Category: Weblogs

The Heathers Would Love American Blogger (at least the trailer)

First, watch this and see if you notice anything odd (other than the SNL-ish narrator)

When Sheryl Sandberg launched her Lean In Foundation, I noted the homogeneity in looks, age and (not literally but almost) hair on their Who We Are page.  It’s gotten a little better over there, but the coming documentary American Blogger (or at least its trailer) … hasn’t.

I wish I were as temperate as Be Blogalicious co-founder Stacy Ferguson , as thoughtful as Katherine Stone and others on the #americanblogger Facebook thread or as enthusiastic as some of the film’s participants and their friends, but I felt like I was watching Charlie’s Angels Build a Blog..

The rest of us seemed somehow excluded — unworthy, almost.  Because life online, and blogging especially, can be such a naked experience with such power to build deep relationships and tribes, the unfortunate, beauty queen/Martha Stewart Home nature of the two minutes we saw seemed a personal assault, suggesting that the women in this film are the women we need to know to understand and appreciate the online world the rest of us have come to rely upon and love.

For me, this world is better represented by the tribe that surrounded the last journey of Susan Niebur, the infertility quest of Melissa Ford, Laurie White’s transformation, Kelly Wickham’s tales about life, The Cuban and the kids in her school, Erin Kotcecki Vest’s fight against lupus, Morra Aarons-Mele on business and on politics, Joanne Bamberger on women and politics, Jill Miller Zimon on politics and running for office (right now!) or Liz Gumbinner about almost anything.

I know the women chosen here also have deep feelings about blogging and they are in no way responsible for the choices made by the film’s creator.  The film is the sum of its parts and it seems that each individual participant joined in good faith because of their love of what they do.

But this trailer, as it introduces us to the project, is so exclusive and exclusionary that it’s hard to remember that if you know it and hard to discover if you don’t.

Take a look at this perfect response: The Real American Blogger, where bloggers across the web post less airbrushed versions of the women who write here, who are of course as diverse and generous and cranky and skinny and large and messy and neat and coifed and barely head-covered and patient and pissed and happy and sad and lonely and not as the rest of us – except, apparently, the women chosen to promote this film as it moves toward release.

 

 

iVillage Heard Women’s Voices Before Anybody Else Knew How to Listen

Edcentral sized

 

 

Women need tribes.  Need each other.  

Two of the first online people to figure that out were Nancy Evans and Candace Carpenter Olson, the co-founders, along with two others, of iVillage.  Together they built the best online home women will ever have.  Parent Soup, where I worked for four years, was a mommy site before mommy bloggers or Babble or BlogHer.  Vibrant, warm and well-led, it served – and listened to – women with inclusiveness and respect.   

Well before blogs or social media, iVillage's topical message boards,  conceived as support communities like those in AA, engaged the site's visitors and provided a sense of home and ownership that didn't seem to appear anywhere else online.  They shared parenting and relationship advice and once, right before my eyes, rescued a woman from a terribly abusive relationship as all the members of the board came together to support her.

Today we learned the site will "be shuttered" and folded into the TODAY SHOW Online  under its current owner, NBC News.  

It's sad.  To get an idea of how wonderful it was to be part of what we created there, consider the deluge of comments  that followed a single post earlier today.  All of us are, I suspect, as surprised as I am at the depth of emotion this news has evoked.  We were all so proud to be part of what we knew was a remarkable creation.   And we learned so much.

My own first assignment was to design an education site for parents.  (The logo for "Education Central" appears at the top of this post.)  I took the initial outline to Nancy, who was Editor-in-Chief.  Looking up from her desk, she asked  "Have you looked at the message boards?"  I shook my head.  "Well go read the message boards, use what you find there, and then bring me what you have" she said.  She wouldn't even look at it I did that, and she was right.  

Rule one: listen to the community.  There was so much within those conversations that revealed what should appear on the site.  I've been preaching that lesson ever since.

iVillage believed in its communities, in their hearts and minds.  It gave countless women voices they would never have otherwise had and paved the way for the powerful women bloggers who have emerged after them.

Its leaders also believed in us, from novices to old hands like me, and in our mission: give women a home online and hear what they say there.  Believe, more than anything, in them.

