More on Women

So we got this young hamster girl from the pet store to breed with Marshmallow, who is the best fricking, longest living, cutest hamster in Georgia (exhibit A to your right) if not the continental U.S. He is friendly, kind, doesn't bite, potties in ONE spot only, and basically lives a sweet and quiet life with good genes and teeth.

Can you ask for much more than that in a specimen of any species? I think not.

That is why we decided--or I should say George decided--that Marshmallow's lineage must be preserved in a new generation. So he and jenna bought Cupcake and brought her home. She is very sweet. When we put them together in one cage, they got along famously.

REALLY famously.

Wooohooo type famously.

So imagine our surprise two days ago when we found Marshmallow cowering on his back in a corner with Cupcake swiping away at him.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME YOU NEEDY BASTARD!" she screamed.

"OH CUPCAKE--WHAT? WHAT DID I DO?"

He continued to offer her his underbelly as if to say: I know you could kill me, and I love you for it, but if it's all the same to you, I wish you wouldn't.

Clearly she's hormonal.

Another couple of incidents like this followed until we got the picture: Time to separate them--the blessed event must be getting close.

What I'm saying is, if you listen, women will tell you what they want.

And even if you DON'T listen, women will show you what they want.

And if you don't listen and don't take heed, then they will swipe at you and you will be laying face up begging for them to just not hurt you and maybe to get a cage of their own if that would be at all possible.

Then when they move next door, you go back into your plastic dome house and lay around, just like you used to before they ever showed up.

And that's kind of how it works.

Hamsters are a window on the world.

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Razer Sharp on Blog Sisters

Helen Razer has been on Blog Sisters as long as I can remember. Like a lot of the posting members there--yours truly included--she doesn't post there all that often, but when she does, woooohooo it's ALWAYS wonderful and cool and day-changing. It's what blogging used to be before it was coopted by U.S.ian Web2.o zealots with few chops and even fewer clues.

Wonderful writing case-in-point -- today's Blank Paris, in which Ms. Razer explores the Meaning of Life and Love in a pixel-driven collage of absurd current day rating mechanisms--from Paris Hilton to trans fatty acids.

I give you the start here. You'll have to go read the rest.

In every life, about a handful of Truly Significant moments are collected. These, unless you’re easily given to joy upon opening stationery catalogues eating spaghetti, polishing brassware et al, are wrung from events broadly agreed to be drenched in emotion. Births, deaths, marriages and all their variants and relatives from illness to ignited love provide the stuff of big moments.

You will recognise these moments for their potency. Within these instants, some sort of emotional coin is dropped. A new mechanism is activated and, slowly then suddenly, your insides creak and you’re changed for good.

When you care to peruse your album of rare and remarkable moments, you will almost certainly find these were built in the immediate company of life, death and affection. You may also find that this record is slim. This, truly, is the way it should be. A life too well-punctuated by high drama and joy is a life drained of meaning. Unless, of course, you’re Namoi Campbell.

I suspect that I’m quite fortunate to have collected a few such moments for display and ready reference. My internal emotional directory contains a select hit list at the top of which is an “I Love You” closely followed by an “It’s completely operable”.

Occasionally, however, I find myself eager for the inclusion of new moments.
Like a brooding tween hepped up on a dissatisfying diet of Emo and trans fats, I find myself idly hoping for bad-ass, life changing emotional action.

...

Back to My Roots

I have been thinking a lot about the women of BlogHer the last couple of weeks, especially since the business name was unfairly thrown into the mix of the recent melee that tied me to accusations of now-well-publicized posts and unrelated death threats, a big-fat none of which I wrote/made/insinuated, as if that needs saying again, but there it is.

Since everything apparently happens for a reason, I’ve taken this mess as a reason to start thinking about my own group blogging affiliations, my level of involvement and attention-paying, who I know and don’t know in the groups I belong to, what any of this means for those group blogs I own and run, whether or not there’s still a synergy for me in these groups, what I’m getting out of – and giving to – those groups, and how much any of this matters in my life. I have arrived at no particular answers. But the thinking has kept me busy.

Combine these questions with the well-publicized push toward “seals of approval” and “codes of conduct” for blogs, covered in the NYT and elsewhere, and I find myself at a crossroads on how I view blogging—both group blogs and my individual blog.

While codes of conduct have their place on targeted team and business blogs, neither “seals of approval” nor self-important, semantic legislation of adult behavior sit well with me. None of this "cyberbullying" sentiment (save it for the children who need it, please), these "codes of conduct", or "blog seals of approval" ring true as ways to serve readers, writers, or conversation in its entirety, especially in the forms currently being discussed. These means of constraint are American-Fear-Inspired, insulting, reductionist nonsense designed to quiet dissent, no matter how many euphemisms – like ‘civility’ -- the civilized West tries to color them with.

What works to keep blog writers, and their commenting readers, in line with the context of the blog? The blog writers and their commenting readers!

The bottom line is this: I don’t want the push toward mandated civility extended toward me, either by implication or by association.

