Susan Getgood’s posting on BlogHer set off discussions in many directions. I’m going to focus on one — when does a women-only thing go from being an event identifier to a name-calling insult for an attendee? As I was reading

My issue wasn’t with the conference at all (I wasn’t there, so who am I to comment), mine was with the reporting by some of the male observers on the ‘pretty, hugging, kissing, giggling, sexy women who didn’t have to be explained blogging.’

And I do something about that every day. Trying to break stereotypes with every keystroke and every ounce of my being. And so are you!

I am beginning to think equality in its purist sense is unattainable. We all have these preconceived notions of what that means – I respect your view that having the gender label applied to you and your work is somehow demeaning – but, to me, it’s invigorating. I spent much too long as a woman in a “man’s world” to let it go now.

Gender labels will persist no matter how hard we try to rip them off. I delve into that a little in my book, Dickless Marketing, remembering how hard we baby boomer Moms tried to bring our kids up to be androgynous. It didn’t work because woman and men are hard-wired differently – which doesn’t mean one sex is better than another. It does mean that women have their advantages, and men have theirs. And, there are men who are better at woman-related stuff than some women, and women who are better at men-related stuff than some men.

I will continue to celebrate my woman-ness. I am woman – hear me roar – indeed. As for the tagline: Where the Women Are – it’s a mindset for Blogher. Nothing more. Marketing that works.

I am looking forward to NY – and also have it on my calendar, b/c I want more focused business sessions (like the business blogging unpanel).

I was not disappointed in BlogHer overall, but one disappointment was that it seemed to primarily focus on the basics – as if we all still needed to know about flickr, choices in free blogging platforms, etc…

I understand the necessity of those sessions, but I certainly would like to recommend having sessions focusing on different technical levels – not ones where the speaker has to stop and define RSS or technorati.

I felt Blogher, for the most part, was a social gathering with a few serious things tossed in. For its second year out of the gate, I think the founders have done excellent and I do plan on continuing in attendance.

I identify with BlogHER and like it. I am a woman blogger. I am a woman in business. I don’t fall into the argument that I need to merge into the man’s world and just be a ‘blogger’ – I like being a ‘woman blogger.’ Maybe I’ve not stepped far enough into the feminism movement, who knows.

I’m probably going to set off a huge blogstorm with this comment, but hey, in for a penny….

Is “blogger” a professional title? I’m not sure it is. Or should be. I hear the screaming from all corners now.

Let me explain: we share our thoughts and expertise through blogs, but I would hazard a guess that very few people consider themselves professional bloggers. Even if they are paid to blog, I hope their self id is as “writer” or “communicator,” with their current assignment being blogs.

Now we couldn’t make that a universal statement – I know there are folks who DO describe their professional id as “blogger” but I don’t think that will stick, because it is too tied to a medium. Taking a long term view, much better to be a marketer or a writer so you can adapt to NEW mediums as they emerge.

So talking about women bloggers is a description — women who blog. That’s pretty much the commonality at BlogHer. As Evelyn comments above, otherwise, it is pretty diverse. Certainly more so than most of the other conferences I’ve been to in the past few years.

“Where the women are.” Originally of course that was the answer to the question posed, Where are the women? I’m sure you recall the blogstorms of early 05 when folks (among them Shelley Powers) did a bit of parseing of the A-list, and found that the A-list, predominantly male, mostly linked to each other. A closed circle with little diversity.

BlogHer was a response to that, an attempt to create a community of women perhaps strong enough to offset a male-centered blogosphere. Has it worked? I think yes, although perhaps not in all the ways everyone imagined 18 months ago. Does the A-list still hang together? Pretty much. Does it matter? Yeah, but not so much anymore. We’ve created other communities (down here in the long tail) that are equally satisfying. In fact that’s something I’ll be writing about this weekend — community that is.

Finally, I don’t think anyone could make the mistake that ALL the women are at BlogHer, given the blog activity of this week. Regardless of the tagline.

I agree that it doesn’t make sense to change the tagline to “where people are”, because it IS about women, but what bothers me is I don’t know how else to parse that line other than, “Hey, THIS is where the women are. Right HERE.” It is simply not true. It is where *some* of the women are, and I wish BlogHer would reflect that.

And today is no different. Hugh, I KNOW your post was not about BlogHer. Your post was about making fun of BlogHer. And the gender issues that created it in the first place.

That’s what you do. You draw cartoons that make fun of stuff – sometimes even yourself, God bless you. You may not even have a strong personal opinion on BlogHer, I have no idea. But the links on your cartoon were “fair and balanced” like FOX News. Your readers, all however many thousand of them, now have an impression of BlogHer that is far from fair or balanced. And that’s too bad. It’s also your right — your blog, your cartoons.

And my free speech to tell you that I think that was wrong. I do not need you to agree.

I find BlogHer to be refreshingly the most diverse blogging conference in terms of the breadth of topics of interest, class, ages, etc. represented. I think the media attention skewed it as if every other blogger there is a mommy blogger or diarist, yet when you talk one-on-one with random women you quickly find that’s not the case at all. Everything under sun is covered with passion and zeal by amazing women.

One thing on “the something soft and girly, and therefore less serious” comment. I grew up as oldest in a family with three girls, and no brothers. I so wanted to be a boy for first 37 years of my life. Ah, the freedom and power of being male!, I thought. Yet, I’ve reclaimed my femininity of late and integrated both masculine & feminine sides. Femme *is* powerful. Soft is definitely not less serious at all, that’s just what They tell us.

I really look forward to seeing you again in NYC, if not earlier.