“And oh, what a mercy it is that these women do not exercise their powers oftener! We can’t resist them, if they do. Let them show ever so little inclination, and men go down on their knees at once: old or ugly, it is all the same. And this I set down as a positive truth. A woman with fair opportunities, and without an absolute hump, may marry WHOM SHE LIKES. Only let us be thankful that the darlings are like the beasts of the field, and don’t know their own power. They would overcome us entirely if they did.”

– from William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair

(via La Lux)

Apparently some people seem to believe that men have cornered the market on being “innovators, entrepreneurs and successful people”.

Hey, fellas! Yes, you guys, the ones at AdAge, Yahoo! and, hey while we’re at it, all the potential sponsors of the The IDEA Conference and its all dudes, all the time speaker schedule. Judging from your roster, you’d think that when it comes to bright ideas, men are the only ones worth listening to. They aren’t.

To: Kirsten Cluthe
From: Jen Bekman

Hi Kirsten

I’m really, truly appalled that there is not a single woman on your speaker roster for this event. I do hope you plan on addressing this oversight before the conference schedule is finalized.

If you need help finding qualified candidates, I suggest you peruse my List of Women Speakers for Your Conference, which is available here:

http://www.personism.com/2006/10/11/list-of-women-speakers-for-your-conference/

Best regards,

Jen Bekman
Founding Editor, Unbeige

—

On Feb 21, 2008, at 7:17 PM, Kirsten Cluthe
wrote:

Hi Jen,

It is not an oversight. The list of speakers is still being
finalized, and as a professional woman myself, I would never keep
women off of my speakers list. Particularly as most of the people
employed at Mediabistro are women.

I am interested in finding the best speakers I can, who will speak
to the topics listed in the agenda, and I do not discriminate.

Regards,
Kirsten

–

On Feb 21, 2008, at 9:02 PM, Jen Bekman wrote:

Surely you’re capable of finding competent women to speak to your
issues.

I am a pro-choice feminist, and I’m voting for Obama.

I have always valued passion over experience. Those values have helped me live a life that I love and face challenges without being governed by fear.

We need change, big change, and we need it bad. Is Obama guaranteed to bring it? Of course not. Is he the most likely candidate in the field to do so? Most certainly.

I’m happy to report that progress has been made! Their roster for their upcoming conference has eight women on it. By comparison, their conference last September had exactly none, and their London conference this past February had just one woman on the schedule. It’s refreshing to scroll down the page and not see a sea of fellas.

I never wanted to get in the middle of the endless arguments about diversity, at conferences and otherwise. Alas, I have poor impulse control, and if something’s bugging me, I’m rarely able to keep my mouth shut. The conversation was exhausting at times, and I’m sure it will be again in the future, but it’s worth it. And while I do find the “Why don’t you stop complaining about it and DO something?” retort to be tiresome, I’m glad I took the bait and did something.

I started the List of Women Speakers For Your Conference nearly a year ago. It’s one of the most visited and linked to pages on Personism. Several of the women on it have told me that they’ve been invited to speak at events because conference planners found them listed there. It’s incredibly gratifying to hear that it’s being put to good use. (I also hope to have the time and the resources to optimize it sometime soon.)

And whether they referenced that list or not, I’m thrilled that Carson has discovered that finding qualified women to speak at their conferences isn’t impossible. It’s major progress considering that last year they asked two women and called it a day.

I am late in announcing this, and you’ve likely seen it on other photography blogs, but it bears repeating.

Photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair has organized a project called Operation Azra, a benefit to help a young Pakistani woman named Azra, and other women like her who have been victims of acid attacks. Here’s some info from the site:

World-renowned photojournalists are donating their favorite images, signed and printed, to raise money for female victims of acid burning and to raise awareness about a fate inflicted on many women in Pakistan. Marked with dishonor, their harsh disfigurement often forces them to live in the shadows of every-day life–excluded by family and society.

There’s a benefit tonight at the The Bubble Lounge, which I’m going to try to make it to. Prints donated by Jim Nachtwey, John Stanmeyer and Jan Grarup will be sold via a silent auction during tonight’s event.

If you’re not in the city, or can’t make it tonight, there’s also an online auction of 20 prints that runs through July 1.

I hate to pick on Tokion again (and again and again and again) but man (pun intended) they really can’t take a hint.

An email just popped up in my Inbox announcing the winners of their recent King of the Road photo competition. And by “King” they really mean King.

From the email:

Tokion and Scion would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to the winners of the King of the Road contest: Flynn Larsen, Jessica Palumbo, Rob Hann, Jorn Tomter, Drew Kelly, Tod Seelie and our Reader’s Choice Winner Dustin Aksland. The eight winning photographs will be published in the May issue of Tokion in a limited edition postcard booklet…
And special thanks to our judges, Jason Lee, Michael Halsband, agnes b., Christian Patterson and Ross Evertson. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of the May issue and send out a postcard to one of your fellow travelers.

