Mars and Venus in the boardroom (or at BlogHer)

All speakers were people of color that I saw. And yes, there were non-POCs in attendance and it was an awesome atmosphere and environment.

Elisa Camahort Page
BlogHer
elisa@blogher.com

My BlogHer profile ( http://www.blogher.com/haystackprofile/viewprofile... ) truly shows you everything I do online...Check it out!!

You could just take gender out of the equation completely and ask the BlogHer community for speaker suggestions.  If there are men out there with something to say that we want to hear about, that will become obvious in the suggestions you get for speakers.  If not, then it's not because they're men, it's because the community doesn't consider their areas of expertise to be interesting or relevant.

--Liz

I blog about creating a life worth living at:  www.inventingmylife.blogspot.com ( http://www.inventingmylife.blogspot.com/ )

I'm conflicted on this issue.

On one hand, as a woman, if I belong to a group that supports women bloggers and attend their conference, I expect to hear from other women.  I'm not opposed to hearing from a man at all.  I was there, however, to relate to the speakers and attendees as sisters who understand first hand what it is like to be a woman in today's business climate.

On the other hand, it's my understanding that the recent Blogging While Brown conference did not require their speakers to be persons of color (if I am wrong, someone please correct me).  At the same time, I imagine the individuals that attended that event were there to specifically connect with other bloggers of color.  It is also my understanding that not all the attendees were persons of color, but like men at BlogHer 08, they were embraced and welcomed just the same.

Because I'm a nerdy human resources professional, I can't help but relate this situation to something we in the field know as Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (BFOQ) which is an exemption under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

We all know that not hiring someone based upon their sex, race, etc is against the law.  However, if a job requires a BFOQ then hiring based on one of those protected categories is ok.  It's a narrow exemption and rarely used.  An example would be a job as a locker room attendant.  If the locker room is for males, being a male job applicant is considered a BFOQ.  A woman would not be eligible to work in that position and it would be perfectly legal to NOT hire her based upon her sex.

So, the way my nerdy brain works is to ask myself "is being a keynote speaker at BlogHer conferences a BFOQ?"  My answer is: no.  

Perhaps the answer is to poll the BlogHer community, as Jory has done in the past, but expand the "options".  For example:

a) All keynote speakers should be women

b) 90% keynote speakers should be women and 10% should be men.

c) 80/20, etc, etc

HR Wench

As a Scottish man who has recently started living with an American woman (in Scotland), I've been fascinated and to some extent horrified at just how sexist American society seems to be, and just how pressured too. From a European perspective, the lot of American women isn't great, but the lot of the American man is really ghastly! Unfeeling, driven, frightened, robots... Phew! No wonder you like to think they come from a different planet...

Jory,

I am a woman over 50 who has worked and owned businesses in male dominant industries, including automotive and high tech for over 30 years and have spent so much time over the years at conferences where women are a very small minority in attendence. To be criticized for being sexist for women only speakers at BlogHer is total hogwash in my book.

When men open the glass ceiling and inforce equality as a reality for women in business, politics for that matter in relationships...then THOSE men can come speak to us.

I applaud you, Lisa and Elisa for your tireless efforts with BlogHer to create a LOUD enough voice to collectively get our many voices heard.

Susan B. Anthony:

Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.

Jody DeVere
President
www.askpatty.com ( http://www.askpatty.com )
www.carblabber.com ( http://www.carblabber.com )

Vered, perhaps some of it also has to do with how different people experience blogging itself? You've said before that for you, blogging is entertainment. For some people, it's much more personal and deeper, or part of what they see as their work in the world to make it a better place, or a gift they're giving to their children. So a lot more emotion would be attached to it.

I think having a vegan speak at a beef conference would be brilliant. Sure it wouldn't be easy and many wouldn't agree with what was presented but you'd be presenting the other side of an issue which IMO is always a good thing.

But you do bring up a very valid point, the brand. Is the brand about promoting equality through highlighting the fact that there obviously are qualified female presenters and speakers? Or is the brand simply about promoting women?

To me, one is a worthwhile endeavor that should not rely on sexist policies, while the other is simply the same type of sexism that women have fought against for ages. 

Jory, I'm glad to see that you don't think of us all as product pitches waiting to happen.

However, isn't asking your community whether or not to exclusively allow women to speak a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy? You're asking a community that is predominently female!

I understand that conferences have used the bogus excuse of not being able to find enough qualified women speakers in the past, but I don't see how it benefits you to fight gender descrimination with more descrimination.

If you think it's unfair when other conferences do it, why is it ok for yours? 

