Since the weekend, and the whole feminism/blogfest thing, I’ve read an awful lot of blogposts about that particular session. I’ve seen people upset, and angry that they were misunderstood or misinterpreted, people who were there upset about the reaction of the room, people who weren’t there alleging that the panellists were bullied and misheard.
And I don’t think I’ve seen anyone discussing power and perspective.
I sat on a stage in a different room during that conference, and it was an odd experience. The room below us was dark, and it was difficult to see the faces of people asking us questions. Each time I looked out into the room, I could see various arms waving, but we could only take one question at a time, and I’m sure some people never got the chance to speak. No big deal, perhaps, when all we were discussing was technical issues around blogging, hosting, and so on.
But, go back to the feminism/ mummy blogging panel.
You had a select group on the stage, who presumably were chosen at least in part because they were deemed to have some authority on the topics to be discussed. (Obviously they might also have been chosen to draw a crowd, but I don’t think there was any particularly big name on that panel, unlike the group who kickstarted the day.)
There were two topics – feminism, and mummy blogging.
The panellists mainly didn’t appear to have much knowledge of what they deemed to be mummy blogging – apart from Alison Perry from Not another mummy blog. And the bloggers, and non bloggers in the audience, reacted predictably to being judged and found wanting just by virtue of not being interesting enough to be read.
Their voices were shown on the large screen, scrolling behind the panellists and creating predictable waves of reaction in themselves.
Then someone turned the screen off.
Instantly, what small amount of power and voice the audience had was removed from them.
Now, what happens when you have a power imbalance? Is it ever good? I’ve seen a lot of people saying that the panellists felt bullied and put upon by the audience reaction. And I didn’t like the feeling of the room. But I’m betting the largest number of people in that room were sitting muttering to their neighbours or tweeting, and practically sitting on their hands to stay out of the discussion. We weren’t hissing people. We weren’t booing. We were dismayed that in coming to address an audience of strong opinionated women, there to learn about technology and how to raise their voices, most of the panel hadn’t really bothered to think about who they would be talking to or what their concerns could be.
I do think that staying at home can be a feminist act actually. Because it is expressing my power and choice and not just taking the path chosen for me by anyone else. It’s a struggle, financially, some of the time. I’d be a lot better off if I were in my IT office, but I’d just be in the ratrace, and I wouldn’t be doing anything to change it for anyone. My choices and changes are made by writing here. By, to coin a phrase, commodifying my family life.
I don’t particularly like that either. It feels like selling out this place that started as my over the fence chats with my long distance neighbours. But it really only feels that way *because* other people put their expectations on to my behaviour. And I’m not about to let other people decide how I behave.
I’m sorry that anyone on the panel felt upset or bullied. The majority of the women in that room I suspect to some extent felt sidelined and diminished by some panel members. Does that make us even? It doesn’t. Because for each reader I have here, numbering in the 100s if I’m lucky, thousands will have seen the panellists’ responses in places like the New Statesmen.
It’s always about power and perspective. And I think that some members of the panel, and their online friends with their louder voices and larger audiences are forgetting the very people that perhaps they should be speaking out for and to, when they speak about us.
Lauren says
I didn’t like that session at all. I think it was there to be inflammatory – one of the first points made was that feminists can’t wear high heels or make jam. I mean, really?
Jax Blunt says
I think there were elements of that in there – I confess I missed the jam bit, I was a couple minutes late in from my last clinic chat.
Liska (@NewMumOnline) says
Wow. So very well written and my sentiments exactly. I have also written about the “fest” again today.
You have helped me to understand a lot of what happened then and since, with this post.
It’s all so very very clear when you couch it in this framework of power and perspective as you have done. I hope the people concerned start to see the wood AND the trees.
Liska x
Liska (@NewMumOnline) says
Just added a link to your post above, from mine: http://www.newmumonline.co.uk/2013/11/man-i-feel-like-woman.html
Jax Blunt says
thanks.
Michelle Twin Mum says
Well done Jax, a really useful perspective shared. Thanks Mich x
Jax Blunt says
Thanks. I’ve read a lot of posts on it this week, and none had come from this angle so I thought it was still worth writing up.
