Entries tagged "feminism"

10 top obstacles to women's influence

1. “No one will listen to me.”

2. “I don’t have anything to say that matters.”

3. Fear they will upset someone or that they will be criticized.

4. “These guys act as if they know everything, when they don’t. But I don’t know enough to speak.”

5. No one asked me or invited me.

Many women, not to mention anyone of colour or who does not fit into the the existing image of authority held by attention centre gatekeepers are invisible to them. And if you’re not just like those who “already matter,” you probably have to live in translation in order to gain attention from these gatekeepers.

6. Not having someone in their life (ie role traditionally cast with wife, girlfriend, mother) to encourage them and emotionally take care of them when they risk and fall working for public influence.

7. “I learned to shut up in public in grade 6.” (in order to be liked by boys-if they liked boys- or blend in)

8. “If I want to be popular or influential, isn’t that selfish and egotistical?”

This is a subset of fear of wanting. If you want, then you exist some way other than relationally. If no one is there to affirm your own desires and wants…do they exist?

9. “I have more important things to worry about.”

The profound satisfaction of strong and intimate bonds of close family and friends seem much more valuable to many women than trading this mode of connection for public influence. I believe the skills and most of all *caring* that make these strong bonds possible are actually necessary to create growing public influence now.

10. “This crap is obvious to me. Why do I have to shoot my mouth about it in public? I could just be doing something.”

Who is more likely to get something done without asking for public credit? Women or men?

All About Sarah

I was watching a bit of Sarah Palin’s speech tonight and thought, “Wow. This chick is as uninformed as W. but way, way tougher and hungrier. And smarter. Those old dudes might think they can ride her the way they rode him but they are fooling themselves.”

The Republicans have been using their new Christianist base without delivering much that’s really, really important to them. They’ve been all about the ends justifying the means. But what if they have to actually make core decisions as the Christianist base demands?

Palin may be the first to really do this. I sense a spectacular 3rd act for her. She will go all the way. Whether that means following through on legislating Christian evangelism and thereby walking that walk, or finding she enjoys the taste of the life of “cosmopolitan elites” that it will be in her interests to mock (until it’s not), whomever thought they could use this woman for their own purposes has another thing coming.

Eve Harrington: I will regard this great honor not so much as an award for what I have achieved, but a standard to hold against what I have yet to accomplish.

Lloyd Richards: I shall never understand the weird process by which a body with a voice suddenly fancies itself as a mind. Just when exactly does an actress decide they’re HER words she’s speaking and HER thoughts she’s expressing?
Margo Channing: Usually at the point where she has to rewrite and rethink them, to keep the audience from leaving the theatre!

Eve Harrington: I’ll never forget this night as long as I live, and I’ll never forget you for making it possible.
Karen Richards: A part in a play. You’d do all that just for a part in a play?
Eve Harrington: I’d do much more for a part that good.

All About Eve – Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Vote today: Everything I Need to Know About the Web I Learned From Feminism

I proposed this as a panel at SXSW 09. I’m really looking forward to digging into this conversation with some really interesting feminist scholars and web / network thinkers. Voting for the panel happened here. To my surprise the room was packed. It outdrew Larry Lessig’s conversation. I didn’t imagine there would be so much interest and passion about feminism. We had a great conversation with Microsoft researcher/Harvard scholar danah boyd, Wall St Journal reporter and author of a book about MySpace Julia Angwin and Joseph Campbell collaborator and professor Betty Sue Flowers.

There is a really lovely compatibility about the notion of transcendence in both feminism and the Net….both of which give protection and community to those who have been invisible / “private” before.

The Net is quantifying / making visible the value of the social skills / communal skills that have previously gone unvalued by the market or “public” space.

This is inspired, in part, by something else I’m working on: a talk about how I do the performance I do….how to design for conversation rather than presentation all of which changes notions of where authority comes from. This is because the value is relational rather than one-off.

I think it always was..but that aspect was “hidden” by it being a silent piece of “private” life that women mostly carried out….preparing holidays, gatherings..maintaining relationships..creating  and giving physical and other bits of acknowledgement (gifts , cards ..the Christmas newsletter etc) and of course the “salon” which has been a big piece of the basis of how I’ve mashed up a new kind of performance.

There are quite a few ideas embedded in here and for the mag piece..perhaps best to focus on the social networking piece..but that’s just the latest business surfacing of something much deeper..which is the way the West is turning more relational this way…that’s my instinct.

It’s just too costly to market / force awareness of onesself/business without a network effect and any lasting audience/network  can only happen through what is community and community can only be maintained by this “female” stuff.

I found it very interesting in India where these social roles and conventions are still so deeply a part of peoples’ daily lives. I had an unusually deep experience of it myself because of the Niagara Falls shtetl in which I was raised.

I’m excited to see the value of this feminist stuff (as well as performance stuff) in the business arena…though I’m aware that I’m really out on the front edge of explaining and doing much of it..the social media consulting world and facebook shows this stuff to be shifting.

Note: I’ve further developed some of these ideas into a project called #WITH.

The Feminist Drinking Game: Name 10 famous women over 30 (who aren't about men).

Where this came from:

The anger of the many female Hillary voters (of which I am not one) and the press following Hillary’s loss led me to a thought. Hillary is almost the only public representation we have of a woman with power in the public sphere. Not sexual power. Not power based upon making men comfortable. Even with her marriage to Bill Clinton much of her power now is her own and it is not presented as trophy wife power.

I issued a challenge on twitter yesterday and I repeat and will track it here:

Name me 10 other women over 30 you see who aren’t about sexually or emotionally supporting men in popular media.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Brad King condi rice, albright, 70 current representatives and 14 current senators.

Ok Brad, quick name 8 of those reps by name. And we’re talking *famous* here.

Nick Douglas: B’bra Walters, Anna Wintour, Arianna Huff’ton, Oprah, Tyra, Condi Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Marissa Mayer, Anne Coulter, Ruth Ginsberg?

Nick agreed to remove Tyra (fame by sexual appeal) and I am disqualifying (though he disputes my call) Ann Coulter for the same reasons. She used that strongly to start her national visibility.

Nick also notes “Of course the time it took me to think up that list speaks to the still terrible dearth of well-known powerful female figures.”

MulegirlPut up Arianna too. (While haters say Hillary only has power because of Bill, I don’t hear them saying Arianna only has power cause she was willing to be a beard for a green card. Personally I can’t wait to meet Arianna to find out when she knew Michael is gay and when and how her political change of heart happened and if it was done so she could grow her audience).

Here’s the challenge. See if you can do it off the top of your head in under a minute. Double points if you can do it while drinking. Challenge your friends. Send me the videos.

Venom: the Hillary / Obama thing

My friend Rebecca commented on my last post about Hilary’s use of snark via facebook:

You know, I didn’t find that “over the top” and “mocking” at all — I really wish that Arianna could tone down her obvious bias in every single thing she writes about Hillary. I expected something really theatrical and dramatic. Hillary was dead on. Continue reading…



Copyright © 1998-2024 Heather Gold.

RSS Feed. Theme by Rodrigo Galindez.