Blogher ‘06: The good, the bad, and the midly obnoxious
So now that I’ve had all week to recover from the jetlag, I can finally form a thought or two about BlogHer ‘06 … some things related directly to the conference. Some not.
The good:
- The Sisterhood. I want to work on getting some more brown, red and yellow at BlogHer. Some more black too. But at least at this year’s conference you needed both hands to count us.
- Sponsors. I like sponsors. Sponsors keep conferences affordable. They give out free shit and hawk products that are sometimes really cool (like the free 64MB thumb drive from Saturn).
- Yahoo!-tinis. Divine lemony goodness with purple sugar.
- Menage a Trois. Two words: free wine. And I mean free as in “didn’t have to pay and didn’t even have to use my two drink tickets” free.
- BlogHer makes the Merc. The front page no less, just below the San Jose Gran Prix.
- Seeing real, live race-car mechanics. They were at the conference hotel for the aforementioned race.
- Free chick-condoms. Courtesy of Elexa by Trojan, one of the conference sponsors, (although I completely understand why some lesbians were alienated by them). I just think it’s great that BlogHer and a sponsor acknowledged that women do indeed have and like sex and want to be proactive about our sexual health.
- The love. Chick geeks are the effin greatest. Great to see old friends and make some new ones. I would name-check, but I’d probably leave someone out. Props to George, though, who won the Day 1 honor for “The Only Brotha at BlogHer.”
- Susie Bright (link is NSFW): I’m embarassed to admit that I had a crazed fan girl moment. I asked Susie Bright for a hug. And she gave me one. And a ‘Clits Up’ button. And it was one of the best stranger hugs I have ever had. I could only hope to be that bold and frank in writing about sex. But, er, my dad would have to be good and dead first.
The bad
- Cheesy sponsors, for lack of a better phrase. Something about the weight loss/lo-cal product companies at a women’s conference irked me. As though all we care about is being thin. I missed the MSN Spaces presentation, so I won’t comment. But I saw those Be Jane chicks outside at lunch. Seriously: two skinny white chicks wearing the same outfits with “Be Jane” across the front made me really, really, really not want to be Jane. And it made me want to stay far, far away from Spaces.
- Elexa’s t-shirts. Ain’t no way them shirts are a medium. And ain’t no way most of the women there could wear them without looking like they jacked their 8 year old niece.
- San Jose Gran Prix. Well, actually, it was probably quite good. But the pre-race street closures turned a 5 minute ride from the airport into a 20 minute one.
- Janky wifi. No excuses. They just couldn’t handle the traffic.
The midly obnoxious
- MommyBloggers. I won’t go on a rant. But *gasp!* Not all women are mothers. Not all women want to be mothers. And not all mothers make motherhood a central part of their identity. Can we please acknowledge and respect this next year?
The Contra Costa Times has more.
And check it: next year, BlogHer will not only have two tracks, but two separate conferences. Mmm. Not sure I like the idea or the timing though. I’d rather see the two combined into a three-day conference with two tracks. I’m a personal blogger and (to a degree) a biz blogger. I’m fiercely interested in both. And BlogHer business (to be held in March of 2007) is way too close to SXSW. But, er, if I had my druthers, the entire world would bend to my whim :-).
UPDATE: As Elisa explains below, there will still be business topics covered at BlogHer. But the BlogHer business conference will be all about blogging and business.
Hey Tiffany…great seeing you! (If only too briefly.)
We’re not splitting the conferences. The annual BlogHer will continue to try to be all things to all bloghers (’cause we’re crazy like that.)
We’re just adding a Business conference to delve into the topic…it should be much smaller and much more focused, but it doesn’t mean we won’t do business-related content at the annual conference.
Ah … good to hear. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d like to see more of a discussion on business topics at BlogHer ?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢07.
Hi Tiffany,
Right on - props to George and Susie. And to you for coming all this way!
As for wifi, sponsors and setting the record straight on a number of other topics, I just posted my recap too here: http://surfette.typepad.com/surfette/2006/08/blogher_06_for_.html. Would love any additional thoughts you have, and hope to get your session ideas on the record asap. File ‘em here or here.
“I won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t go on a rant. But *gasp!* Not all women are mothers. Not all women want to be mothers. And not all mothers make motherhood a central part of their identity. Can we please acknowledge and respect this next year?”
For the life of me I don’t recall any moment or incident where the mommybloggers, myself included, were disrespectful of women who were not mothers. Nor do I recall a lack of acknowledgement. What I saw in my BlogHer 06 experience was watching the mommybloggers in big numbers and partying big time. Their clique-ishness and tribal rites dominated the action around the pool. I don’t understand how the mommybloggers large numbers and high spirits could cast a negative effect on others who were not like them.
Furthermore, I simply cannot fathom that in the raucous fun among the roaming groups of upbeat mommies, there is some message of disdain and dismissal of those not like them.
Bottom line for me? Mothers are not the enemy. The real threat is from cultural and political forces that relegate women, most especially mothers (and most especially single mothers of color, as I once was), to the lowliest status in society. Pointing accusatory fingers at mothers and other women impedes our support for one another.