Helloitsgemma says
Eloquent, thoughtful and utterly burrows down into the issues in that room. There was a power imbalance that wasn’t thought through and as a consequence unravelled. Ultimately those louder more powerful voice are about to reflect negatively on our community. You know my feelings, that format needs a rethink.
Jax Blunt says
It was partly your post that started me thinking about all of this. But yes, I think there were a lot of assumptions that ended up with a lot of hurt feelings. We need, as a community, to find our louder voices I think.
Glosswitch says
1. Sorry for not being famous like the “group who kick started the day”. Evidently I have no right to be invited to speak on panels.
2. I know as much about mummy blogging as Alison Perry. I’m as much of a mummy blogger as her. I just don’t have the same opinions. The problem is not ignorance on my part, but your failure to accept a multiplicity of views.
3. I put a huge amount of thought and preparation into what I was going to say. More, I suspect, than those who glibly state the bleeding “I’m so proud to be a mummy” obvious to rapturous applause. I didn’t get the opportunity to say all I wanted to and later found that because I wasn’t Alison Perry, no one had actually distinguished between the different viewpoints of anyone else on the panel. Either you’re a blind cheerleader, it seems, or you’re nothing.
4. This is not a balanced post. It’s a chippy dig at women who you think shouldn’t be allowed on a stage because you don’t like their opinions, or rather, you decided in advance you wouldn’t like their opinions because it was on a subject that Must Not Be Challenged. You show no awareness of the nuanced views that were actually expressed.
5. It was not a SAHM vs feminists debate. You can choose to make it into one if you want but whether I’ve been at home with my children or not, I’ve not been obliged to share the views of an unpleasant, self-aggrandising minority (most audience members I’ve spoken to aren’t defensive and deluded as you are being now), and won’t ever be forced to.
Liska (@NewMumOnline) says
I didn’t think such a balanced eloquent, well-written post would draw such a comment. Every day (and hour) this week, I am further amazed!
Helen Wills says
Gosh I didn’t read it like that at all! There has been a lot of anger on the internet this week, from both sides, and I think that’s a huge shame for everyone concerned. The claims of bullying are a vast exaggeration – there was no booing or hissing. There was a sharp intake of breath at Sarah’s words (and yes, I do think they were misconstrued by many of those who were there), and clearly people wanted to have their say. There was bound to be disagreement and debate – it’s clearly what Mumsnet wanted. But it did feel like the panel expected the debate to be on stage, and weren’t prepared for opposing views from the audience.
But the panel didn’t want to hear those opinions, and weren’t prepared to discuss them. This week’s posts from both sides of the audience have just made everyone lose credibility, which is such a shame. The only winner in all of this is Mumsnet.
Glosswitch says
We’re not bullies, say bullies. Wow, that’s convincing.
Jax Blunt says
I came back last night to respond in detail to your first comment. But it doesn’t actually apply to what I’ve written and there’s no way to respond.
But I will state that I have made no personal attacks here or elsewhere, and I do not see that anyone here is bullying you. I’m sorry, again, that you feel that way.
HPMcQ says
It was a great shame that the end of the conference ended on such a sour note. Briefly uplifted by Jo Brand, but then the nonsense has continued throughout the week after. So terribly sad. Surely feminism should be about empowering women to have the choice to be and to do what they want to do, without the judgement of whether it’s a feminist act or not. The decisions I make in my life, the things that are right for me, will most probably not be right for you and vice versa, but it doesn’t make each of us a lesser feminist than the other, it makes me me and you you. No challenge required. Great point and post x
Jax Blunt says
Thanks. Perhaps we need less talking about it all, and more just doing what we all think is best, without labelling.
sarahhillwheeler says
Well said. For what it’s worth, I think your post is very balanced and agree that staying at home can be a feminist statement (actually don’t like that term, but can’t think of a short way of expressing independence, exercising choice etc…without getting bogged down in more terms that will offend somebody).
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I enjoyed the debate, but I found it stimulating. It was a pity, however, that there wasn’t more chance for real debate and audience engagement (although I am not a great lover of the tweet wall, that’s just me) and I was also very sorry that it seemed to end on a note of genuine misunderstanding (although having read the piece in the New Statesman I’ think I may have been overgenerous there).
