BlogHer is, as far as I know, an organization which considers
promotion of women in blogging to be among its primary goals, if not
its very utmost purpose. The conference, in general, reflects this
goal. There are some missteps, but the atmosphere is, in general, one I
would consider pro-woman.
The attendance, while not 100% female, is very largely so. I haven't
seen more than 20 or 30 male attendees since I've been here.
The first one I saw just after arriving, at a restaurant in the
hotel. I noticed him due to his shirt. It showed a graphic of a woman
with her breasts exposed, her nipples replaced by @ signs. It read
"show me your tweets."
Then, not an hour later, I saw a man sporting a shirt saying
something along the lines of "I love mommy bloggers--they put out." The
next day, the same man attended a party, hosted by an ostensibly
feminist website, sporting a shirt reading "I am having very spiritual
thoughts about your breasts" or some similar nonsense.
This is not OK. It's not just that these shirts are crude and
demeaning, though they are. It's that these men are making a point to
bring these crude and demeaning words and images into what is, or
should be, women's space. They're the visitors here. This is our
culture.
I know who both of the t-shirt wearing bloggers are. Both of them
advertised their blog names on the offensive shirts. Getting that kind
of attention, clearly, was the purpose (and no, I won't be linking to
them). That does nothing towards making it acceptable. Clearly, it is
successful--after all, I hadn't heard of either of them before noticing
their shirts (though it's not like I'm rushing out to add them to my
reader now). But, at the cost of alienating and offending women--the
people for whom this space was created--are a few extra hits on your
site worth it?
The grrl power vibe at BlogHer can get a little bit nauseating at
times. There are lots of people around talking about women as
tastemakers, as marketing targets, and as important, cutting edge users
of new media. Why, if we're such an important and respected cohort, are
we here, in what should be a space in which we make the rules and issue
the invitations, dealing with exactly the same stupid, sexist shit we
face every day everywhere else?
There is a breakout session for men at BlogHer this year. The title
has something to do with being vaginally challenged. Space, it seems,
has been made for the guys who chose to come here. I wonder why? Isn't
every other technical conference in the world space enough? Do we need
to cater to them here, too?
Most of the women to whom I have spoken about these shirts (though
thankfully not all of them, or this would likely be my last BlogHer)
seem willing to roll their eyes, laugh them off, and not think much
more about it. I have no idea whether they really aren't bothered, or
whether it's just easier not to think much about it. It's easier, when
you are a woman and something offends you, to pretend it doesn't, lest
you be labeled a prude or a killjoy.
Well I'm taking a stand on this one. I'm fucking offended. Really
fucking offended. These shirts, in whatever small way, undermine the
whole point of being here for me. If I wanted to hang out with sexist
geek guys, there are lots of other places I could be. Pretty much any
place, actually.
All this rah-rah pro-woman stuff is great. I get as choked up about
the beauty of seeing a ballroom full of girl geeks all deep in
conversation as the next person. But how seriously can I really take it
when, among all those rad women, are a few assholes using their very
bodies to advertise just how little they really respect the people who
created this great space? When, even though we have a numerical
advantage that is well more than overwhelming, nobody approaches them,
nobody calls them out? What is the real message? The one I'm reading is
coming through pretty damn clearly. Even here, in a space made by and
for women, a space focused on the power of our thoughts and
communication, rather than our bodies, we can easily be reduced to
pieces of meat, intended for the pleasure and amusement of even just a
few men. And we let them do it. All these forums to tell our stories
and share our thoughts, and mostly, we'll all be silent.
First, here are the sponsors:
Platinum Conference Sponsors
Gold Conference Sponsors
]]>First, here are the sponsors:
Platinum Conference Sponsors
Gold Conference Sponsors
Premium Conference Sponsors
Exhibiting Conference Sponsors
Other Participating Sponsors
A couple of caveats:
First, some of these are companies with whom I strongly disagree on major issues. Some of them are even companies that I boycott. I'm not going to write about that here. I don't censor myself on those issues on this blog, and I may well write again about those companies, but that's not the purpose of this post and I don't want to get bogged down in it.
Secondly, I honestly and completely appreciate each of these companies being willing to sponsor BlogHer. I know they're doing it for business reasons--there is absolutely something in it for them--but I still appreciate it.
