It’s a while since I attempted to write a blog, you see everybody else seems to do it so much better here. That Phil Kirby (our editor) thinks anybody can write, or maybe I’m misquoting him, but either way not everybody can self edit…
Which leads me onto my problem with me, you, everybody! In these days where our twitter fingers work faster than our brains, and our lives seem to have speeded up to warp speed, it seems the reflective, analytical side of our personalities have gone into deep storage. Or maybe I speak for myself?
When I started out on Twitter, I used to weigh each tweet as if they were precious, concocting a delicious pun was the beauty for me of Twitter, the very creative parameter of 140 characters was a challenge. How could I convey nuance, irony, humour, respect for others, be in the conversation? I considered the impact of my tweets, I thought carefully as to whether my tweets would convey a clique-ness, exclude, hurt, or worse. Some may say this was anodyne, or ‘vanilla’ but then that’s a reflection of me. I like to get people thinking not to kick em.
So it surprises me that 3 years later, I tweet more than I eat. I fling out any bon mot, wry observation, that enters my head. I still feel cross when people are not kind to each other, or reference the source from where a particularly juicy tweet orginated. Manners maketh the woman and all that. Yet I’ve long since crossed the threshold of crafting each tweet before pressing publish.
I do have some observations that the more we say, the less we are heard. That goes for anybody who is predictable, who spams, who hectors, who chips away at others on Twitter. You can almost feel the frustration of individuals who have something very important to say which is not having the desired impact.
So this leads me onto a question, that for once is to complicated to nuance via 140 characters. If I bang a drum on why this matters on Twitter, you’ll all just mutter, oh look at that barmy woman, wittering on about feminist stuff, it’s not relevant, and haven’t we moved on a bit?
Get to the point Emma…
So my question is, in these days, where we seem to be making great strides towards towards a fairer society (don’t we?), how important is it that the events we design and attend have a diversity in speakers and panellists? If we know we are again drawing from the same pool, of trusted speakers who we’ve seen go down well else where, or meet a strategic objective, do we consider how we start to create an environment where the panels, facilitators, speakers, etc are not predominantly white and male? I put on a fair few events, and whilst my preferred method are the very levelling open space type scenarios, I have also found that, if I’m honest, it’s far easier to engage a man to speak than confidently find others who have the same public profile.
This has been on my mind because of recent articles by Sarah Szalavitz Wired and Natalie Guest in The Independent. Both articles made me stop and think, about how I would go about designing an event in future. It’s tricky to be sure, because the visibility of the non obvious speaker is harder to root out. Or is it? Perhaps that’s my job, how do you actively seek out the lesser known people to really add benefit to the audience who pay good money, or give up their time to be entertained, provoked, engaged, or moved?
I’m also pretty sure this isn’t just about male/female. It’s about asking ‘who is not in the room’?(or digital space) Why aren’t they? and Do we want to do something about this? This is where the really hard work starts, in my opinion. It’s easy to preach to the converted, the interesting part is when we start to understand people who aren’t just like us…I’ve a long way to go personally, reaching out beyond the digital savvy, and taking stuff to where the people I want to have a conversation with are at. I’ve limited time, and even less resource, but it really matters to me to ask the question and be honest with myself as to whether I’m kidding myself.
I could be wrong, and I’d rather we had the conversation here than to end up roasted on Twitter. What do you think. Does this matter? When you go to an event, do you consider the mix of panellists and speakers? Is this a non issue? At least from my perspective I’d like to think it’s something we should consider at least, whether as attendees or organisers.
I agree Emma. I’ve stopped going to conferences and open space stuff of late… much of is it to with my work/life balance, juggling 4 jobs and 2 young children… and the rest is because the same speakers crop up again and again, doing the rounds, asking the same questions, patting each other on the back. And yes, they are largely white, middle class, males.
If I hear the question “when are we going to start taking theatre out of theatres and into the public realm?” or whatever version of this question crops up on a daily basis I am actually going to hit someone. I want to shout LOOK AROUND YOU…
Back to work..
In response to the first half of your article, I’ve personally found many of your recent Twitter updates awkward to understand and engage with. Posts such as the seemingly passive-aggressive “Do I ask too much?” seem the wrong sort of thing to be posting from such a platform, and maybe a personal Twitter account is what’s required for your more personal qualms. Others can seem confusing for the language used. If I had the time, I’d dig back through the timeline for examples, but “Has The Culture Vulture been good for any artist’s resilience?” a few days back seemed not only strangely worded, but moreover a tad self-congratulatory. Whilst I appreciate the work everyone at Culture Vultures put in, chasing praise seemed cringeworthy.
Hopefully you’ll see this as the constructive criticism it’s intended to be, and not an attack.
