Comments on: If I’d been at BlogHer, it wouldn’t have been to hear Graywolf speak

By: GeekMommy

GeekMommy — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 08:11:56 +0000

The funny part is that we will probably have male speakers at BlogHer in the next couple of years - but I’d be terribly surprised if he’s ever invited to be one of them. Seeing as he’s completely missed the reason any of us opt to go to BlogHer, he’s not exactly someone any of us would go out of our way to hear.

Had his position been one of “I realize why it has been this way up to now, but honestly? There are some things that certain male speakers could teach you that would benefit you if they were allowed to speak here - such as…” instead of “now you’re the sexist pigs because you won’t let me come speak there and make marketing connections!” he’d likely have gotten a much better reception.

That said, when “Booth Babes” stop being standard at tech conferences and a “good ratio of male-to-female speakers” isn’t one where women = 40% then he’s got room to say he’s being discriminated against in the tech field.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 10:52:14 +0000

i have absolutely no problems with ladies having a ladies related blogging conference, but gray has a point.

if men had a man only SEO conference, what would the women think? i reckon there would be a bit of an uproar.

By: Tom (Mr.Mom) Royce

Tom (Mr.Mom) Royce — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:10:08 +0000

Michael is right, not all of the Mommy Bloggers are women. Not all of the child care providers in the family are women. There is this great ruckus made that men have to take an active role in the household, and then when we do, Mom’s feel threatened and don’t want men to participate?
What is truly ironic is that for a Dad to stay at home with the kids he is expected to work full time also, and internet marketing and blogging is a great outlet for that.
Yet if men created an exclusive type atmosphere at a conference in this day and age they would be attacked as being sexist.
I am with Graywolf on this one.

By: graywolf

graywolf — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:07:25 +0000

There’s a line from classic star trek where MR Spock says his most valuable place was with human not vulcans. in a nutshel on vulcan he didn’t bring as much to group, and among humans he filled a role that was missing. That’s what diversity brings to any group.

The big objection everyone brings to the party is “bonding with other women”, when I go to conferences sure I like to spend time with my friends but i don’t make the distinction between male friends and women, buts maybe thats me.

The whole mommy blog argument is actually kinda humorous when people throw it up for me. I pick the kids up after school every day, I bring them to parties, karate, school dance school, play dates and other events they have to go to. I do all the food shopping, and I see all the other mom’s around town when I’m doing my errands. We chat before and after school and the intimate details that many of them have shared make me feel I’ve been accepted into “the tribe”. What we as a society need to stop associating primary childcare with gender, and realize that sometimes mommy bloggers might just be dad’s.

While I do have a point everytime I pull one of these there also a bit of learning quality to. For example the majority of my tweets yesterday had the word “blogher” to catch anyone using twitter search engines or monitoring tools and draw in a bit of traffic, and twitter was my number 2 referral for yesterday beating out Google. So while I’m not everyone’s cup of tea I am willing to teach and share things with anyone who’s willing to listen.

By: Jebus

Jebus — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:51:09 +0000

Gee, well, glad we’ve been able to take tired identify politics into every possible freaking place, including SEO.

Of course, you can’t know what that mean unless you’re a middle aged right handed southern man with one ear just a tidge lower than the other.