I almost want to draw a veil over the whole thing as judging from some of the comments here, it is still raw and drawing defensive responses. Something about a hole and digging deeper.
For me, the crux isn’t whether the panel was (in whatever way) unrepresentative. (I do “get” how hard it must be to be up there and that they did a great job, although it might not have been what the audience expected or was hoping for). It was that a part (and a significant part) of the audience felt, at best, patronised and, at worst, judged…unfavourably. That’s never good.
I could go on and on, but I won’t (for now). It’s time perhaps to move on (until next time).
Jax Blunt says
I think you’re right, time to move on.
Lynn Schreiber says
I actually thought that your post was going in a very different direction at first.
When I started reading, I thought that you were going to talk about being on that stage, and how it feels to be one of a few people on a stage, speaking in front of a large group. Not being able to see them, blinded by the lights, hearing only disjointed shouts and jeers from a faceless audience.
It doesn’t sound to me like the panel had any power. They certainly didn’t have the power to pull the discussion back to a civil conversation and debate the points that they had undoubtedly prepared.
Yes, those who blog for New Statesmen reach a different audience, but I wouldn’t say they have less power. I have seen for myself over the past few years, how much power the Mummyblogger community has. I have seen them mobilise behind #teamhonk, I have seen them support and fund raise in the name of #matildamae.
The Mummyblogger community has a lot to be proud of, as does the wider community of women online. When I see how the Mumsnet Bloggers worked to promote debate on rape awareness, miscarriage and access to family planning, to name just a few campaigns that I have been involved in – often with the support and assistance of the Mummyblogging community.
I am finding it difficult to see women I like and respect lining up on opposite sides of this debate, taking pot shots at each other, and failing to find the common ground. It would be good if we could all take a day or so to reflect, and to really think about the feelings of the other side. To be less defensive and more accepting of the views of the others.
If the Mummyblogging community and the feminist blogging community would work together, we could really move mountains!
Lynn Schreiber says
Whoops. Typo.
That should read ‘ those who blog for New Statesmen reach a different audience, but I wouldn’t say they have MORE power’
Jax Blunt says
Good typo 😉
I think taking time to reflect and working out how to be more accepting is good advice. Thank you.
Ellen Arnison says
Excellent post and interesting comments. I’ve spent quite a lot of energy trying to work out why this is such a hard subject and how emotions run quite so deep.
Perhaps we’re all striving for an end-point, a victory, if you like.
Maybe we’re defensive of our own life-choices in case they’re seen – through a feminist prism – wanting.
What I do know is the debate was contrived and weakly chaired. Hindsight shows it needed a strong and experienced leader to retain control… but maybe that’s not what it was about…
Jax Blunt says
There are indeed lessons to be learnt from this occasion, but I’m not sure they are the ones anyone intended at the beginning.
Liska (@NewMumOnline) says
I have just come back from the laundrette, from drying 4 loads of washing. Tee hee I don’t care if that was a feminist act or not #needsMust.
BUT on the walk back I was pondering and thinking back to what I know from my days in the “alternative health” industry (yoga/self-help etc). What I pondered was that when we speak, our recipient always knows (feels) whether we are coming from head or heart or navel…. Had the panel been more power centred (sure and certain) and speaking from their navel they would not have needed a strong chair.
Anyway, I come home, and Lynn’s words above, are sure, are certain, and are most certainly coming from a position of thoughtful power. Therefore, it leads me thinking “I aint gonna argue with that lady, I may not be from the same camp, but she knows what she is talking about”. There’s also a degree of respect and compassion in your words.
Lynn it might have all been very different if you were there – I remember how formidable you were when you did speak, last year at #Blogfest.
Liska x
Jax Blunt says
I don’t think every act has to have a meaning outside of what it just is!
I agree that Lynn has a lot to offer on this topic, and it’s a shame she wasn’t there.
Rosie says
Excellent post
Mrs Teepot says
Very interesting post. I’m not sure I have anything to add not having been there but it seemed to have been set up to cause a bit of a storm on social media.
Jax Blunt says
I think it was designed to be controversial and edgy, but went rather further than intended.