Dear Karen, Chris, Dori, Eduardo and all,
firstly, thank you all for taking the time to post your conference
reflections, and thanks to Chris and Karen for your thoughtful
responses to my post. I understand that our business, academic and
personal lives today are very hectic, which often makes responding to
posts on this list a sporadic event, or at least it is in my case.
I agree with you Karen that different personalities make different
kinds of posts, and that it is sometimes difficult to respond to a
post when its written tone is perceived either as unfriendly, pointed
or even condescending, which has very occasionally been my experience
in the past two years. However, it does impact on my desire and
motivation to send a post about a topic when I think that either I
may get no response at all (which is, as you say, disappointing,
sometimes verging on humiliating), or that the response is what I
might perceive as harsh. I emphasise PERCEPTION about a response in
this rather clumsy written medium, which I suggest, may or may not
relate to the sender's intention. So it's all a bit muddy at times,
and after all, we are all just people with sensitivities and
standpoints like in any other group.
So, the dilemma is about often about making the decision to continue
to 'lurk' on the list in silence, or to bravely send a post that
raises an issue about which one feels uncomfortable. Which was my
recent dilemma.
I want to say that I was not attempting to make any comparison
between either Rosan's or Dori's posts, as I think each contributed
to us non-attendees' experience of the conference, as did David's,
Eduardo's, Ken's and Chris's. And each of us will interpret their
accounts from our own standpoints. But I wish to emphasise that my
initial interest in Rosan's post was not related to her diary style
notation of her experience, but rather because in my two years of
subscribing to this list, I have not seen the words 'gender' and
'design' combined in one post as a description or representation of
actual events, and if they were mentioned, it was often in relation
to conceptual discussions about gender and culture, rather than
gender as standpoint, or as description of something that actually
happened. Hence my interest, as my research topic is gender and
typography.
So, where to from here? Chris and Eduardo made very detailed comments
as to how the panels were constructed, and Chris also provided
detailed feedback on differences between presenters' styles and
preparedness. This was particularly useful for me at my current
doctoral stage, prior to doctoral assessment and commencement of data
collection. I am considering conference presentations and journal
publications as options for my progress, so the discussion on this
list recently was immensely useful and helped me make a key decision.
However, I also considered whether to pursue the issue, as I am
tentative about its reception. Chris mentioned relations of power and
public roles, and I guess that was what prompted my discomfort, as
from my perspective, power is produced through language and text, and
does not exist as an object that is to be possessed. Yet the
relations of power at play and produced through texts is what
maintains individuals' social locations, in which gender, culture,
ability etc. play big roles. My discomfort arose from my perception
that power was being exercised, albeit circumspectly, just like the
infamous Cindy debacle. Even masquerading as a woman, Ken was not
able to change the force of the power he unleashed in Cindy's written
posts, due to his social location, even though that was his intention.
As to how the women who were 'plucked unexpectedly' (thanks Chris for
this lovely metaphor) to present papers - I would be interested to
hear your responses to this experience. And, with respect to his
position of being of a non-English speaking background, I would also
challenge Eduardo's suggestion that the panels were organised along
themes or genres rather than gender, as also being a standpoint. This
is because in my position, I see all social organisation and
interaction as 'gendered'...and I struggle with ways of discussing
this because the word itself is a red flag to most of us, conjuring
images of angry women with axes to grind (perhaps these are only my
own images?).
However, I thank those who continue to post, continue to reflect and
continue to bravely ask or respond to nuances that they perceive as
reflecting something conceptually broader than the context of a post
that may be of deeper relevance to our fledgling research community.
with kind regards, teena
--
Teena Clerke
PO Box 1090
Strawberry Hills NSW 2012
0414 502 648
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