To the second half of your article, and in response to your statement of “Perhaps that’s my job..” – as an events promoter, Yes, it very much is your job to ensure that you secure a varied cast for panels and speakers you use. In relation to your own events, it seems you’ve opted to go an easier path when selecting your contributors (“it’s far easier to engage a man to speak”), so I guess you’ve highlighted your own next step in making progress. Again, to offer my perspective of constructive criticism, you could maybe seek out individuals you’d want to give greater exposure to, and then see how they could fit into possible future events you’re involved in, rather than letting the event’s topic dictate the panel (which, lets be honest, will almost always favour the seemingly troublesome White Middleclass Male).
As for my reasons for attending conferences and events, it’s seldom to do with who’s on the panel, predominately being more about the subject (though I’ll admit another big factor is if there’s someone else I know going!). Once there, I’d hope that the organisers have arranged for a strong enough panel/speaker to hold my attention and provide valid insights, and if they haven’t it then becomes an issue. So in that respect strong contributors are an absolute essential, but they’re also something which us attendee’s just assume will be done correctly, and so this side of things (and rightly so) is very much taken for granted and not hugely considered (IMO).
I’ve been thinking on this, naturally, as it reminds me that intention and impact are again a key thing to consider.
I guess the Twitter thing is a worth the consideration that what you perceive as passive aggressive is me enjoying a play with words…But whatever the intent, your reading of it is still interesting
I like to provoke thinking, and I’m concious not to press ‘send’ on what my friends call my ‘Mystic Meg’ tweets no matter how satisfying it is to make a tweet which is passive aggressive.
I suppose, as a personal/public twitter feed it’s a fine line between being human and being anodyne. As you are probably aware The Culture Vulture is not funded by anybody, and therefore my responsibility is firstly to myself. I say this because it’s my own fault if what I say discredits me in the eyes of people I would like to respect me.
The next level of responsibility which nobody has conferred upon me is to think via the small amount of influence I have (and believe me I think anybody with a presence can have influence) am I being fair, kind, helpful, respectful. Am I being open, honest, and reflective. It’s easy to jerk the knee with Twitter, but it doesn’t move the conversation on, or do me any favours either. I also think this makes me think twice about making comments that I cannot substantiate.
However I still love the fun of being playful on Twitter, it’s great fun and allows me to test stuff out.
I tweet too much, but I don’t mind if anybody wishes to unfollow me, if my view of the world is not to their taste.
The other comments re events are interesting, have you been to any? I’d be interested if you have been what your experience has been?
The issue for me isn’t about the male/female ratio, as much as finding people who aren’t the ‘usual suspects’
After this blog post I had a really interesting conversation about why people are drawn to speak in the first place. Who have you seen recently that has really made you think? Anybody that made you look at the world differently?
Thanks for contributing to the conversation, I appreciate the time you took
Really interesting discussion. The point about seeking out and showcasing voices goes way beyond populating a panel for an event.
Each summer my postgraduate news trainees provide bulletins for BCB radio in Bradford as the culmination of my radio course. However much I urge them to seek out new voices, year after year the same people come around; often because others in their organisation, interest group or community tend to defer to them as ‘the people who do the media’.
Many, many times I’ve groaned inwardly having found a passionate and articulate speaker only to be fobbed off in the direction of a particular self-appointed official spokesman. I don’t think this is a problem any event organiser or news editor can solve alone. Groups and communities with stories to tell also need to think about who can best represent them to the rest of the city.
In this regard Twitter is a great leveller as it is so diverse it allows a plurality of voices to emerge. That can only be a good thing.
Oh and Emma don’t worry about the occasional whimsical Tweet. I normally assume they’re done to provoke reaction, and can be safely ignored if the rest of us don’t want to play. I always prefer whimsy to being sold at.
And look on Ada Lovelace day this network and development for female speakers is announced by some fine women I’ve encountered. Hurrah
http://www.articulatenetwork.com/
I’m using this as a bit of a pinboard/ongoing conversation about positive discrimination I guess. So this today about legislation for women on boards struck a chord.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20039540
Again we veer back to ‘best person’ for the event, job, position etc, but where do we help develop the non obvious candidates for these roles and positions so the likelihood is a 50/50 split one day?
And now this fantastic pledge or suggestion for speakers to influence conference organisers
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/a-simple-suggestion-to-help-phase-out-all-male-panels-at-tech-conferences/266837/#.UOdOimckJ6E.twitter
(found via Matt Edgar)
You didn’t go to shift happens in York then? Packed with quality talent… Ahem, great lady speakers, including our own Dr Kill.
I didn’t this year. We’ve been supporters of it, but the previous year didn’t really do it for me. Not because of the male/female ratio, it just didn’t feel like a shift for me personally. A lovely place to hang out with the arts/cultural crowd but nothing that really jolted my thinking.