From Here to Autonomy

Femalities: A breakdown of SXSW and a lot of other stuff from a woman's point of view

Don't know what it is--the fact that I've just emerged from a weekend at SXSW, it was International Women's Day on Friday, I got snubbed by a "prominent" male investor/entrepreneur that in the virtual world I respected, though in person not so much--but I am feeling my womanness of late. And no, guys, it's not because it's that time of the month. If anything, it's the world who's experiencing a hormonal shift.

A digital analyst that I bumped into at SX in the lobby of the Hilton asked me what struck me as the big story at SX. I gave him a safe answer that belied the unbelievable growth the BlogHer Network has experienced on mobile platforms </shill for my company> and realized there's a better, more encompassing answer: WOMEN.

You know, those people at SX who like to hug, code, and grab coffee. They've been at SX before (we partnered with SX in '06, developing programming for them around women and have been involved as attendees or board members </shill my business partner> since). They're not really that new in the space. Like content marketing they were around in the Web 1.0 days too, but there are new distinctions that folks seem to be making, in part because, like Facebook, some broke out and went public.

Yes, we don't need to say Sheryl SANDBERG or Marissa MAYER out here. Everyone knows who you are talking about when asked, "What'd you think about Marissa's decision?" or "Lean In, you agree with Sheryl?" It may have been International Women's Day on Friday, but it seems the celebrating here in Austin was delayed for the official launch of "Lean In" instead.

Even my ungeeky friends have reached out and asked me, "So do you think this Lean In stuff is valid?" For the record (and since I was supposed to represent BlogHer on a CNN panel to discuss this Friday, but the topic was bumped to today and we talked about DOMA and Justin Bieber instead) I want to put what I thought was a damn well-conceived opinion out there, to the two of you reading my blog:

I love what Sheryl has done with her platform as resident SV untouchable badass to highlight the issue of women and work. It seems that when women who haven't taken companies public try to do so, the media responds with a tad less enthusiasm. And while I understand the criticism of some of the fembloggers who feel that Sandberg's privileged background makes her an unreliable advocate for those of us who actually have to work, I think someone had to get this conversation started. My hope and intention is to invite others to the conversation who have lived in fear of being fired and feel they have to fake leaning in, or who don't have the resources to lean in without keeling over from the exhaustion of having a full-time career and being a caregiver.

I don't believe that women have an ambition problem. When it comes to having a family and high-powered career they have a power problem.

I attended Jessica Coen's Interview of Anne-Marie Slaughter and felt for the first time in a long time like a pig in shit at a SX session. My people! And I saw plenty of men in attendance at her panel. One even approached me after I asked Anne-Marie my question (Do you think men are equally at risk of having difficulty on-ramping back into the workforce after being at home raising the kids?) and told me how he managed the transition. Finally I can come back from SX with some takeaway for my amazing Stay-at-Home Husband.

And I attended a panel led by John Gerzema that walked us through the research done for his book The Athena Doctrine--which provides powerful examples of men and women who have manifested massive change in the world by adopting feminine qualities such as flexibility, intuition, generosity, and empathy. Gerzema argues that it is the embracing of feminine traits (defined as feminine via a global survey of thousands) that is required to be effective in today's political, economic, and societal realms (and to the "professor" who took issue with Gerzema's omission of his female research partner--who did not co-author the book--on the cover: Consider the maleness of your body language and accusatory tone and Gerzema's open, accepting, perhaps FEMININE response to your attack. Personally, I prefer that he have my back).

And I capped off a long day having dinner with some crazily inspirational women who got where they are (at the top echelons of their companies and running their own) via a killer cocktail of chutzpah, yes, but also of being tireless connectors and interpreters of what the rest of us are going to care about in the future. None of them had the asshole personal interface that I experienced on Saturday, as mentioned earlier that I experienced from an investor entrepreneur who speaks a whole lot about the need to empower women entrepreneurs, just so long as he doesn't actually have to SPEAK or LOOK at any of them at SX. I must say, I've attended countless investor meetings with all-male VCs, tech conventions with mostly male attendees, board meetings with mostly male members, and never have I felt disrespected like I did when I encountered this person and said hello. (To place in Evernote in a file I've reserved for notes on a book I one day intend to write that explores the correlation of assholeness with effectiveness as a visionary. Sadly there often is one, but I'd like to make a case that there doesn't have to be).

I hung out in pubs with men and women who talked about their kids as much as their work projects and who had thoughtful commentary on Marissa Mayer's decision to reverse Yahoo's remote work policy (for the record I'm in the "she's a CEO first" camp. In the future I hope she will address the MANAGEMENT problem that led to the degradation of morale among the remote workers and re-institute flexible work policy.)

