[image by ChrisL_AK]
Was Open Education 2009 a diverse, inclusive conference? I have no idea. I don’t know what any specific use of those terms means. I think Open Ed 2009 accurately reflected a larger part of the Open Education community than many other conferences on the topic, including its own previous incarnations. But it didn’t approach any idea of absolute diversity for a lot of reasons including the most basic:
- conference programs tend to take shape within reach of the intellectual scaffolding of the organizers
- conference attendance entails material resources that are out of reach of those who don’t share a relatively privileged background
I’ve been to conferences that are composed much more (and some much less) of a particular “in-crowd.” The interesting thing about Open Ed, for me, was that it was a kind of super-set that included a good part of “my” network and a whole lot of the members in the degrees-of-separation that radiate from it… along with the expected body of those I’d never met or been in any known contact or communication with before. But there are social network effects that come into play here. Having that significant contingent of people in my first- and second-degree network was exciting (and terrifying) and affirming (and, again, terrifying). That super-group of relatively close connections tend to communicate with each other more freely, quickly and voluminously, which I can easily see would exacerbate feelings of being “on the outside” on the part of others.
Gender equity (whatever that means—I’m speaking here of simple mathematics) was honestly better than I expected, but not great: approximately 35% of registered attendees were women. Of course the important aspect of gender and inclusion has little to do with the math! Jen’s insightful comments are important. I agree with most of what she says… my disagreements likely pointing to areas where discussion is even more critical, such as when it comes to perceptions of family obligations, social agility (or, in my case, lack thereof), and entrance and exit into conversations.
The bottom line (for me) is that my conversational references—my very intellectual frameworks—are built around philosopher and writers and educators who are predominantly male because—regardless of the complicated reasons—most of the great thinkers in each area, particularly in a historical context, are/were men. In other areas this is less true—when it comes to actors, musicians, contemporary artists and writers, my personal pantheon is more proportionately female—but the ugly reality of the world is that you don’t have to go back very far to reach a point where trying to identify a significant number of examples of women at the top of these fields requires more than a bit of wishful thinking paired with unwarranted historical rehabilitation that can actually work counter to one’s well-meaning intention.
I can’t see how to work against that legacy any harder than I already do, though I remain open to new approaches. Everyone who pays attention says they are—or try to be—gender-neutral, that they aren’t thinking about gender when they X, Y and Z, and I maintain the same. When I wasn’t choosing to see a friend, I chose sessions to attend without even looking at the names. I recall discussing and/or invoking, in some cases at great length, Flannery O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Catherine Ngugi, Julia Kristeva, Virginia Woolf… but the fact remains that I can’t really talk about education, language and literature without bringing in Plato, Vygotsky, Wittgenstein, Kafka, Joyce and Eliot.
It’s difficult to disentangle the thinking about these issues w/r/t a specific event like Open Ed–or even a specific community such as that which has sprung up around it—from the world in general. The thing is, I’m not so sure it even helps to try. Considering these issues in a holistic sense of the world and we living within it leads me right to despair and hopelessness. When it comes to something like organizing a conference or participating in a community I can consider specific problems and solutions. When it comes to the state of civilization? Not so much.
What does this mean? I don’t know. But I know how it feels. How it feels is: my best efforts aren’t good enough. I can’t change the world and apparently this event where I did my best didn’t manage to address the issue either. I can exhibit trust and love as intensely as I know how but it doesn’t make the tiniest dent.
I feel what Jen says in her comment. Not based around gender, but in its own way just as vital, painful and frustrating. I suffer terribly from impostor syndrome (of course I like to say it that way because it sounds like I have some rational apprehension, but in fact deep inside I know it’s not such a syndrome at all but a reflection that I am, essentially, an impostor). I know how it feels to to have all eyes on me when I walk into a room or up to a table where a conversation is happening. I know the whispered conversations are about me. I know what it’s like to imagine what was said before I got there, what isn’t being said because I am present, and what will be said about me when I’ve left. I know how it feels to always feel that I’m not worthy of being in a group, in front of a room, or in a conversation. It’s a constant, sometimes unbearable struggle (that I lose often) to not retreat to my room and fabricate some good reason for avoiding the whole thing. Sometimes I barely manage not to catch the next plane home.
Not knowing how I can make a difference for me this way, I’m a long, long way from knowing how to help make a difference for anyone else.
