Goodbye Grassroots BlogHer

Full disclosure: I'm one of the paid Contributing Editors at the BlogHer website, and I spoke on Day One at this year's conference, for which I will receive reimbursement for my attendance over the two days. However, my comments here are my personal opinions as an attendee of BlogHer 2006 and should not be interpreted as any statement on behalf of BlogHer.

I'm quite disappointed in the BlogHer conference this year. There are three areas of disappointment:

1. the degree of marketing presence and choice of sponsors
2. the subject matter of the panels and keynote speaker events
3. and the emerging BlogHer "star system" which is fueled in part by the BlogHer Ad Network

I'll address these over a series of posts.

The Marketing Presence

The marketing presence of the sponsors was a lot more in-your-face than last year. Last year, there were sponsor tables set up in the foyer of the building, which left it up to the attendee whether they wanted to approach the tables or not.

This year, there were sales pitches by company representatives before the keynotes and opening discussion. This was an incredibly poor decision, and should never have been allowed to happen.

The one I imagine most people will be blogging about is the Windows Live Spaces sales pitch. This took place on Day Two in the morning before the opening discussion. Two women got up and started their pitch. I got up and left the room, not wanting to be advertised at, and went into the lobby for about ten minutes or so. I came back, and they were still going on. The audience was noticeably restless and unimpressed.

Some people made fun of the Microsoft women, but they were just doing their job. And I tend to think that even they were internally grimacing, as they could easily gauge the audience and tell that their pitch wasn't going down well.

No, those two sales women are not to blame. That Microsoft would arrange such a breathtakingly condescending pitch, and that the conference organizers green-lit it—that is where the responsibility lies.

A similar event happened at the closing keynote on Day Two, although the company reps had tailored their pitches for a more sophisticated and personal approach. Still, it was one big commercial you had to sit through until the panel.

Please don't do this again, BlogHer.

At another point, I was sitting in the audience waiting for a presentation to start, when a woman came up and knelt down by my side. She seemed friendly and I thought perhaps she'd seen my presentation on Day One, and wanted to chat about it. Or maybe she was familiar with my BlogHer posts…

I realized with a sinking feeling, as she handed me her card and a book, that she was making a one-to-one sales pitch. I politely accepted her "gifts", sensing she'd then move on to the next customer, and she did.

I came to BlogHer to meet other bloggers, not get tricked into a conversation that then turned into a sales pitch.

We're All Heterosexual, Married Women with Kids
(oh and we're White, too)

While I support the mommybloggers and their relative success in making blogging profitable for them, as a woman who has chosen not to have children, I felt alienated by the relentless focus on mothers during the conference.

Lisa Williams An audience member got up and contributed a comment during the closing discussion on Day Two. She said something like, "There are a lot of married women with children here…" I thought she was going to segue into making a point about how we're not all heterosexual married mothers. But to my surprise her statement—and it was just a statement at that point—was interrupted with a big round of applause.

I'd like to point out, sans applause, that:

    woman ≠ mother

    woman ≠ heterosexual

But clearly the heterosexual, married mothers are who BlogHer is most concerned about catering to.

Two different lesbians told me, at separate points during the conference, that they felt alienated by the assumption on the part of the conference that all women were heterosexual with kids. Two different women told me this, completely unprompted by myself.

They both cited the same two examples:

1. the lack of any panel that addressed lesbians' concerns or issues
2. the condom and baby bib included in the BlogHer swag bag

I must admit, when I got home after Day One and explored the contents of my bag, I was put-off by the baby paraphernalia and condom—and I'm a heterosexual married woman. It was as if the message was: you're a woman, therefore the only things you must be interested in are issues related to your sexual reproduction. I'm only brave enough to say anything here, publicly in this post, because I had talked with those two lesbians who quite by accident had validated my own reaction.

The first woman I chatted with felt isolated and expressed regret and disappointment that she hadn't met any other lesbians. There was no organized attempt to welcome lesbians or allow them a space to network. It would be nice if BlogHer could at least acknowledge that a conference putting women first would, of course, draw a lesbian audience.

