The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And Man the hermit sighed, till Woman smiled.
–Thomas Campbell, Pleasures of Hope (1799)
There is always the danger of social media too often lapsing into the role of facilitating the spread of such meaningless exercises as unnecessary blabbing, useless chatter, gossip, urban myths and even harmful stereotypes, both in terms of race and gender. Women in particular have been the brunt of this.
Such concerns are understandable. Fortunately, however, the natural proclivity of women to talk and converse and network with each other, when combined with the power of social media, can counteract any sort of negativity on the part of the mass media, not to mention build enthusiasm and provide support for each other. This was evident at The State of NOW / 140conf12 event in New York City, June 19–20, 2012, during the panel session, “gURL Power: How and Why Women Use Social Media to Connect, Share Resources and Build Communities of Friendship and Support.”
There is a long tradition of women connecting and supporting each other, going back even before the days of the Suffragettes. As Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender wrote in the Routledge International Encyuclopedia of Women: Global Women’s Issues and Knowledge (Vol. 1): “Many women in the western tradition have an ethical history that is rooted in culturally prescribed practices of caring.” This many times drove women to eschew the conventional male-dominated political/social system and create autonomous women’s movements separate from political parties, centered on such things as social reform.
At 140conf12, however, we were not listening to representatives of some grand women’s movement pushing for reforms in economics, animal rights, or politics. Instead, it was an exercise in how some entrepreneurial women extend their small-group contexts using social media to both “get the word out” about themselves and who occasionally use their connections as a mutual-aid system. Even an informal group such as this one has the potential to stare down the stereotypes set forth by outsiders (e.g. victim, consumer, “tiger mom,” etc.), smooth over the emotional impact of ineptitude or misfortune, and instantly weave many helping relationships, if the need arises, cutting across any differences among them. Such are the dynamics of social giving and taking among women armed with Twitter, Facebook, and the like.
The panel’s participants were as follows:
Julie Cole (@juliecole) – Co-founder/VP, Mabel’s Labels (Moderator)
Alyson Schafer (@alysonschafer) – Author / Psychotherapist/ Parenting Expert
Kathy Buckworth (@KathyBuckworth) – Author
Maureen Dennis (@weewelcome) – Founder, Have a Baby & A Life.
Theresa Albert (@theresaalbert) – Founder, My Friend In Food
Deb Brown (@debbrown), who spoke at a 140conf in Hutchinson, Kansas, and was instrumental in making possible our Des Moines, Iowa, show, introduced the moderator:
Deborah Brown: Next we have a group of women and they’re going to talk a bit about ‘Gurl Power’ and how women can support each other online. To lead us in the introductions is Julie Cole (@juliecole). I know Julie Cole from Mabel’s Labels. If you haven’t heard of Mabel’s Labels, go to their website, Mabelslabels.com, because it’s a fascinating product and everybody needs it at their home. C’mon in ladies…. [Panelists come out onto the stage.]
Julie, will you introduce everybody?
Julie Cole: Okay. Hello. I just wanted to mention something first. There’s a perception problem with women on the web. There are ideas floating around out there that sometimes we can be petty, competitive, exclusive and even catty. I’ve heard that when they’re quick to steal content. They’ve been quick to swoop and work with a brand under the nose of one of their social media pals. Some people think we use social media to raise ourselves up while not caring who we step on in the virtual world to get there.
Why do these perceptions and stereotypes exist? Often because of high-profile media campaigns like these. [On the screen flashes the “Are You Mom Enough?” breastfeeding cover from Time Magazine, the photo of two “military moms” breastfeeding that sparked a controversy, and cover of the 2011 book by Amy Chua, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom. One panelist asks, “Can we weigh in now?”]
All of these things seem to divide women and mothers and parents. But this is the reality… [Other images of women working cooperatively and having fun appear on the screen.] This is what people don’t see. We’re here to put those perceptions to rest once and for all. Some may see all of us as competitors, but we see each other as community.
So here on the panel we’ve got Alyson Schafer (@alysonschafer) who is a psychotherapist and a leading parenting expert. She’s an author, columnist, TV show host and sits on several health advisory boards.
Kathy Buckworth (@KathyBuckworth) is an award-winning writer, public speaker, and television personality. She works as a corporate media spokesperson and social media consulting for many large brands. Her newest book, I Am So the Boss of You will be out in the spring of 2013.