When 90 to 100% of the speakers are male and there had been repeated efforts to ask for inclusion?

Just asking?

Gena - Out On The Stoop ( http://outonthestoop.blogspot.com )

Because, as you and I have discussed, the old Mars versus Venus thing doesn't work for me at all -- I agree to disagree.

Stereotypes are a dangerous business, IMHO. For me, the diversity of female and male behavior, even in oft-stereotyped Silicon Valley, crosses such a wide spectrum that I've never been able to get comfortable with statements such as "simply the difference in how men and women relate in business."

If anything, I feel my observations of people at the conference travel up and down the spectrum of introvert vs. extrovert, rather than gender. With the caveat that, of course, during BlogHer '08 I oversampled for women!

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder ( http://blogher.org/member/lisa-stone )
Surfette ( http://surfette.typepad.com )

It seems one of the core concepts that you all strive to promote is equality.

That women who are qualified should be paid just as much.

That women who are qualified should be given the promotion.

That women who are qualified should be given the opportunity.

That gender is irrelevant to getting the job done.

These are beliefs that you want to embrace, promote and share ... as long as they are't in your backyard.  When it comes time to put your words into action and show that gender is irrelevant to getting the job done ... you fall back on the behavior that has been used by sexist men for centuries ... I have to say I find it dissapointing. So for those of you who are so quick to assume why I want to speak I suggest looking in the mirror and understanding why you don't want me to ... you might not like what you see.

When I come to a conference to speak my job is to be as much like Sesame Street as i can. Be entertaining and informative at the same time. if I've done my job maybe I've given you something you'll remember and think about when you get home.

I'm sure Jory or Lisa or Elisa will correct me if I'm wrong, but the point of BlogHer has always been to amplify women's voices. Most of us who come here come here specifically to hear from other women - and believe me there is PLENTY of disagreement, variance and controversy under the incredibly huge umbrella that is "femininty." Our point in coming here and being here is very much to hear from women. The secondary goal of many of us is precisely to show what a huge, diverse and powerful group we are. By all means, join us, share with us, engage with us. But in order to earn a place in our community you have to connect first, introduce yourself, engage genuinely and often and then we will form the kind of relationship on which we can do business.....  Although, like Elisa, I am not one for generalities at all (and am usually a voice of dissent on this site that i LOVE so much) I do think that Jori is spot on that women want the whole package before we do business.

And I didn't find any "yes men" at BlogHer. If you're assuming that a room full of women are automatically going to support and agree with each other on issues, then you're working on a very Stepford idea of who women are. We disagree and argue ad infinitum, but we do it in an engaged way, a way that gets back to the relationship.  Go through and read some of the threads here, especially the ones that deal with gender, race, religion, politics, sexuality, freedom of choice.....  No "yes men" here, a hole lot of "hold on a sec sister!"

If you're upset that we didn't let you market to us in the way that you want to market to us, that is hardly a problem with BlogHer. They got us all in one big room and there were plenty of opportunities to engage with us, to be heard, to show us that you're in it with us. But the cardinal rule of marketing is that you need to speak the same language as your market. You go where they are, you don't ask them to come to you.  

____________

Alyssa Royse

Just Cause It: ( http://www.justcauseit.com )A Web Site To Save The World

Start Her Up: ( http://www.startherup.com )A Blog for Women Entrepreneurs

This nailed it for me:

"I imagine that Gray is perturbed by our policy because we have a
community of influencers, and getting in front of them would be good
for raising one's profile or promoting a business. From that standpoint
our policy prevents this from happening for men. HOWEVER, while the
conference is a great way for brands and people to get "in front" of
influencers, only the right conversations will "get through" to the
influencers. The value for the members is very different than what
someone outside that community may perceive it to be."

100% agreed. It appears Gray is disappointed because he sees this conference as a great way to promote himself, and he isn't able to do that due to the policy. But someone who only sees the BlogHer community as something that can help "him" isn't really the kind of person that the community wants to have speaking to them, whether they're male or female. In fact, nobody in this community wants to be spoken "to" at all; we all want to be spoken "with".

Edited to add - good to see you have joined the community, Michael; it's a great first step in realizing what this community is all about. 

Visit my blogs at ThreeSeven ( http://www.threeseven.ca ) (all that's irrelevant and amusing) and
ecochick ( http://www.ecochick.ca ) (all that's green, cool and Canadian).