 

 

 

 

 

July 25, 2008: BARACK OBAMA and BERLIN: WHAT WE SHOULD and CAN BE

 
First I got this email from a young friend:  "LOVED IT – Just brilliant and I am happy to vote again."  Then I watched The Speech again early this morning on C-SPAN and marveled at the reaction of 200,000 Berliners in a city that has been, in recent years, a tough room for American leaders.  We've spenta lot of time in Berlin, so I know the city; in my parents' lifetime it was the capital of the most racist country in the world but now it's urbane, cerebral and pretty sophisticated, with a stunning history and a development we've watched throughout the last ten years that is unparalleled.  War(and communist)-ruined buildings and just plain ugly ones have finally been replaced by gleaming new market and skyscraper squares, there's fabulous mass transit as well as renewed activity in its two opera houses and many theaters and ballet companies.  OH and enough museums to keep you busy for months.  Just the kind of place to be particularly hostile to a president like George Bush.

So what did Senator Obama bring that made the difference? David Brooks was pretty harsh in the NYTimes:  " Obama has benefited from a week of good images. But substantively, optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney."  To be fair, I guess it can sound that way.  The reality, to me though, is that after eight years of a president of whom we could not be proud and whose policies, war, rhetoric and attitude shoved our allies far from our side, a bit of warmth and solidarity is a legitimate introduction.  Beyond that, the most profound thing about the speech, in my view, wasn't Obama but the response to him.  Sure, Europe is liberal and politically correct (except, often, about their own immigrants, unfortunately) and a black candidate (even half) for president in the US is attractive, but it's more than that.  It looked, at least to me, like Europeans have been longing for a United States they can believe in again; that perhaps part of the reason Europeans have been so angry at us is that beneath the rubble of the Bush years, we still represent a promise and ideal that Europe has been furious that we've abandoned. 

Of course, I could be projecting my own heartbreak over Abu Ghraib and the Patriot Act and all the other profanities done in our name; at the horrific lack of inspired leadership both at home and abroad just after 9/11, at the war (How could it happen again – after Vietnam; the same lessons never learned, the same hubris?), at the craven attitude toward energy and life at the bottom end of our economic ladder – at all of it.  But I don't think so.  Rather, it seems that under all the anger Europeans have manifested toward the United States, they, like us, want an American leader they can believe in.  An America they can believe in.  And Barack Obama is about as close to that is you can get without moving to another dimension.

The foundation laid by that inspiration will get us, and our old friends newly re-engaged, through the terrible, tough days ahead.  Without a leadership of hope and belief, natural allies outside our borders will be lost to us, as they so sadly have been these past years.  And as Senator Obama reminded us, we can't afford that.  Not now.

Greece’s Pain: It’s not Greek to Us – It IS Us!

 

 

Immigrant solidarity English onlt

See this?

Looks like home, doesn’t it?  And sometimes it feels like we are the only country struggling with these issues of immigration.  But guess what.  This poster isn’t from Arizona, or Florida, it’s part of a sign on a wall on Ermou Street in downtown Athens.

Immigrant solidarity poster

It’s not the only one, either.  The country is under terrible economic pressure and it’s fraying things. According to our very sweet taxi driver,  despite the rumors of wild spending on services, Greece does not provide for the homeless or the poor – at least not enough.  And the people coming into Greece want jobs and “a better life” but “they aren’t taking any food from me!”   He’s with the marcher s- but there are plenty on the other side too.  We know it’s true in France and Germany — and that Mohamed is one of the most frequent names for new babies in many European countries.  But as you can see the sympathy hasn’t completely eroded.  In addition to these posters, there are many stencils, borrowed from Paris, look like the one below, also from a wall in our neighborhood here.

For more evidence of how bad things are  — look at this sure coal mine canary: Squeegee men vintage NYC in the 1980’s – all over town.

Squeegee man Athens style

I’ll keep you posted as we move through the islands – assuming things will be different there.  Would write more but it costs the earth to use the web on this “yacht.”

Women Bloggers Are NOT Cute Little Girls: Tell the New York Times

BH Cool Moms 2

What is it about women who blog that scares so many people – even other women —
even the New York Times?  Once again this time, they’ve decided to offer an “analysis” or a “portrait” or an I don’t know what
about bloggers who are women and moms.  And when they do, they write with
a condescending, bemused attitude that is what I remember from the early days
of the women’s movement, when men would joke about our desire to open our own
doors, earn our own livings, make our own decisions.  It was kind of cute
to want to be able to get credit cards without a husband’s permission, to cover
a story without having to go up in the balcony, to keep our names when we got
married.   Feminism was just so adorable.

Now, we’re free on so many levels, and one manifestation of that freedom is the
vibrant world we’ve created online.  Sisterhoods that cross race and
politics and religion and age as we share ideas and pain, joy and pride, birth
and loss and every other story that is part of living a life.   There have
been a couple of wonderful responses to this irritating TIMES piece (and it’s
not the first…)  One of my own favorites, Mom-101,
whose admirers are legion, wrote

“…once you
get past the first half of the article, there’s actually some solid information
in there….But I wish [all] that had been to focus of an article about my
favorite blogging community that just made the front page of my favorite
section of my favorite Sunday paper.  I wish it had opened with the yearning
of bloggers for the community to return to good writing, and the evidence that
in the end, that’s mostly what pays off….  