She went on to make the astute observation that, for the Bay Area, a region that is strongly liberal and has a large lesbian population, this lack of acknowledgement was astonishing. I agree with her.

It's important to note, too, that the second woman I spoke with had a child, but she still felt that the contents of the swag bag were alienating to lesbians, many of whom were not concerned about contraception, nor having babies.

I also think it's astonishing that BlogHer is quite happy to harness the energies of lesbians without formally acknowledging their lesbian audience, nor providing a panel catering to this audience. I can think of at least four "out" lesbians (and prominent BlogHers) who have contributed their blood, sweat, and tears to making BlogHer great—and that's only the ones I'm aware of.

Without any official acknowledgement or response from those with authority in charge of BlogHer, we're left with the implied message that lesbians don't count.

A "Birds of a Feather" clipboard should have been created and laid on the table in the foyer, along with all the other topics. And at least one panel should have been arranged that was geared towards lesbian bloggers.

The Face of BlogHer is White

There were some women of color at the BlogHer conference, and I was glad to see their presence and I certainly hope they had a great time. But, as I looked around the audience in the huge Mediterranean Room, I saw a sea of white faces. Is it okay to say this? Is there some taboo against it?

After all, BlogHer bangs on about diversity this, diversity that. So it's obviously part of the BlogHer mission and message. But if that's so, where the hell is all the diversity? Not in the Mediterranean Room, that's for sure.

At last year's conference, there was "A Room of Your Own" called "Brown Bloggers Go West". The description was this:

"'How can African American and Latino bloggers report on issues ignored by the 6 o'clock news?' asks moderator Nichelle Stephens."

This is interesting. It lets me know who the target audience is for this session and focuses on a specific, interesting problem. One that promised a critical analysis about the mainstream media, and strategizing about how bloggers could organize and respond to this form of censorship.

Compare this with the topic and description of the only panel touching on race at BlogHer 2006:

"Identity… and Obligations: Do you feel obliged to represent your gender, race, culture? Featuring… [list of names]"

Gee, that really sets me on fire.

A particular race, a particular culture, is not named; instead there is a blank courtesy gesture towards "race", which is also lumped in with "culture" and "gender". That's boring. It's vague and covers too much ground, creating an impossible topic to address within the timeframe. It also is limited to individual cases, promising no analysis. Certainly no analysis with a political flavor.

What about getting specific? Like focusing on Latina bloggers or black bloggers, for instance, instead of this wishy-washy generality that dances around race like it's a thorny nuclear hot potato.

I attended the "Brown Bloggers Go West" session and it was part of what made my experience at BlogHer 2005 rich and complex. It also provided an opportunity for brown and black bloggers to network.

My experience at BlogHer 2006 was not rich and complex. It was flat and monotone. Although there was one panel that ostensibly catered to the non-white demographic, any threat to the white status quo was made impotent by its lack of focus and its insistence on viewing the world through atomized individual experiences that defused any analysis of a political nature.

You Cannot Always Let Community Dictate Terms

The BlogHer conference organizers have said, over and over again, publicly, that they want to listen to what the community asks for and respond to it. That they will let the community decide what the content of the conference will be.

If the BlogHer conference reflects the feedback from the BlogHer community, then that community has alienated some women while promoting and catering to others. And that's wrong, especially for a project that proclaims itself "where the women bloggers are".

Surely part of leading an open community is setting an agenda to enable all women to be heard. This means noticing when you are excluding some, and extending a welcoming hand to those women who do not look like you, nor come from the same economic background.

That hand was not extended at BlogHer 2006 because because the organizers were focused on using the conference to further strengthen the newly announced BlogHer Ad Network. The target demographic of the network: married middle-class mothers. So while women of color were given positions speaking at BlogHer, panels devoted to real discussion of real problems affecting them were noticeably absent.

The leaders of BlogHer have a responsibility to reach out to different groups of women, not just the ones with money in their purses. Not just the ones that they socialize with. Not just the ones they network with. I see no evidence of this kind of leadership at BlogHer 2006.

Actually maybe the face of BlogHer isn't white. Maybe it's green.

Update 08.02.06: I may have misheard the audience member quoted above.

Tags: BlogHer, blogher06, Bloghercon