Blogging and Feminism Panel
The Panel on Blogging and Feminism in NYC was really fantastic! I didn’t make it to the EO Wilson talk, but I know Starre did! So she’ll have more on that I’m sure.
[Picture originally uploaded by Liz]
Liz, who does regular blogging here, did some live blogging for the Blogging and Feminism event, I encourage you to go read about it there, she did a pretty good job at getting everything that the panelists said.
I enjoyed Alice’s talk the most, you can find her tech&fem blog here. She has posted her notes online, download the .doc file here. Alon Levy of Abstract Nonsense has done a really interesting post on the panel as well.
The panelists were Jessica of Feministing who it was an absolute pleasure to meet. (Feministing has also been spotted in the most recent issue of Marie Claire! Cool. Its fun when bloggers are give print publicity.) Gwen, Jessica’s ‘co-everything’ including co-founder of The Real Hot 100. The Real Hot 100 is very bitchen, as it celebrates real beauty as opposed to the shallow standards that we’re exposed to on a daily basis. Rock on. Alice’s website can be found here where she blogs about technology and feminism. Liza from Culture Kitchen, Lauren from Hollaback NYC and Michelle from Hollaback Boston were the other three panelists.
Here is another picture from Liz of the panelists, …but you can’t see Michelle.
The Hollaback websites have an interesting thing going on. They exist to ‘take back’ street crime by taking pictures of harssers and sending them into the blog …Its really great to see women taking these disturbing events and making it something other than a humiliating moment. But I personally am more drawn to things that show results. In a way this is a good step at making women really in your face and such, which is nice, but… we need a way to make sure they’re taking their lives further and never letting anything get in their way – not just pig headed men on the street.
It was interesting to hear Liza talk about niches on the web. She thinks they’re really important, where Alice disagreed. I tend to agree more with Alice on this one, and not just because I like her a lot. Just as in ecology, niches can’t function on their own – and they need to become part of a bigger picture to have any importance. While its nice to have a small niche that you can go into and find your own identity, for that to even matter, and for any stereotype to dissipate there needs to be a bigger picture – and we all need to be a part of it.
What good is the internet if all the ‘big blogs’ and the blogs that are getting all the media attention are those which are run by white males? That isn’t progressive at all. For the blog phenomena to be any different than the mass media before it the niches sort of need to just dissapear and everyone needs to get on the bigger stage.
All and all I think Jessica and Gwen pulled a fantastic and interesting group together.
