Wittgenstein Wasn’t a Woman
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.
August 21st, 2009 at 12:28 pm
If it’s any consolation, you just made a difference for me. Thanks for that. Impostor syndrome sometimes eats me alive – from the inside out. Later.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Just a fun mind trip.
What if we could replay our entrance into a group, conference etc, with a mind/heart that says “I am loved/respected” as a given. Whether it is true or not. Just have that attitude.
What might change?
What I loved about this edu-blog-guys network that I first encountered at Northern Voice was you/they (and Chris, my experience is that you are part of this) all gave off this amazing vibe of love, interest in others, etc. But in the intervening time, your love for each other has grown, been reified by your inside language, and by your reputation and standing in the “world” (whatever that is). In other words, we feel your love of each other and start ignoring your love of us. (I suspect this is our own crazy minds doing this to ourselves. I know I do it! ) My thought is that this allows us to live into our own imposter syndrome.
If we switch the conversation in our own heads to “I am loved” as default (sort of like that trick of some teachers who tell their students on day one everyone starts with an A), what might happen?
Again, I suspect we have to believe this first before we can believe that others really DO love us. Odd human beings. Sheesh!
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:34 am
Hi Chris,
The topic you address – inclusiveness and gender equity – is different from the highly socialized soft isolation that close-knit peers exhibit in their interactions with each other. Gender equity and inclusion is something that you’ve achieved to a good degree with OpenEd09. The isolation that comes from trying to crack a tightly-connected peer group (such as Jen is referring to) with their own layer of inside jokes and terminology reminds me too much of high school. I don’t think you as a conference organizer can reasonably be expected to address this. That’s something for the broader field to work on. How? I haven’t a clue…I just know it’s important and it’s a mindset shift. Social isolation won’t be solved by having a certain % of female presenters or attendees.
In terms of inclusiveness, you did better with OpenEd than almost any conference I’ve seen in the edtech field. Your speaker list was diverse in both culture and gender. Take a bow for that!
Now, about that impostor syndrome, Chris…you’ve referenced this before. And it resonates with me. I am waiting for the conference where I am finished presenting and someone declares “this man is an idiot” and the entire audience simultaneously agrees. Like you, I don’t like large social gatherings. I would gladly meet with a small group to discuss a topic over dinner or even for an evening. But, add 6-10 people into a room, throw in a few beverages, and suddenly the interaction becomes one of social negotiation, public displays, positioning, reputation creation, etc. Unless forced to, I’ll always skip these interactions and spend the evening in my hotel room doing email. The social preening (I don’t know what else to call it) is too taxing an activity to warrant effort for me.
My only complaint with you Chris is that you don’t write enough. You offer brilliant insights into complex subject areas. And you lead with an good blend of cognition and emotion.
George
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:45 am
Hi Chris … enjoyed the post as a follow up to the conversation I just read through over at D’Arcy’s place. I think it was good gender mix as it is never easy to get the perfect balance. Even when the numbers balance out, there will always be a sense of exclusion by some regardless of gender or race … those elements only amplify the existence of it.
As an aside, it appeared to me that this may be the start of this movement moving into the mainstream and I suspect that will attract a more diverse crowd in the coming years.
I was able to more easily fall into conversations with people I’d never met only b/c of the social network effects. I read your blog and follow you on Twitter so there is a much more natural opening for me to engage with you. I felt that way with a handful of people, but I never felt like I was really in. I guess I need to deal with the fact that has nearly everything to do with me — I’ve watched and read nearly all the people I stressed about meeting and talking to admit on their blogs just how intimated they were meeting everyone else. I guess in short we aren’t impostors, we’re just people working to find where we fit. Maybe no different than when we were kids negotiating new friendships and relationships. I think in a lot of ways forcing myself to first go and then to try and work myself into conversations was a lot about growing. I didn’t go expecting to feel so uncomfortable, but did feel that way in a lot of situations. What I’ve had to reflect on is that I was in a different country, a new city, a new culture, a new community, and around people who I wanted to make an impression on. All in all, I’m really pleased with how it all went down. I grew socially and intellectually. Its not everyday that I can say that about an academic conference.
Ok, time for me to get off the couch. Great post and great conversation starter!
September 10th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Nancy, I love your suggestion to replay our entrance into a group with the atitude of “I am loved/respected” as a given. In my experience, this ’small’ change is in fact an immense step and is exactly the kind of self-affirmation that is needed to help deal with some of the feelings Chris describes at the end of his post. I ‘know’ this, and yet like so many other things I ‘know,’ I still regularly forget it – thanks for reminding me.
Chris, I don’t have any answers too and share many of the frustrations you express here. This came up again yesterday in a twitter conversation with Leigh Blackall who had pointed to a post that strongly criticizes the entire OER movement. What frustrated me about that post is that it didn’t feel like it left me *any* room to engage it. But to me, that’s one of the learnings from all of this – that it’s important to remain open, recognize and respect these critiques, try to engage them and learn and change where possible, but also be able to sit with the feelings they bring up and not necessarily just ‘resolve’ them, make them go away. I’m not very good at that – I seem to want to resolve things. I’m working on that, and I appreciate these as opportunities to practice.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
@Scott I don’t see that blog post as leaving much room for discussion either, partially because it conflates a variety of issues in a way that is tempting but not particularly productive. As I see it, open education can’t possibly take the same form everywhere (and shouldn’t) nor can any individual, group, or event operate in such a way that it addresses everyone’s needs everywhere. What Minhaaj writes about is very familiar to me– I see it all the time in the context of, for instance, Native Alaskan culture and sharing and how it interacts/works (and doesn’t) with “Western” ways and laws. But the space that he is talking about is naturally one of subversion– the countries that Minhaaj claims operate in very different ways may do so at some points and in some places, but they too are bound by all kinds difficulties that come from governmental desires to integrate with other countries and the de-facto subversion of wanting to operate outside of those constraints. He may have a valid gripe with (some) open ed discussions and activities and the way that portray and attempt to work with non-Western cultures and people, but he proposes his own one-sided and similarly myopic view in response, filled with straw- and bogie-men that don’t represent the issues any more accurately and I don’t see how that helps matters at all.