BlogHer - Where Are All The Creative Women And Why Don't They Speak?? - Comments

I promise

Liz Rizzo — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:36:59 -0500

If I ever finally break in and become a film and television director, I WILL GO to as many things as my schedule will bear. :)

Liz Rizzo

Everyday Goddess

SexySmart Blog

wow!

dawn m. armfield — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 12:46:29 -0500

That wasn't really a push for you to okay my blog. I was curious about it...but thought it all interesting.

Thanks to both of you for updating.

Elisa, I had submitted a change request. Odd. Anyway, thank you, again, for taking care of that. I appreciate it.

I think, though, that it does bother me how difficult it is for women in the arts. And I think about this all of the time. So this was a great post to read while I've been thinking about it.

dawn m. armfield
life inchoate

D'oh! Ignore me.

Elisa Camahort — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:34:46 -0500

Heh. Debra/Dawn: here I am checking, while Debra was quickly adding away. Just ignore me.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

Dawn: I see you in the A&D blog roll

Elisa Camahort — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:33:16 -0500

Hi Dawn:

I'm a little confused. I see you have two blogs in our blog rolls.

Your regular blog is in the Life section.

Your photoblog is in the Arts & Design blog roll.

Now, we were having some issues getting all the blog rolls working properly after we changed the names of some and added completely new ones, so the entire Arts & Design blog roll may have been missing for a while, but you're definitely in it now.

PS: it seems that your regular blog URL has changed since you listed it, so I went ahead and updated that.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

Thanks, Dawn

debra roby — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:31:48 -0500

I couldn't believe you hadn't been added to the blogroll yet. After the big push in August, I thought everything was caught up. Karen (your CE) is usually even more caught up than I. So I've just been working through the new blogs (about 300 worth) thinking everything was fine.

I was wrong!!

Found your blog and several for my beat that I know should have been OKd right away, but slipped through the cracks. You are now published. And I've some work to do tonight.

Debra
A Stitch In Time
Deb's Daily Distractions

It's not either/or Debra

Elisa Camahort — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:08:16 -0500

Completely coincidentally your post showed up in my RSS reader while I was writing this post over on Worker Bees: It's only fair to pick on the big dogs too, wherein I take a look at the speaking roster for the OnMedia Conference.

Luckily I wasn't done yet, so I was able to link to and incorporate your great closing paragraph here. And my answer: it's not either/or. We gotta keep doing both. IMHO.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

I belong...

dawn m. armfield — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 11:02:22 -0500

...to the photoblogging community. I have come to realize, over time, that it is VERY male dominated. In fact, I recently wrote a post about the inequality in the communities apparent kudos to male photobloggers and adding a token women here and there (in fact, the trend has continued without any women being added but several men have been).

I think, at times, that even BlogHer can be very selective in who is added and who isn't. For instance, I submitted my photoblog for consideration in the Art & Design category way back in August and it has never been approved for the blogrolls while that blogroll has filled up with other artists.

It's difficult being a woman in the arts. You aren't just breaking into a male dominated community but also trying to show that art from a female perspective is valid and desirable and necessary.

dawn m. armfield
life inchoate

Where Are All The Creative Women And Why Don't They Speak??

debra roby — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 10:25:39 -0500

The discussion appears to have started when Jen Bekman posted on her blog, Personism, about the Creativity Now Conference that Tokion will be putting on later this month. She edited their announcement as follows:

This unique symposium will bring together top ~~figures~~ men in art, design, fashion, photography, film, new media, publishing and marketing. In the same room for the first time, the~~people~~ men shaping todayâ€™s popular culture will spend two days exchanging their ideas, methods and inspirations before an audience of 2,000.

Ken from Tokion responded with a list of invited women speakers (including Yoko Ono, Soffia Coppola, and Dana Schutz) who declined the invitation and added:

As for â€œwho knew it was so damn hard?â€ Well, as that list shows, it ISNâ€™T hard coming up with talented women working in art, design, fashion, photography, film, new media, publishing and marketing.

But the speakers list you see reflects the reality of who was willing/available to confirm for the conference. However, itâ€™s flattering to think that we give the impression that we have so much control over the creative communityâ€™s colllective schedule that we get to pick and choose our speaker list without outside considerations.

Brooklyn Vegan continued by adding:

They said they tried but couldnâ€™t find any [women speakers}. We say: try harder.

At which point Jen started listing potential speakers and the very impressive list continued in the comments.

Grace summarized the story and solicited responses from her readers at Design*Sponge. The most interesting comment came from Stephanie:

I agree with you and Jen that it's unacceptable of Tokion to settle with all men after inviting a long list of women who were unable or declined to attend. If that is the case, you damn well keep trying. As is evident by the lists that are popping up all over the internet as a result of yours and Jen Bekman's blogs, there is no shortage of creative women to invite. And the presence of women on those panels does matter.

It matters to the psyche of a 15 year-old future-artist in Topeka, Kansas reading about this event in the news, with no explanation offered as to why there are no women present. It matters to the any number of women (and men) attending this event, just starting out in the creative world, looking for inspiration and direction, and hearing only a male perspective (which is going to be different from that of a female, no matter how much we would like to think otherwise). And It even matters to all the established women in the creative sector who at this point should be able to put aside gender disparity to focus solely on their work, but every once in a while hears about something like this, and suddenly finds herself spending the next hour (or however long) revisiting an old topic which she had long ago hoped to put to rest.

This sounds like the emotions and call to action occurring just over two years ago that lead to the creation of BlogHer. Do creative women need to take the step of forming CreateHer... or can the public discussions like this one work as a call to action to conference organizers without a formalized organization to push the issue? From Tokien's responses, I do not have confidence.

A giant curtsy to Leslie Madsen Brooks for the tip on this story.

Debra Roby blogs her art at A Stitch in Time and her life at Deb's Daily Distractions .