The rant you link is not harmeless blog snippery. It’s vile, bigoted and dangerous. As Lisa Stone wrote in Surfette:
*swap out the word “mommy” and substitute it for another group — say “black” or “lesbian” or “men” or “developers.” Appalling, isn’t it? A post Mel Gibson could be proud of.*
Tiffany, I am eager to discuss this further with you or anyone else who felt similarly towards the mommybloggers. I would love to seek a greater understanding between us all.
Respectfully,
Grace Davis
were mommybloggers “disrespectful”? no. but were mothers a pervasive force? absolutely. and that made quite a few women, myself included, feel like their particular brand of womanhood wasn’t the kind of womanhood that blogher was celebrating or welcoming.
even at the closing keynote, there were more questions for arianna huffington about life as a mom than there were about her as the leader of a commercial blogging site.
actually, you summed it all up with this sentence: i suspect that more than a few women — moms and non-moms — felt left out of the clique. and there is something to be said for respecting others in particular space. i’ll draw a parallel from mommy bloggers to a too-loud table of diners at a swanky restaurant.
melinda casino said it best: right down to the schwag — condoms, a bib, and a PBS kids magnetic calendar — the tone was that “woman = heterosexual mom” (the sweetener added “who is overly concerned with being thin,” but i digress).
couple that with the parenting bent of the BlogHer ad network, the presence of Johnson & Johnson and their parenting blog thingamabobble, and the overall message for many women was “BlogHer is for mothers.”
and that’s quite a limiting and limited view of women IMO, particularly at what i thought was a technology conference; particularly at a conference that attracted so many lesbian women; particularly at a conference that attracted so many young singletons; particularly when our culture has defined womanhood as heterosexual motherhood. the conference this year just felt very mom-centric, which was off-putting to the women i talked to.
like i said, though, i only found the motherhood presence mildly obnoxious. i linked to sherri’s post, however, because i think it’s quite funny in a trainwreck sort of way. i’m amazed by her ability to get so worked up, because truth be told, i was too busy hanging with the Colored Kids Coalition to give much thought or notice to what the mommybloggers were doing.
Tiffany, thanks for your response to my comment.
Because I’m of color, a feminist, political, and older (51), I don’t pass readily as the prototypical mommyblogger. This allowed me access to a wide variety of groups during BlogHer. I too talked to many women and contrary to your experience, I did not hear from anyone that BlogHer was “for mothers” or “mom-centric”. I did hear plenty about the too small tee shirt, the sweetner and the weird tasting water, but nothing on the bib. I received a lot of praise for coordinating the on-site child care center and not just from the mothers who took advantage of it, but from childless women who appreciated that their colleagues/contacts/friends who needed child care were able to enroll their children in the BlogHer program.
However different our BlogHer experiences were, I still hope there may be a way we can find common ground and work together as women.
I was at blogher and I DID feel for attendees who were not heterosexual / parents / mothers, particularly during the closing session that seemed very mother-focused. I agree that it seemed off-the-mark. I can certainly understand how many attendees felt disenfranchised. In addition, I think a majority of attendees would agree that many of the sponsors sent a bad message as well.
At the same time, I am troubled by terms like “obnoxious” in regards to the attending bloggers who were women and who were parents. As one of them, I, like a lot of people, was excited to see old friends and meet new ones. I took full advantage of the time I had there to see old friends and to introduce myself to new people who had different kinds of blogs and were not just like me.
I am just disappointed by much of the anti-mother sentiment I have read, and one particular offensive and inflammatory post. There were a large number of women who have children in attendance. It was what it was. Should we have all hidden in our rooms and gone to bed early as not to offend anyone?
I write about more than one thing on my blogs. I don’t like labels either. One woman was annoyed by one woman out by the pool, and all of the sudden all mommybloggers are this or that, and the state of the private parts of all women who have borne children is being ridiculed. THAT was extremely offensive and DAMAGING. I beleive an angry response to that ridiculous post is in order, and well-justified. I also hope her words come back to bite her in the ass.
But I digress…
I encourage you to get your two cents in about the format, venue and what you would like to change next year. I hope that things feel more inclusive for more attendees next year. AND I appreciate the discussion you generated. Thanks Tiffany.
i want you, meghan and grace, to understand that my comments are not anti-parent or anti-mother.
my issue with this year’s blogher is about one thing: presuming motherhood (and by extension heterosexuality) is a central theme or lifestyle choice for all of the women attending a *technology* conference.
and i really don’t want to become an apologist for sherri, but: she was insulting to a specific group of women in a specific space. she was not commenting on all mothers. she was not even commenting on all of the mothers at blogher. she was complaining about overhearing a conversation about poopy diapers. if mommybloggers didn’t have their own brand, she probably would have complained about “that group of raucous women talking about poopy diapers for five hours.” take it as a personal insult if you were one of the women there, but let’s not turn this into ’sherri hates mothers’ (or ‘tiffany hates mothers’ for that matter). it’s really not fair.