Now then:
I've been interested in advertising towards women for a long time, in particular since I wrote my thesis at Reed on Ms. magazine. One of the major problems with Ms. early on was that there both unable to entice advertisers who weren't "traditional women's labels" (cosmetic companies, appliances, etc.) and unable to appease their readership on the subject of morality of advertising "anti-feminist" products. This issue still exists today, obviously, and BlogHer is a great example of how it plays out.
When I last attended in 2007, one of the sponsors was Curves Cereal and Snacks. Some of the people to whom I spoke, particularly those on a panel about blogging and body image, took issue with that. It was a particular problem, I learned, because Weight Watchers had been a sponsor in 2006 and there had already been backlash about that. For my part, I was perhaps not thrilled with Curves' inclusion, but I was generally very happy to see so many companies that are not traditionally "women-focused" on the sponsorship list that year.
This year is even better. Yes, there are some sponsors who are definitely the same ones Ms. would have drawn ire from their readers for all those years ago: Mary Kay, Ann Taylor, eos, and Dove, which are obvious, as well as GreenWorks, Tide/Bounce, Ragu, all, etc., since advertisers still seem to think only women cook and clean. There are several more who are clearly there for the mommy bloggers: Playskool, Disney Consumer Products, Sprout, JumpStart, etc. But there are also a long list of sponsors Ms.'s advertising department would have given up their fringed ponchos for--honest to God gender neutral companies. Some of them are the non-surprising tech companies that go along with a blogging conference, gendered or not, like Microsoft Office/bing.com, Bill Me Later, Motorola, Brother, and T-Mobile. Others, though, I have trouble connecting in any obvious way with women or with blogging, and that makes me inordinately happy. The big one is Platinum Sponsor Chevrolet, but there are also Liberty Mutual's Responsibility Project, public relations agency Ketchum, technical publisher Wiley, Elations (a glucosamine condroitin supplement company), Michelin, and PBS Frontline, among others.
What does it mean that these companies have chosen to put their support behind a fast-growing conference of blogging women? Dare I hope it's respect for women's buying power, not just as mothers, cleaners, or purchasers of clothes and cosmetics, but as full-share American consumers who buy cars and cameras and pork (yep, the National Pork Board is another sponsor) and make investments and watch Frontline? Could they really be seeing us for what we are?
Time will tell. I'll be sure to report back next week on how these sponsors conducted themselves and what impressions I got from them at the conference. In the meantime, again, thanks to our sponsors!
(Cross-posted from What If No One's Watching?)
]]>My name is Grace Mitchell. Online, you can mostly find me under the handle avengingophelia. It's an old handle and not one that particularly suits me anymore, but it's sort of too late to change it. I have two blogs: What if No One's Watching? is my personal blog, Heroine Content is the place where I co-blog feminist and anti-racist analysis of action media (mostly action movies).
Heroine Content is pretty self-explanatory. What if No One's Watching? is a bit trickier. I've been blogging there for nearly five years now. Mostly, it's my ramblings (several times a week) about whatever is currently interesting to me. Topics I blog about often include dogs and dog rescue, thrift shopping, crafting (particularly making bath products), makeup, clothes, movies, and books. My favorite things to write are generally reviews, so I do a lot of those. Thematically, I'm also kind of hung up on goal development and on the weirdness of growing up, so I touch on those pretty often as well. I'm a fairly self-indulgent, navel gazing, sometimes overly honest blogger, so you have to be able to handle all that to enjoy WINOW.
In my offline life, I live in Austin, Texas with my partner and our canine and feline crew. Said crew is currently made up of two extra large dogs, Leo and Ata, and three cats, Atticus, Esme, and Illy. We are moving to Northern Virginia at the end of the summer and are currently in house-selling hell. I am, by day, a technical writer, and on the side, a grant writer.
This year will be my second BlogHer conference. I missed last year, but did go to Chicago in 2007. Unfortunately, due to own completely wrong expectations of the conference and other stuff I had going on at the time, I didn't get nearly as much out of that experience as I should have. I don't plan to make that mistake again, and will be forcing myself out of my reserved shell this year.
Look for my business cards--they have a little girl leading a hippo on them--and for a tall woman with a Picasso dove tattoo. I'll be looking for you!
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