Last night, I didn't sleep, and for the first time in a long time, something other than an infant kept me up all night. I had a realization, borne of this combination of aforementioned events, that women are on the cusp of big reckonings. I can feel it pulling me out of my 5-year blogging slump.

I remain true to my belief that being a woman doesn't keep you from getting VC funding--a shitty business plan and weak management team do--and entrepreneurism is accessible to all (Steve Blank, whom I finally got to meet in person at SX, I continue to bow to you). But there continues to be a lack of respect for things female. Note again, I didn't say WOMEN, I said for things/traits female. I think that is going to change. And pretty soon.

BlogHer'12: It isn't about ME?

As the chatter about the BlogHer'12 Conference intensifies this week, I find myself in both an enviable and jealous place. Enviable, because I have the first-time luxury of viewing the excitement as others in the community do--in blog posts, on Twitter and across social media--something that Lisa, Elisa, and I try to do but never really get to do while we're onsite at BlogHer.

Jealous, because I am watching from the sidelines this year--36 weeks pregnant. And while confident in my decision to not fly to NYC and run around on my feet all week (like I did at BH'10, 33 weeks pregnant), the kid in me that always wants to be included will be reading about all of your experiences wistfully.

The event team has embarked on their trip to NYC. Our sales team have all flown in and gathered to prepare and experience the event. My co-founders will already have been onsite for a week when the conference begins. I know how it goes--the nonstop rush of speaking, interviews, meetings with sponsors and partners, spontaneous sightings and hugs in the hotel lobby and on the exhibitor floor. Stressful and exhilarating all at the same time.

And yet I sit here quietly, reading only a trickle of conference-related emails (the week of the conference everyone is using email for emergencies only, and there's very little I can do about onsite issues). I've told everyone I am on-call for anything that comes up, trying to be involved and stay out of the way at the same time. As much as I would like to have a stream of updates on Yammer and an always-on live video feed, I will instead have to wonder how the opening is going, how sessions with some of my favorite bloggers were received, how the parties are going--at least until I can read about them on blogs and Twitter.

It's weird.

Last week I was talking to Elisa about the incredible line-up of speakers and events she and her team managed to amass this year.

"Yeah," she joked. "This year really wasn't the one to miss."

I reminded her that we think that every year. But then she had to go and confirm a live video welcome from President Obama himself.

Rub it in, Elisa. Rub. It. In.

I was at a dinner in San Francisco last week--enjoying some local events and trying to compensate for what I won't be doing in NYC. And I was speaking to another entrepreneur who has successfully built a media/tech conference brand.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm holding up. It's just so hard, with the conference next week and all. It will be hard not being there, but everyone's managing, and we'll be ready…"

"Actually," he said. "I was talking about the baby."

Made sense, given I was standing in front of him--in person--and quite obviously on the brink of welcoming a child into the world. I was a little bit embarrassed, actually, that I'd been so in my head, and so obsessed with where I WASN'T, that I could not acknowledge the gift of what has been with me all this time: another daughter.

Early in my pregnancy I had an awkward conversation with my doctor, sharing that while I knew my due date was in August, with her permission I would consider going to "this conference my company puts on in New York," despite knowing the stress I would be putting myself and my family (and possibly a planeful of innocent bystanders) under.

My doctor knows I'm an entrepreneur and co-founded a company. "Couldn't you just move your event?" she asked. "It's your company, right?"

Inside I guffawed, knowing how far in advance we plan BlogHer; knowing we'd have somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 people coming this year. Seeing how this "event" has transcended beyond anything that one, three, or fifty people could plan alone. We work hard on it, but it is a foundation, not the whole experience. It is, as Elisa loves to say, the event the community built.

"You have to understand," I replied, needing to remind myself, "This event is SO not about me."

A Woman in Tech/Media's Take on Yahoo's Hiring of Marissa Mayer as CEO

I've had 24 hours to marinate on the news of Marissa Mayer's appointment as CEO of Yahoo. Initially I was shocked by the immediacy of it all--Mayer resigned from Google Monday and started her new post at Yahoo! today, just days after reports of Jason Kilar taking himself out of consideration and Ross Levinsohn seeming the logical next choice. It seemed a Hail Mary move to save a company that was stroking out in the press; a shot of adrenaline thrust into the heart of an Internet giant that could either save it, or leave it a near-corpse, damaged from all of the half-and poorly executed experiments of well-meaning CEOs past.

Perhaps "near-corpse" is too dramatic. Yahoo is still a content and advertising powerhouse. Mayer's selection is generally being described as a good thing. Some industry experts are even making cautious comparisons of Mayer's hire to Steve Jobs's appointment as CEO of Apple--finally a product visionary to help bring Yahoo back to its cool, techie roots.