Is the point of the conference to provide a platform for women to speak or learn things and grow ? If it's growing and learning than the best thing to do hear from people who have different viewpoints than those of your own. Which is more educational being someplace that chalenges you to think about things in a way you didn't before, or to be surrounded by an echo chamber of "yes men" who agree with everything you say.

It's funny to me that this somehow got complicated.  Well, maybe not, it's what I would expect in a society that equates equality with quantifiable things like "face time." But BlogHer has always been about aggregating women's voices. Not because we don't like men, or are mad at them or anything else. But BlogHer is about women's voices.  We tune in to hear what women ahve to say. After all, men's voices are EVERYWHERE.

So, to me, having men keynote makes about as much sense as having a vegan keynote a conference about beef. Even a well-intentioned vegan would have a hard time speaking from an authentic place of understanding about the experience and perspective of someone who loves beef enough to go to a beef conference.  

As for using the communication styles to further ourselves....  I cannot imagine a better way to learn about HOW to reach women than to attend BlogHer. Are we all the same? No! But I do think that - in general - women use relationships as the most valuable commodity in the commerce that is both our personal and professional lives. BlogHer, in that way, is not new at all. Tupperware? Mary Kay?  Major companies built on the fact that women trust women with whom they have relationships. Smart men and women used BlogHer to engage, connect, listen, learn and reach out LATER.

The even smarter men (like the cutie pattottie who has a pic of his kid on his back as his avatar) have been here for ages, engaging the community by being part of it, not being an onlooker.

Learning how people communicate is not a generalization, it is smart. We need to learn how men and women communicate, and then understand that there are huge variables that are not dependent on cup size or ball size. But being fluent in all of it is the way we build brands, constituencies, relationships, lives and businesses.

For what it's worth though, I do believe that men build on relationships also.  We just call it cronyism. :) Gotta meet people where they're at.  

It's not a question of being exclusionary, it's a simple question of knowing what your brand / product is.  Yours is the strongest collection of female voices out there. Why would you lead with something that wasn't your brand? 

____________

Alyssa Royse

Just Cause It: ( http://www.justcauseit.com )A Web Site To Save The World

Start Her Up: ( http://www.startherup.com )A Blog for Women Entrepreneurs

Although I did not attend the conference and I am a new blogger I can completely understand "the rules." First of all the conference is called BlogHer. This community is set up to foster the development of new bloggers, showcase veteran bloggers and is a place where woman can relate to each other.

I acknowledge that all BlogHer registrants are not women but for once we have a forum where our views are nurtured and not scoffed at. I think it is important for this to survive.

As a graduate of an all women's college I understand the necessity for a women centered environment and maintain that BlogHer should showcase the voices of women.

Renée aka Mekhi's Mom

My blog - Cutie Booty Cakes ( http://cutiebootycakes.blogspot.com/ )

Skitzzo, Thanks for your post.

Let's take ourselves out of the generalizations for a minute because I agree that not all men would want to hawk themselves at the conference, and perhaps plenty of women would. I'll stick to our speaker policy and where it came from:

Our first conference sought to demonstrate that there were qualified women to speak on every blogging topic, and we did that with a 100% women speaking roster. Every year, including that first one, after the conference we've polled the community to ask how important that speaker policy is, and every year the strong majority of respondents say that it is still inspiring and important to them. The policy is not set in stone. We ask; our community tells; we act accordingly. We've never had a problem finding qualified female speakers, and it certainly serves our organization’s mission of providing opportunities for women bloggers...which we're very up front about. We do believe there will be a day when the community will feel it is no longer essential to exclusively promote qualified women in every topic area, but so far it hasn't come. We'll see what this year's poll reveals.

So I apologize for the generalizations that I may have made while trying to paint my view of how many women relate/interact at the conference. We didn’t develop our speaker policy based on my post; we based it on community preferences.

Jory Des Jardins BlogHer Personal Blog Pause ( http://www.jorydesjardins.com )

To be honest, I think BlogHer would have been better of not responding to Gray's post than posting something like this.

Let me make sure I've got this right... it's ok for BlogHer not to allow male speakers because:

Men and women network differently.
ONE male pitched his services to you.
Not ALL men would enter conversations "in the intended fashion."
Are you serious? How much more stereotypical can you get? Why not go all out and say that the reason men would attend BlogHer would be to pick up women?

I've got to be honest here. While I somewhat agreed with Gray's post, I didn't really care much about the whole issue but this post has illustrated that in fact Michael Gray is absolutely correct. The so called "reasoning" behind this post and apparently this women speakers only policy is blatently sexist and based on nothing more than stereotypes.