Neither do I want the pieces of me that are less civilized and less acceptable – YAY PIECES! – to reflect badly on the group blogs where I participate. This is especially true for a business blog like BlogHer—especially when I’m participating not for money, not for ad revenue, not as part of my business, but for fun.

All of this discourse over behavior—it’s stupid. I’ve known how to navigate the Internet since I built my first website in 1996 and started the first women’s team blog on Blogger in 2001. Today’s A-listers need to stop talking about how to talk with their readers and how to ignore occasional trolls, and just fucking DO it.

Anyway, I have digressed to the point where I am losing my manners. That was not my intention. But it was fun.

This post is actually meant to thank the women of BlogHer, especially leaders Lisa, Jory, and Elisa, and say that I have enjoyed working with and writing along side of you since this baby got birthed. But it’s time for me to go back to my roots, to go pay attention to the group blogs that are home to me, maybe make new ones, to tend to Blog Sisters and my own blog. That's what I've been gravitating toward the last couple of months. It's time to make it official, for what it's worth.

Lisa and I have talked and she has graciously accepted my request for freedom. The decision is mine and mine alone, and I think it’s the right one.

Here’s to what’s next. I wish the BlogHers well in growing up and evolving their business, brand, and blog. Ladies, continue to name names and push the limits. Don’t settle. Look BOTH ways before you cross the hyperlink. And be well.

-jeneane

...

Well, Imagine the Confusion!

A little clarification from the U.S. News & World Report.

"The source of my inaccuracy was this post on Sierra's own website, which to me was unclear about Locke's website's association with the posting.... Sorry to get bogged down in details." --Bonnie Erbe


PESKY, PESKY details. Good thing bloggers love us some details.

....

no lists, just action - speaker diversity and the top-dog bypass

Chris Pirillo wonders why Gnomedex didn't make Kottke's list of conferences examined for their percentages of male vs female speakers.

I'd say it's a good thing Gnomedex didn't make the list, because, although it's an interesting idea to compare today's hot Internet conferences based on these percentages, it's sort of like addressing a zero balance in your bank account by changing the numbers in your checkbook register.

It doesn't really address the lllaaarrgggerrr ppprrrooobbllem.

I wish more tech conferences were like gnomedex, and that more of today's web-tech conference organizers were like chris and ponzi. Gnomedex was fostering discussion on the tech landscape LONG before today's webby conferences (and conference organizers), many of whom are doing what they do to capitalize on web 2.0 money, the Internet economy, and the social media 'who's who' scene.

THOSE are the conferences I inherently distrust and see as suspect, and they nearly always give me reason to distrust, because they almost always take the speaker bypass of looking at the technorati top 100 or Top Dogs or Founding FATHERS of blogging, and approach them for speaking slots. These individuals are STILL the easiest to come across when you skim the web looking for voices-as-commodity. They are also pretty good themselves at going after gigs. Easy, visible targets beget easy quick conferences beget money in pockets beget notoriety for speakers and conferences, which beget more speaking gigs and conferences.

Chris and Ponzi don't skim the web. They live here with us. They participate--participated before it was trendy and highly lucrative. That is why I trust them to put together a good, representative conference, and to listen to ideas for speakers and topics if people think they should do it differently.

Back to the Kottke list: There is no universal diversity percentage that makes things okay.

Wouldn't that be simple? It would allow for more bypasses, faster conference planning, and more predictable tracks. It would allow everything to be fair and just, and would mean that no one would have to think about their own beliefs and motives. Just fill in the 38% diversity quotient at work, and then you don't have to wonder if it's okay that you wish your new neighbors weren't black.

The "right" number of women speakers for a deeply-tech tech conference might differ from the "right" number for a social marketing conference. Because there is no right number.

Except for NOT ZERO.

AND PROBABLY. NOT ONE EITHER.

Use your fucking heads.

How to find good speakers? Ask the people you know who are in the populations you think are sparse or missing. Better yet, START READING PEOPLE who don't look like everyone else in your aggregator or blogroll. Then read who they read.

And if you really don't know any women or people of color, expand your world a little bit. Get off your computer, get out of your fucking house, city, state, and/or cultural comfort zone to-day.

THEN plan a conference.

giving it a go, diversity, the red button, and anil.

So many women over so many years around these so many parts have endeavored so often and so passionately to describe the problem with diverse voices being excluded from tech events, tech conferences, and the tech economy--heck some would wish we'd shut up altogether--that there is hardly anything left unsaid.

And yet, the same types of people keep spewing the same types of stupid arguments the same way about the same topic (linking to the same one anothers in doing so) to try and shift the blame anywhere other than their own two shoulders -- it makes me want to push the red button on this whole damn social experiment. As if i had a button.

It's crazy making. it really is.

Today the men are talking about it again, and I am pointing it out so that others can go there and talk about it with Anil, whose post is right on in explaining why monoculture is not only NOT a good thing, but why diversity is a business must that will pay off. (In other words, hurry, there's money involved.)

I haven't always agreed with Anil. In fact he's pissed me off several times over these many years. He's also very smart. This is a good post and a good discussion. Thank you Anil for having it.