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Posts Tagged ‘blogher’

Graywolf and the BlogHer Sex Divide

A couple of days ago, Michael Gray AKA Graywolf posted a controversial post “Is the BlogHer Conference Guilty of Sex Discrimination” – lambasting the event for not including male speakers (although they were welcome to ask questions during the sessions and speak at open mic sessions).

While I won’t go as far as to call BlogHer founders Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins “evil and sexist pigs”, it’s worth looking at whether Michael is justified in his accusations.

I took a look at the BlogHer 08 brochure, a massive 50-page PDF including the conference schedule and speaker profiles and the lack of male speakers stood out.

men vs women

Is it wrong for an event to exclude male speakers?

I guess it would be easy for conference organizers to point to speaker submissions or to a speaker email link and say that they’re opening the doors to male presenters. It’s another thing to go out and proactively seek out and invite qualified presenters outside of your normal demographic (eg: mommyblogger, seo experts, ppc specialist, daddy bloggers, etc).

A community only grows when (more…)