Blogher, Pro-Woman or Anti-Man?
Posted on August 5th, 2008by Eddings in Guest Posts, conference
The following is a Guest Post from Brandy Eddings.
Last school year while at recess my daughter approached a group of boys playing kickball. She asked if she could join, the boy holding the ball told her “only boys can play”. My daughter’s response was “then why are they letting you play” she grabbed the ball and ran onto the field and no one else opposed her joining and the game went on. Her teacher told me that now all the games at recess are now co-ed and they have never had that happen in the years she has taught at that school. Without realizing it she used determination and humor to change the culture of the school.
I get that Blogher is about supporting female bloggers but creating a double standard of not even allowing male speakers at their conferences goes a little too far. Now I’m not against women supporting other women but shouldn’t the focus be people supporting people. We should be striving to fade the line drawn between the sexes not making it bolder.
As a woman in business I face sexism more often then I even like to admit to myself. However, I do make the choice to face it, deal with it and hope to change it one small step at a time. Women in business simply could not succeed if we avoided all men altogether. Even the notion of that is just ridiculous. The online world is still in its infant stages, our present actions and decisions will determine the future of the online culture, even if we don’t realize it yet. Exclusion is discrimination no matter what type of spin you try to put on it.
You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman. ~Jane Galvin Lewis
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August 5th, 2008 at 4:10 am
It’s a shame that something that could be so positive for women has turned into something quite negative.
Women can learn from male bloggers as well as female, and by limiting speakers to female only, Blogher is in fact limiting the growth of the female bloggers attending - ironic, eh?
They say that all publicity is good publicity, but I doubt it in this case.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:26 am
It would only be a double standard if men and women held equal power in society, from where I am standing they do not. Govt. business, even seo is run by men, they are the dominant group and get to call the shots.
Next you wll be calling for the camera to do a lingering up and down shot over the mans body in movies like most attractive women get in movies.
Minority groups need a platform from which they can grow. Simply saying the same rule applies because of equality is an over simplification of the hegemony displayed by males in society.
August 5th, 2008 at 4:29 am
You make a very good point here. It is all good to support your fellow ‘woman’, yet we leave out a huge chunk of talent if we exclude people due to gender. It still is a man’s world in so many ways, yet we should feel honored when our fellow ‘men’ choose to encourage, support, and share their experiences with us. People are people, and we all fall short in someone’s eye at one time or another, yet I would hope when it happens to me, it is not because I am a woman.
Teri
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August 5th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Such a fantastic offering to allow the growth of what some people class as a minority in the blogging spectrum has descended into the typical tit for tat syndrome that we encounter daily in our lives.
Blogher is a fantastic idea and should have been launched without the bat of an eyelid, much like the women-only insurance companies we have here in Britan (e.g. Sheila’s Wheels), but unfortunately they have taken it a step further and have enforced a sexist rule by not allowing male speakers.
I can’t help but feel that had this happenned the other way round there would have been an uproar on an international level in the net-based and broadsheet press with words such as narrow-minded, sexist and chauvinistic/chauvinism.
Sad times
August 7th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Industry Growth for Women’s Occupations (1997-2006)
Occupation Percent
Registered Nurses 91.7
Elementary & Middle School Teachers 80.9
Supervisors, Office Managers & Admin Support 73.4
Accountants & Auditors 61.8
These are from the US Department of Labour. I notice Lyndon - for the purpose of their argument - left out the facts that teaching, nursing and accountancy are dominated by women.
Considering that these fields are the basis for society’s learning, the basis for society’s health, and the basis for business, the claim of men-dominated anything starts to sound old. And this is only a quick look - no doubt there is more proof out there. Inconvenient truth!!!
August 10th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Amen to this post. I attended one BlogHer event and really did like it. The information presented was wonderful and the entire event was well organized and a lot of fun, as well as a great learning experience. What I don’t like is that line of separation that is so very obvious, especially given the highly sexist policies of limiting presenters to females, only. It feels very ‘girl clubbish’ and that was a large turnoff for me. I’m all for promoting women in business and all.. especially in technology, but find the ‘boys not allowed’ sign on the door distasteful.
@Lyndon, specifically - - I don’t know about you, but I rather liked the lingering up and down video coverage of a topless Val Kilmer in ‘Top Gun’ playing volleyball in the sand… or of Brad Pitt in “Fight Club” - - man, he was CUT in that film! I could go on…
August 12th, 2008 at 9:03 am
Internet-type stuff in general is nearly gender blind. SEO is what I know best, and I’ll freely concede it’s a “mans world”, but that’s because girls just don’t seem to want to get into it, rather than any artificial barrier placed by men. The few oddly penis-challenged SEOs I know are pretty damn good, and are accepted on that basis.
There’s no formal route into SEO that anyone can control - you can do it or you can’t, you get results or you don’t. Google will reward (or ban) you according to what you did, not your possession of certain genes.
Blogging is little different. One of the nice things about the online environment is that your talent matters far more than any other attribute such as gender, colour etc. As a blogger, the only requirement is that you can write, and hold your audience. I find the idea that women, as a group, need special support to the extent of excluding males from speaking some where between ridiculous and repulsive.
There’s nothing uniquely feminine about blogging, and the male perspective on blogging (inasmuch as it can possibly differ from a female one) is at least as valid as a female one. Isn’t that what “equality” means?