Of course, there
are more.  My friend Danielle Wiley, known to many of her friends as Foodmomiac but also an executive at Edelman PR, has also weighed in.

I invite you to read the full piece and form your own opinions, but sentences like “bringing
together participants for some real-time girly bonding” might very well stop
you in your tracks. As I write this, my husband (and fellow Edelman executive
Michael Wiley) is at SXSW. Would Mendelsohn classify that experience as macho
bonding? Or would she write that he is attending a conference for the purposes
of education and networking? Why do people, including Ms. Mendlesohn, continue
to refer to networking among women as girly bonding? I seriously doubt the
participants at Bloggy Boot Camp were wearing jammies and braiding each other’s
hair. However, from the tenor of the piece, it was pretty easy to jump to that
conclusion.

Here’s the bottom line:  I’m old enough to be the mother of both of these women
and many of their peers yet they have welcomed me as a sister – a blogger and a
friend.  They’ve honored the sappy posts I’ve written about my sons
and my marriage and they’ve shared ideas and advice in comments, in twitter and even in real life.

They and their compatriots are talented, compassionate,
ornery pioneers
who have built what I think of as the new quilting bee, the new Red Tent where they share the wisdom and mysteries that are women’s lives.  And they do much more – just go check out the list in Liz’s post.  Not for one moment are they
silly or unaware or careless or trivial.  And to gain a few points with
silly headlines and denigrating phrases isn’t bad taste, it’s also bad
journalism.  Go see for yourself.

RePost – Don’t Gel’s Best of 2009: Pete, Bruce, Beyonce and Obama: the Changing of the Guard

Brucespringsteen_l

There they are: two of the cultural icons of my political life.  Pete Seeger, close to 90, peer and colleague of Woody Guthrie, creator of We Shall Overcome and Turn Turn Turn, of Abiyoyo and Sam the Whaler, leader of The Almanac Singers and the Weavers.  If there was a civil rights rally or a labor rally or an anti-war rally, he was there.

Beside him, Bruce Springsteen, a modern troubadour whose songs speak for many Americans whose opinions are never sought, whose voices are seldom heard.

As they stood together at the Lincoln Memorial in celebration of the Inauguration of Barack Obama, they represented, to me, all that I had believed and tried to help bring into being.  To many, though, they were “the ultimate in subtly old-left populism.” Speaking about the concert early Sunday before it began, I kept talking about Bruce.  A younger friend gently suggested that he was probably not the day’s headliner.  That would be Beyonce Knowles, she said.  I’m sure she’s right.

As one who was present the last time “the torch was passed to a new generation;” as a strongly defined Baby
Boomer, it’s painful to hear anchormen celebrate the fact that “there will never be another Baby Boom President.”  It’ s not that I mind the fact of that; it’s just painful that it seems to be something to celebrate.  So many of us have tried so to be productive agents of change, have spent our lives working either full or part of the time to see that our country offers more to the least powerful, demands quality education, justice and maybe, even peace.  So to hear Joe Scarborough revel in the fact that “16 horrible years of baby boomer presidents is over” really hurts.  All my adult life we’ve been tarred by the brush of the least attractive of us while the work of the rest of us went unnoticed.  For most campaigns, as I’ve written before, we were the secret weapon of the right.

So as exciting as all this is, especially for one who has supported Obama for so long, it’s also bittersweet because I feel the shadow of the disdain in which so many of us are held.  I really don’t know how to respond.  If I were to try, it might be by offering some of the words to Si Kahn‘s They All Sang Bread and Roses.  It’s better with the music, but it does the job.

They All Sang “Bread and Roses (Si Kahn, 1989,
1991)

The more I
study history,

The more I
seem to find

That in
every generation

There are
times just like that time

When folks
like you and me who thought

That they
were all alone

Within this
honored movement

Found a
home.

 

And ‘though
each generation fears

That it
will be the last,

Our
presence here is witness

To the
power of the past.

And just as
we have drawn our strength

From those
who now are gone,

Younger
hands will take our work

And carry
on.

 

 

 

Repost – Best of Don’t Gel 2009: Loving London

Waterlloo Bridge nice long shot

That old rascal Samuel Johnson told us that when we were tired of London, we'd be tired of life
 I know it's summer when any city is inviting but this week is cool and
bright and breezy and London is full of British school groups and kids
from everywhere else too, and we have an apartment right in the middle
of Covent Garden (well NOT the market, God forbid, just the
neighborhood) and our older son and his new wife are only 40 minutes
away and we have friends here, too.  So how could we be tired?

