women have cornered the market on topics surrounding babies, shopping, cooking, yadda yadda yadda. If we really want to empower women - and future generations of women - how bout encouraging an interest in math, science, and engineering, or civics in our girls? And highlight those contributions. Oh wait. That's not sexy. Not cute at all. We're so busy being distracted by the latest trends and magazine covers, well, who has time for anything else?
Ok, so veering back to my support of the article. Michael said that people need to focus on being the best at what they do irrespective of gender, race, color, ethnicity, etc. And I completely agree. When we stop carving out sectors and special groups, we will have equality. Until then, we'll be stuck with factions, that more often than not, ultimately prevent true eqaulity from ever happening. We can't tear down walls while busily building them up at the same time.
Other things that have gone on - specifically in this biz that really don't help move the needle toward equality (and seem to have escaped your ire Graywolf..) -
http://searchengineland.com/070402-073314.php - OMG! Women blog! Where's the "Blacks Who Blog" post? Or "Gays Who Gab"?? (and yes, I did ask this question at the time that was published) See? No one would ever write those latter two posts - they would rightly be seen as patronizing, condescending, or worse. But, um, I recall no outcry over the "Hey, Let's Prop Up the Women for A Day" post.
There are also groups in this industry, and article series that have been done, etc. that separate the men v. women in the field, and I fail to see how that really helps.
And don't even get me started on that whole seofangirl/menofseo thing. I've recently eaten. Um but again, crickets chirping. Everyone seems A-OK with that stuff. Why? It's the same thing, and it happens in your backyard.
Finally, one thing that surprised and disappointed me was some of the misogynystic comments being tweeted by women at the show. We really have to get it together folks. Can't have it both ways. Treat me as an equal, treat me special...don't attack women getting together to help women, but laugh along while I make snarky comments about the ones in the room with me.
I just don't get it. But I hope things will change. So again, what @ChrisMiller said :-)
I wish I had gone to BlogHer.
...for the schwag.
LMFAO.. dude.. still...
This is the way i see this..
BlogHer is a collective of female bloggers that group together to provide companies that specifically target their advertising to women ONLY, (men typically don't use tampons or douches, or...),
someone could start a "manly men" blog network for sports, etc.. right?
Neither sphinning nor desphinning but I'll say that it's possible to mistake privilege for a right from the inside of privilege and that's what I think is happening here.
tamar: I thought you belonged to the Schwag UPS Club - prepaid overnight delivery from all the conferences?
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Discrimination is a word with historical bigotry attached which often means that it's use is misunderstood or misapplied.
The webdev conferences (SMX, SES, PubCon, et al) target a specific audience. Most professional organisations have conferences. So do various social and ethnic groups. Some are more exclusionary than others.
BOO! They discriminate. They are in fact communities.
Community - a group sharing common characteristics/interests and viewed/viewing itself as unique in some respect from larger society.
BlogHer is an organisation for women who blog. Not all women. Not even all women who blog. Just those that are interested in participating. And they have a conference. Good for them. I have no idea how open or closed their policies are to non-members, to males, to penguins. It is their community and they get to set their rules within the law.
If they are breaking a law file a complaint. Otherwise wish them well and find yourself a community or three.
"We live in a culture where "negative" discrimination is horrible, and "positive" discrimination is praised."
What happens is when a minority group wants to push an issue, its forced to play a numbers' game. Not enough numbers = your voices go ignored. So people band together to even out the numbers.
Also, women's fight for more power evens out the balance of power, while men doing the same unbalances it. Same behavior, opposite results. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power inbalance can obviously lead to one side getting a very short end of the stick.
tamar: I thought you belonged to the Schwag UPS Club - prepaid overnight delivery from all the conferences?
Not yet. That would be nice, though!
Michael is right to a degree, but the issue ios so complicated, why bother? You'd be better off trying to solve world peace.
"Also, women's fight for more power evens out the balance of power, while men doing the same unbalances it."
So what you are saying, halfdeck, is that my nephew, who is one, has to pay a price for the advantage his great, great grand daddy had? Seems a bit crap to me!
Worse, you could be seen to be arguing that society benefits not from the best person, but the one that "balances". Personally, I think the best person should win, and we should all be colour, gender, sexuality and religiously blind.
"Power inbalance can obviously lead to one side getting a very short end of the stick."
And Iraq shows how flipping the inbalance is hardly any better. Be very careful of prescribing a cure that is worse than the illness.
The only system that is reasonable, IMHO at least, is a true meritocracy. That means everyone gets by purely on merit, and there is no artificial attempt to right an imbalance, to change the playing field, which lets get real, is a weird concept, no matter how you spin it.
Now, how we deal with inequalities beyond merit, such as the quality of schooling and access to infrastructure I don't know, but I can't believe that allowing the same thing to perpetuate in reverse is an improvement. In fact, I'd argue we are headed for a terrible backlash that is way worse if we continue down that path.