Next we have Theresa Albert (@theresaalbert). She’s our foodie. She’s A multimedia personality on several shows talking about child obesity and nutrition. She’s an author and a well-known blogger and sought-after speaker.
And then we’ve got Maureen Dennis (@weewelcome), who is an entrepreneur, community leader, creator of the online community Wee Welcome [http://www.weewelcome.ca, a site where “new parents or anyone with a baby in their life can find grownup places to go with baby in tow, start or join a group, and share ideas, advice an adventures of parenting on the go.”] and well-known media personality.
We want to talk a bit today about support and community and what we do as women for each other online. So let’s just get started. I wanted to begin with the stereotypes that we have all experienced. Have you actually ever felt the victim of any negativity online, and if you have, how did you combat that? Or how did you come to deal with that? Does anyone want to start?
Maureen Dennis: Well we’ve all had some haters. Some more than other. As my teenage son says, ‘You know, you’re doing something right when you have a bunch of haters.’ Working with different brands, you kind of take on the love and the hate that go along with that brand. That’s something to take into consideration before you decide whether that’s the right brand for your own personnel to work with.
I was a part of a program with MacDonald’s that had many lovers as well as many haters, but that was my first experience through social media of really ‘taking the heat’ for a brand. It was my choice to be a part of it and an amazing learning experience overall, but not something I was prepared for, not having experienced it before—having people really, personally attack me for working with a brand.
Theresa Albert: Beyond brands, when you are representing yourself—and this is what I feel about nutrition—food is really an intensive thing. People, don’t tell me how to parent and don’t tell me what to eat.
Maureen Dennis: And nobody do both! [Laughter.]
Theresa Albert: Nobody sits next to me in a restaurant. [Laughter.] But when they attack you personally for your belief system, that’s something that none of us would ever do, right? That’s what you believe, and I understand that’s why you believe that.
Maureen Dennis: Agree to disagree.
Theresa Albert: Right.
Maureen Dennis: Or support a decision.
Theresa Albert: Right. But what I found was—and we all met in a social media realm first, and then became supporters in real life—in public I had to be really strong and kind of well, ‘Gee, how do I deal with this, you know, call the police, or whatever.’ Or go to your friends and cry and have that support in real life. And then have a media face. Have that, you know, ‘Oh sorry you feel that way—moving on!’
Kathy Buckworth: I think we discovered too that it is just as important that you not only put out what you believe yourself, but if you see someone online, whether you know them or not, being unfairly attacked, then I think we’re all pretty quick to jump up and well, rescue would be too strong a word—let’s just say we’d support their position. And I think that’s what’s missing sometimes. If you see someone on Twitter who is drunk and tweeting, you should DM [Direct Message] them to put down the glass. [Laughter.] It doesn’t matter if you know them or not. If you get the sense that they’re saying or they’re going off somewhere where they shouldn’t, we try to make it more of a community-based environment because Twitter is a community-based place to be. So I think it’s important not only with people you know but with people you don’t know that well to help save them and their reputation and their brand.
Julie Cole: I mean we’ve all seen a train wreck happening on the Twitter stream. So yeah, if you do see somebody ‘failing’ and people are around and you know they’re all watching, well…
Theresa Albert: It’s about whether or not to be the bystander, right?
Julie Cole: So what kind of things do you do when you see that happening?
Theresa Albert: Well, I think even if you see someone in public pain, when you see someone cry in public, there are a lot of people who are really uncomfortable with that. It doesn’t bother me at all. So I’m usually the first one to sort of go, hey! I won’t personally do it in the public stream, because I don’t want to be engaged in that conversation. But if you want to email me if you need some help, then if I have an idea, I’ll share it, and I’ll do that behind the scenes, because I know they can take it offline. Right? You don’t have to show all your pain out front.
Julie Cole: All of you are so engaged in this community. What happens when you see somebody maybe, I mean I think every once in a while we all have that little thing that makes us feel not so good about ourselves. You actually see somebody having some great opportunities or you see somebody doing really well and you are genuinely happy for them but you might be thinking, ‘Oh, why not me? I wonder why I’ve been overlooked.’
Kathy Buckworth: I think we’ve all had them. We talk about that. Even when you think, ‘Why not me? Oh, right, I’m not a heart surgeon.’ So it couldn’t have been me in the first place. [Laughter.] But we all have that immediate reaction to it. My reaction to it now is to go out and to congratulate them even when I’m thinking, ‘Damn!’ Because I think it diffuses some of it and puts some good energy out there. And they earned it. Honestly, it feels we earned it, in their own way, we earned it too.