Let’s do some math, shall we?

The panel? Four men, one woman. (I can’t imagine why they didn’t ask me to participate, hmm.) Their winners? There are seven (including a Readers’ Choice). One of them is a woman. It’s nice to see Tod Seelie among their seven selections – he makes great work and has shown at my gallery several times since I first opened. But, y’know: COME ON.

There are lots of amazing female photographers out there. I’ve selected dozens of them via my own competition, Hey, Hot Shot!. I’ve never had to try hard. I’ve never had to lower my standards in order to include women.

After all the dust-up about their conferences, it’s total fuck you to conceive of and promote a competition called King of the Road. Because I am a nice person and sort of a Pollyanna at heart, when I first heard about it I thought “inopportune figure of speech” in spite of our tumultuous history together. And personally, I’d rather be a King than a Queen. (Have you seen The Tudors? Henry gets to have all the fun.)

But the title + the panel + their selections + their conferences + their history adds up into one big steaming pile of misogyny.

I’ve read a handful of things that pissed me off today, listened to a podcast from NPR about sexism in the blogosphere, the panel comprised of three men, naturally (Buh?) and have continued to procrastinate on my enormous, intimidating and seemingly impossible to tackle to-do list.

I’m waiting for that manic burst of energy that will help me power through, but it’s eluded me thus far.

Some good news… I’ve been invited to be a reviewer at the upcoming Review Santa Fe brought to us by the fine folks of Center (née The Santa Fe Center of Photography, they recently went through a (well-executed, imho) re-branding.) I’m SO excited about this – looking forward to 3 days packed full of photo, and I’m hoping to squeeze in a desert road trip too.

I wrote an article for the upcoming issue of GOOD Magazine which has apparently started showing up in subscribers’ mailboxes over the weekend. I got a few emails congratulating me on the article – I’m looking forward to seeing it myself! We were hard up against the deadline, so I never saw the final edit.

The PRC recently announced my selections for their Members Exhibition. Here’s the list of photographers selected (sorry for the lack of linkage):

Daniel Ballesteros (Willimantic, CT)
Chris Bentley (Medford, MA)
Anatasia Cazabon (Brighton, MA)
Jon Edwards (South Freeport, ME)
Erin Eriksen (Brighton, MA)
Erik Gould (Pawtucket, RI)
John Hirsch (Jamaica Plain, MA)
Robert Knight (Boston, MA)
Susan Lakin (Rochester, NY)
Paige Largay (Somerville, MA)
Christopher Lovi (New York, NY and Boston, MA)
Paul McKee (Prescott, AZ)
Brad Moore (Laguna Beach, CA)
Christina Seely (Berkeley, CA)
Martin Stupich (Albuquerque, NM)
Jim Turbert (Jamaica Plain, MA)

Speaking of competitions and winners: Hey, Hot Shot! is in full swing, the blog is back to daily updates. I’m furiously preparing for our end of April solo exhibition, which is a gorgeous painting show (a refreshing change of pace!) – more on that later this week. PLUS a very special super exciting new project will be announced this week too.

Seeing as how I’ve got so much to do, I think it’s high time for me to check and see if my TiVo has any old Law & Order episodes to watch. Or maybe clean out my closet? Better yet… I think Ms. Otter needs a bath.

This is the part where lying out the couch all day starts to get really boring. My cold is worse today than it was yesterday, boohoo. I am fuzzy-headed hopped up on Nyquil and watching Extreme Makeover. (Scary!) I’m accepting deliveries of Chicken Noodle soup and fresh squeezed OJ if you happen to be in the East Village vicinity.

I have no energy to post interesting things today, but for your entertainment, you can always catch up on the gender diversity at conferences brouhaha which stayed smokin’ hot throughout the weekend. Of particular interest are Anil Dash’s two long, thoughtful posts: The Old Boys Club is for Losers and The Essentials of Web 2.0 Your Event Doesn’t Cover. There’s also a long wrap-up over on BlogHer by Virginia DeBolt, Gender Diversity at Web Conferences has some extensive quotes and good links too. So much drama! Let’s hope something good comes of it.

Gender diversity not your bag? How about the long article from yesterday’s New York Times Magazine about Jeff Wall? The Luminist posits that Jeff Wall’s “large, glowing, elaborately staged pictures are helping to make photography the painting of our times.”

Still want more? (Don’t you have any work to do? It’s Monday, for chrissakes!) Why not browse my Links Archive?

Also of note: I’m still interested in additional input on my List of Women Speakers for Your Conference. Yesterday I reserved listofwomen.com and listofwomenspeakers.com and I’ve got big plans for those destinations.

I also registered imafuckingsteamroller.com but that’s another story.

Me? I’m heading over to Go Fug Yourself to see what the Fug girls have to say about Anne Hathaway’s ginormous bow and holy shit was was JLo thinking?