What you see here is the view from Waterloo Bridge  (and yes that's St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.)  This morning I went out and walked all along the , over where the trees are, then crossed a bridge just out of view on the right and returned via South Bank,
London's wonderful (relatively) new arts and museum area.  My entire
walk was around three miles and I'm realizing that it's much easier to
do the walking when there are new things to look at, not just the old
neighborhood or, as lovely as it is, Rock Creek Park. 

Kids trade addresses

The wonder of a great city is that it's always changing, that even the most
trivial journey is full of surprises.  On my way home tonight I came
across a group of teenagers – one of dozens of groups we've been seeing
ever since we got here.  The reason they're all sitting on the sidewalk
is that they're exchanging addresses and spelling them out – different
nationalities, different spelling.  Kind of an EU photo.

Of course there's lots else going on here.  Huge waves of immigration, the
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, what looks to me to be an appalling
amount of youthful alcohol consumption and unemployment all take their toll.  There's something about the
place despite those issues though.  The day after the2005 subway bombing that killed 52 people, Londoners got back on the train and went to work.  They did that all during the Blitz as much of the rest of the world watched them face down Hitler almost alone.

London Eye w big ben but cut off tigt

Cities are supposed to change.  That's what makes them exciting.  Even so,
London has seen more than its share: waves of immigration that have
transformed it, an early history of wars and fires and plagues,
contemporary royal scandals and of course the "troubles" between
Belfast and the rest of Ireland and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  
After all, who would have believed before it arrived to help celebrate
the Millennium, that there would be a ferris wheel right in the center
of town?  They call it the London Eye to
make it sound fancy but it's still a ferris wheel, here in same town
that has a real live queen living in a real live palace?  It's pretty
amazing.

I'm
thinking that while we're here I can try to get past some of what I've
written here and learn a bit of what it's like to truly live
here.  It's got to be different from wandering around with no need to
be on time or face the traffic or crowded mass transit and infinite
numbers of tourists and, incidentally, deal with what appears to be an
enormous amount of alcohol consumption – especially by men.  I'm hoping
to keep you posted as I make my way.  I hope you'll come along.

RePost: Best of Don’t Gel 2009 – The End of the Berlin Wall: Twenty Years Ago

Brandeberg Gate
This is the Brandenburg Gate in the center of Berlin. The first time I saw it, in 1974, there was a wall built right through it.

Gate with wall
Here’s a photo of it then, from the Hotel Adlon website.  The hotel stood, from 1907 to 1945, when it was decimated by a fire, just to the left of the Gate.  It was the stopping place for world leaders and socialites and was rebuilt shortly after the Wall fell.

Because Berlin has such a dramatic history, it was always exciting to be there — maybe more so while the wall remained.

180px-Checkpoint_Charlie_1977
I remember especially coming through Checkpoint Charlie
(that’s it on the left) on a dark fall day (Americans were allowed to
visit for the day after going through this scary border station and
having cars and packages searched) and, as we approached the Gate,
seeing an old man standing, looking over into the West.  In his hands,
clasped behind his back, was a rosary.  Not so popular in communist
East Berlin.  I recall thinking immediately “Oh.  His daughter is
getting married in the West today and he can’t go, and he’s standing
there, thinking about her, praying for her.”  Berlin in those times
lent itself to imagining such things.  The drama was palpable.

The first time we went to Berlin after the wall fell, I remember, it was
pouring.   Oblivious to the weather, we walked back and forth beneath
the lovely arches in the now-open gate, kind of giddy at what it meant
to the people of Berlin and all those who care about freedom and, I
guess, redemption.  For despite what happened in Berlin during the war
(and we’ve studied it extensively and spoken both with survivors and
those involved in the rebuilding of the Jewish community) the Wall caused immeasurable suffering and was a diabolical slash through the heart of the city and every one of its people.

I’ve written about Berlin before: from its playgrounds to its grim Communist years.  We go there often.  It seems to pull us back, its intellectual energy
and re-emerging Jewish community irresistible. Once, when we’d taken
our kids there while the Wall remained, one son, around 5, bought a
stuffed wool pig and told everyone he “got it out of jail.”

Berlin repairs
Here’s one last photo – of two buildings: one redone and the other still old and rickety, in the very cool neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg, which is in the old “East Berlin” and now, last I heard, had the highest childbirth rate in Germany and was home to artists, writers, musicians and fashionably cool people who don’t have to work.  What you see stands for it all:  the struggle to renew, still only partly complete.