Full Circle Associates

I was reading some more post Blogher posts and came upon this one. Uh oh, I know who Dave is talking about! Scripting News: 8/2/2006:

"I did speak once, and afterward a woman (one of the discussion leaders) said that I was expressing my female passion. I said 'that sounds like a compliment.' She said it was. But inside I wondered why she thought that, does she think men don't have passion? Does she understand that, while she was expressing a compliment, she was also putting down my gender? Would she have understood if I had said something negative about her gender, for example, if a woman was being analytic or solving a problem, that it was her maleness that was speaking? Hard to imagine that conversation taking place in 2006. This may be what makes Frank Paynter tremble."

Dave, that was me. I wasn't the discussion leader in the room, just one of the crowd. I want to apologize for coming across like I was putting you down. Or better put, I did not realize you felt put down by my comment.

I think this is a classic case of two off hand remarks that should have progressed into a conversation, but it didn't happen. I wish you had expressed the thoughts you had "inside" right then and there, but in your blog works too, because I happened to find the post! (A bit of luck, actually).

My recall of the exchange was that after you spoke to the group, you made an offhand comment about your intention not to speak, but you felt moved to speak (it was the panel on relief blogging and I think most of the room was moved!) My sense of your comment was that you were apologizing for speaking so I wanted to affirm that you DID speak. You added to the conversation. What I thought I said (that old being clear and listening well thang) was that your passion showed your feminine side. Not your FEMALE side! :-) I believe we all have masculine and feminine parts of ourselves, but because of our roles as males and females, we may use or not use these attributes. Being analytical has been described as masculine - and so it may be. That does not mean it is confined to males. Being passionate and speaking from the heart is not and should not be the exclusive domain of women.

I do think men have passion. Hell, I know it. I know men who express that passion (and I'm talking more than sex here!) and men that hold it back, thinking it does not reflect well on their perceived role as a MAN in our society.

Dave, it was a compliment. Heartfelt and said quite seriously - no wisecracking at all. I'm sorry we did not continue so we had better understood each other.

I'm glad you spoke/wrote about what you felt about Blogher. I'm sorry a bunch of people ranted back instead of asked more questions to understand your perspective, which is, after all, informed by who you are and the life you have lived.

If we cannot feel safe to speak our individual truths, even if they are not the truths of others, we won't get anywhere. I know I still have a long way to go down this road. But if I continue to react hatefully and in the culture of fear (fear of men, fear of women, fear of making a fool of myself) I won't get anywhere. So I'll keep trying to move more towards the culture of love. That includes apologizing for inadvertently hurting you or anyone else. And trying to be more thoughtful in how I express myself.

It just struck me that I was writing about similar stuff a year ago after the first Blogher. Heh. Last year after Blogher I posted about "looking in the mirror" as I reacted to a very negative blog post about a friend I met at Blogher. It spawned a conversation on "Us/Them" that lasted through this spring and stimulated a panel some of us offered at SXSW.

I've been reluctant to post about the other Blogher bashing sort of posts which also raise this issue of how we treat each other. I think part of it is attention grabbing - you get more attention by being negative in some circles. But I also think it is something more -- about how the blogosphere develops and how we establish our individual and collective identities. But I'm not far enough along in my thinking to articulate the ideas. Maybe later, taters!

(Edited at 5:19pm for a few really bad typos)

Tags: Blogher, DaveWiner, cultureoflove, usthem