There is truth to the generalities for American culture. My real life profession is traditionally male dominated - litigation. My former profession is traditionally male dominated - engineering (at an aerospace corporation, no less). And it does seem that men network competitively, with a focus on getting it done. I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine type of thing. But, women, on the other hand, need a common connection to want to do that - shared experiences, life, marriage, children, whatever - we seem to work more cooperatively than competitively (not to say we don't compete).

And BlogHer is much more about work together, uniting, and sharing than competing. It didn't seem to matter whether you were a "rockstar" Blogger or not. And that's what he overlooked - the context. 

Jennifer

www.thesmartmama.com ( http://www.thesmartmama.com )

This post was very timely for me. It answered a question that I asked after BlogherCon, a question that was left unanswered.

I recently made a comment on a certain blog. The blog post that I commented on described BlogherCon as an emotionally charged event, and I observed that basically, I just don't get it. I said that you never see this much emotion attached to any other type of business conference. I said that while BlogherCon is a celebration of the POWER of women, it is also a testimony to how EMOTIONAL women are.

I said it in a "stop being so WEAK" tone.

I don't know if I was trained so well by males, that I separate business from friendship the way they do. But I'm glad I read this post. I admit that I am still uncomfortable with all these emotions that surrounded, that are still surrounding BlogherCon, but I think I understand it better now. I don't see it as a weakness anymore.

Vered DeLeeuw

http://momgrind.com/

As she often tells me not to generalize. Of course there are plenty of exceptions. And BlogHer is a very different conference in that it IS business but in a much more personal way for people who blog personally or for personal reasons.

Jory Des Jardins BlogHer Personal Blog Pause ( http://www.jorydesjardins.com )

I was nervous about writing this and speaking in generalities, so I appreciate your providing more refinement of this notion.

Jory Des Jardins BlogHer Personal Blog Pause ( http://www.jorydesjardins.com )

Yeah, what Kim said!

Yours, Tracy Viselli (a.k.a. Myrna the Minx)

My Company

Reno Fabulous Media: www.renofabulousmedia.com ( http://www.renofabulousmedia.com )
My Main Blog
Reno and Its Discontents: www.renodiscontent.com ( http://www.renodiscontent.com )

You  gave me a lot to think about, Jory; thanks for that. That said, I'm wary of "biology is destiny" arguments, especially since I think the male behavior you are describing is particularly Western and especially American. I've been told by West Africans, for example, that establishing personal relationships is an absolute pre-requisite for doing business.

 Thanks again for the thoughtful words!

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor ( http://blogher.org/blog/kim-pearson )|Professor Kim ( http://professorkim.blogspot.com/ )|

But I worry about reifying stereotypes about the way women communicate and how much more emotion there needs to be for us to "take a business card."  I agree, women can communicate differently than men, but it's not always because of our need for additional emotional response, it's about context.  That guy misread a situation--BIG TIME.  He let his goal get in the way of his awareness of the customer.  To anyone with any kind of EQ, it would have been clear that they needed to seek you out later.  But at an ordinary session, if his company provided something I was interested in, I would take his card. I feel it's often about your purpose and the context.  The woman got it because she forgot her purpose and let herself get out of business mode--probably something that's easier to do for her when she is surrounded by 1,000 other women.  The context of BlogHer is different--that's what he didn't get.  Some men did get that--in fact, they were probably less business like than I was at BlogHer, but that was because my purpose was to network within my field, not necessarily to "go naked."  I'm probably not being clear, but this is a tough topic.  

Yours, Tracy Viselli (a.k.a. Myrna the Minx)

My Company

Reno Fabulous Media: www.renofabulousmedia.com ( http://www.renofabulousmedia.com )
My Main Blog
Reno and Its Discontents: www.renodiscontent.com ( http://www.renodiscontent.com )

Jory, great post. It's pushing me to think about things I haven't been thinking about - which is always a good thing! :)

I commented on Gray's website in support of BlogHer's policies. I just think men feeling they should speak at BlogHer is more about what they think they need/want than it is about BlogHer's purpose. And context. I agree with the women who commented about context.

As for the generalizations, I just don't know how to feel about them. Because sometimes they apply and sometimes they don't. We could probably have the same discussion about women and sex, no? And women and politics. And tons more. It's complex. 

But thank you for putting this out there.  I met many passionate women at the conference (I prefer passionate to emotional...the connotation, you know), and making those connections was really what it was all about for me. I would have pretty annoyed if someone - man or woman - started to pitch their services to me uninvited.

Lara 

Notions of Identity ( http://www.notionsofidentity.com )