Ah, were it as simple as following the Jobs playbook. Being a female co-founder of a digital media start-up, I know I should be dancing the Hora with my fellow entrepreneuses; another woman from our Silicon Valley hometown has tipped the "Women in Real Power" scales slightly more in our favor. But I hesitate, not because I do not have faith in Mayer's ability, but because I am a businesswoman. And I have a few reservations.

1. I do not immediately subscribe to the "product trumps all" argument. I thought Marc Andreesen was quite convincing in his enthusiasm for Mayer's appointment. But even he admitted surprise over the Yahoo! Board's selection, he diplomatically reasoned, because he was surprised they landed such a talented fish in the public spectacle that had become the search for Yahoo!'s next CEO. Still, he was surprised.

I agree that for media/tech companies product is important. Rely too much on content alone, or someone else's technology, and you become irrelevant. But (and let me just disclose my media bias right here--a professional hazard) let's not discount where Yahoo is still making money--in content. Mayer has huge chops developing cool-ass products, but there are certain mundanities that she'll also have to address, like the myriad content businesses and programming that Yahoo! serves up every day to pay the bills. 

Clearly, the Yahoo board's decision to hire an engineer to helm the company indicates a larger emphasis on product. And I applaud the longer-term thinking, and the pure ambitiousness of yanking out the wiring, even the wires that work, to restore Yahoo as a tech innovator. But I had my money on Levinsohn to lead. How inside the box of me. Must be all those years having to earn revenue by quarter.

I hope that the learnings gained from Yahoo's prominence as a content company don't go to waste. Yahoo still needs partners, and content sources, and an impression base, to get it through its identity crisis. The jury was out on Scott Thompson's plan to drive consumer commerce into the mix before he had to resign as Yahoo's CEO in May, but it was a move that could have made sense, given social technology is highlighting how easy it is to corral purchase recommendations, and mobile tech is making it stupid simple to purchase on the spot. There was money being left on the table that Yahoo could easily swipe.

I think that Mayer will have to address the collective whiplash remaining employees inevitably feel from having survived multiple rounds of business strategy, and unlike in Google's early days, where there was nowhere to go but where others hadn't, Mayer will have to respect some legacy businesses, even while renovating them.

2. Being a CEO is hard. Not like I know from experience or anything. But I do have a business partner who is our CEO, who came from the product side.  She is a testimony to how product geeks CAN run companies, but it ain't a day in the lab, where you get to wax philosophical about product. It's a series of painful decisions based on hard truths and counterforces, and some things you'd rather not deal with.

Before Mayer was hired, Ross Levinsohn had put some nasty lawsuit business with Facebook behind him. What fun. While I'm sure Mayer can handle icky things like investor relations, will she want to? Or will she have the presence of mind to hire the corporate talent of a few suity types to do this while she focuses on her strengths? 

Also, there's a new level of mudslinging that occurs when you are the CEO that you don't necessarily experience when you are the anointed badass of product, or even when you are the 20th employee of one of the most successful companies in history. I don't dare suggest Mayer does not have thick skin; I suggest that this is another facet to leading a major corporation that requires skillz. And it remains to be seen how she will handle it.

Like I said, no Horas just yet. Just a pat on the back and a sincere "Good Luck!"

Reservations aside, I think that Mayer's decision to take the job is a no-brainer. Marc Andreesen thought it was such a coup that Mayer would be willing to helm a damaged company, but isn't that the point of taking the job? What determined powerhouse executive wants to take on a perfectly run company, where others will only compare your performance to that of the person who led before you? Here, the board, the employees, the public, is begging for change. She doesn't have legacy founders to contend with like she had at Google. Founders who provided Mayer with the opportunity of a lifetime but couldn't possibly provide the continued growth that she was ready for. Yahoo! offers Mayer the chance to implement her vision--the most meaningful thing someone who has already been successful at a successful company could want. 

The best opportunity at this point is one at which she might fail, but fail her own way. 

A final note, from someone about to have her second child in a month: Kudos to the Yahoo! board and the press who didn't harp on Mayer's pregnancy, or suggest that it would negatively affect her ability to lead a company. It's not easy having babies and raising small children while running any company, let alone Yahoo!, but if we women keep anticipating others' discomfort with our choice to have families, we will take ourselves out of the running for such high-profile roles completely. 

I know I've taken to task the media's oversimplified interpretation of Sheryl Sandberg's "Don't Leave Before You Leave" philosophy, and applauded Anne-Marie Slaughter's assertion that maybe powerful women don't NEED to jump on every prestigious opportunity that comes our way, but for those of us who do want these opportunities AND have babies I am encouraged by how this acceptance of Mayer's choices is playing out.