Maureen Dennis: And every takes a turn. So, everybody needs a success, celebrate other people’s success. Then, when it’s your turn, you’ll have people celebrate and nothing feels better than celebrating success with others, whether it is in real life or online. So if you can’t step up and celebrate somebody else’s success, don’t be surprised if when good things happen to you, you’re the only one smiling.
Kathy Buckworth: But also if we get offered an opportunity that we can’t take, we should look to someone else to do it for us.
Theresa Albert: My whole career is six degrees of Kathy Buckworth! [Laughter.]
Alyson Schafer: Oh yeah, I’ll agree with that!
Kathy Buckworth: But it’s a win-win, right? Because we think, ‘If I offer this to this other person, wow, she does a lot of the same things that I do. Maybe they’ll go to her from now on instead of me. Maybe she’s younger. Maybe she does this part a little bit better.’ But it’s not true. It’s a win-win for everyone because the agency appreciates it, the brand appreciates it, the network—whoever you’re doing the work for, appreciates that you are able to steer them to someone who can do the work for you.
Julie Cole: All the time we bail each other out.
Alyson Schafer: It’s roller derby—you snap someone else to the front of the pack and you let them run for a while, right? And we get to be kind of in the drag and take a rest, and then we rotate it around.
Maureen Dennis: And you get to be a connector; you get to connect other great people with great people.
Kathy Buckworth: It’s called a ‘trust agent.’ We’re Chris Brogan’ parents. Hey Chris’ parents, tell him I said that! [Laughter.]
Julie Cole: You know, it kind of reminds me of the way we were just talking about congratulating other people and how that makes you feel better and it squashed that little evil in you. It makes you want to celebrate, but it also reminded me of something Kathy and I talked about at the Mom 2.0 Conference a little while ago, and Brene Brown was speaking there. I remember she said something that was so smart. When people say, ‘Oh look at you you’ve done this and you’ve done that,’ and she said, ‘You need to realize I’ve been in line for ten years.’ So a lot of the success that people experience, it’s because they’ve been at it a long time and they’ve worked super hard and I think remembering that is key.
Kathy Buckworth: People say to me, ‘You’re so lucky you’re a writer.’ And I ask them, ‘Do you want to be a writer?’ and they do. And then I ask them, ‘So, are you writing?’ And they reply, ‘No.’ So I’m like ‘Well, how’s that working out for you?’ [Laughter.] Because generally, publishers just don’t call you up and say, ‘Wanna write a book?’ It doesn’t really happen that way.
Alyson Schafer: And everything online it about the democratization of information and the idea of abundance. The minute you get into a scarcity mentality, you really are out of this game, if you ask me. You have to continue that abundance mentality, and you have to continue to believe that you are on a mission rather than just trying to make a career. If you’re just a ‘careerist’ who’s online, I don’t think that you are going to have a satisfying outcome, in my opinion.
Julie Cole: So how do you feel, then, given that you support your colleagues without necessarily giving away your ‘secret sauce?’ I mean, you still have to be ‘you.’
Theresa Albert: Voice your recipes! [Laughter.] With you it’s secret sauce. I share recipes. It’s what I do.
Alyson Schafer: I don’t think there’s a ‘secret sauce,’ I mean, for us, anyways. I think that our brands are our personalities and you just can’t replicate yourself. So in a sense you are 100 percent secure in that no one else is going to be you. So I’m just me. Everything else I can share.
Maureen Dennis: It’s confidence. It’s understanding yourself and your own brand and then helping people find their own confidence and their own brand.
Julie Cole: There is only one you, right? We can’t be copied.
Theresa Albert: We’re so special. Let’s hold hands! [Panelists all join hands. Laughter.]
Julie Cole: Okay, well, thank you all very much!
Editor’s Note: Women obviously no longer are defined solely in terms of their relationship with men, are willing to take the mass media to task for its not-so-subtle ridicule of women and proliferation of all the old prejudices and discriminatory behaviors, and they are quite capable of founding their own subculture imbued with power, authority, independence, and mutual aid. Social media has and continues to make that possible.
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Richard Grigonis (@EditStateofNow) is Editor-in-Chief of Jeff Pulver’s State of NOW / #140conf community website.