 

Preggers

I saw a line, and a lighter line next to it. I read the box again; negative would be just one line. Any second line, light or equally dark, meant yep--with child. Or with embryo, or multiplying cell mass, whatever you want to call it.

"What's taking you so long?" H-band said, walking into the bathroom. I'd been taking longer than usual to get ready for our Saturday morning stroll for coffee. I handed him the piece of plastic I had been studying.

"We're pregnant." I said, perhaps too casually. I'd said that one time before, and devastatingly it didn't stay true for long.

That was January. I'm now just starting to believe the results. After paranoid judgments that I wasn't feeling sick enough and just didn't look pregnant enough--there couldn't possibly be a baby in there while I could still button my jeans--I'm starting to believe. Perhaps when I went in for the second trimester ultrasound and saw a skull and a spine.

"There are the arms," the lab tech said. I had no idea what she was talking about, I couldn't make out any extremities, but those words helped me loosen my grip on H-band's hand. I had no idea I had been holding it so tightly.

"Two?" I confirmed.

"Yes."

She then confirmed two legs, two lungs, and a four-chamber heart. I was almost back to breathing regularly at this point.

"How about the sex?" I asked.

"The baby's legs are closed," the tech said. I would later learn this is commonly said at second trimester ultrasounds as a CYA mechanism, "I'm pretty sure I can see labia...ninety-five percent sure."

I looked at the mass of white on the screen. "If you say so." I turned to H-band. Perhaps it was because a number of our friends were having girls lately that I had been so sure it was a boy. Or perhaps it was the illogical presumption that I had more Y chromosomes to offer up than X--I always felt like I had a lot of boy in me, despite the boobs and other anatomical indices.

"You happy?" I asked H-band.

"Yep," he said, not very convincingly. He'd told me that he didn't care what sex the baby was, but I could tell he felt a twinge of worry, just like I had over the prospect of having a little boy; a question of whether or not he would be able to understand her. I wasn't concerned; though I felt a little guilty. I grew up in a house of women--we take over.

I'm in the "honeymoon trimester". I feel like myself, though I find it more difficult to pick up things from the floor. My fitness instructor has to give me different instructions when we get to abdominals. People who don't know me just think I have a gut and am naturally well-endowed in the chest. Oh if they only knew.

The first trimester was difficult. I was hardly sick and not nearly as tired as I was warned I would be. But I traveled throughout and felt that the 20-30 percent less that I could bring to things was glaringly obvious; my insistence on a cranberry and soda at cocktail parties an admission. I wanted to say, "Not getting my hopes up too much yet," then I shushed myself. I didn't want to manifest the devastation I encountered last summer. I would do things differently this time, whatever that meant.

I came back from business trips and crashed over the weekend, too tired and icky feeling to get up off the couch some days. Still I was only sick-sick one weekend, during a trip to Mendocino. I'd puke and buy myself some hours of reprieve. I called my friend Lissa and my sister-in-law--both doctors--to ensure things were OK. Both said the symptoms sounded indicative of standard morning sickness. It must be something else, I told them. I just didn't feel sick enough.

I harbored a bit of a complex over not being "Mommy" enough. Moms get ubersick when they are pregnant. They look abundant. They drip with, I don't know, Momminess. But during the first trimester waiters still asked me if I'd have a glass of wine with dinner; no one insisted on helping me with my bags on airplanes. I wondered if I was fooling myself.

The few who knew early on asked me, "How will you do it?" I know people wonder that. I've not exactly been one who has lived with visible boundaries between my work and life. The past five years have been all-in. There was a point where I had to stop asking myself that same question. It had become an excuse to not try for something else.

A year or so ago I began practicing creating more space--nothing glaringly obvious. While traveling, I'd stop working before I passed out from exhaustion, taking in a TV show or reading a book before I fell asleep. I came home earlier from work, knowing full-well that I'd get back on email later that night, but at least making it home for dinner. I stopped cramming things into the periphery of my day and letting the things I chose to do stand on their own, without having the less-important accomplishments lean against them like tchotchkes from some garage sale, unnecessary bulk.

Yesterday, after a long day working at home--after two weeks of on and off travel--H-band started in,

"You need to start talking to the baby," he said. "She can hear you."

"I've been on conference calls all day," I said. "She's heard me plenty."

He's been insistent on providing stimuli for the baby, just lately playing this game with my gut, poking my side three times and then waiting for the baby to poke back. She isn't exactly a counter yet, but she's responsive.

"One, two, three."

(pause)

"(Thud)"

"One, two, three."

(pause)

"(Thud)"

H-band gets a kick out of this; it's an indication that she'll be responsive to us outside of the womb. We both want that reassurance that the story we're building in our heads--the one we keep repressing--will, in fact, come true.

No promises, I keep saying to myself, then saying more quietly, but why the hell not?