BlogHer is in two weeks or so.
It's not that I'm nervous about going, not in the least. I'm meeting up with the Evil Slut Clique, after all, and who could wait for that kind of excitement?
The thing is, this is a conference for women bloggers. And while woman and blogger (and mother and knitter and homeowner and Democrat etc. etc.) are all words that describe me...
I have never allowed "woman blogger" to define me. And I don't expect anyone at Blogher wants to do that, least of all the organizers, who seem cool and very well organized and eager to make newbies like myself feel welcome and free to express whatever they feel about the conference and get the most out of it. There are technical forums, at least one truly political forum (on Sarah Palin, which should be a riot) and enough to keep me thinking and writing for the rest of the summer, at least.
What makes me a little nervous is, this:
There are at least fifty-five corporate sponsors at this convention. At the lower level of the Sheraton Chicago, I can test drive a Chevy. Pepsi, McDonalds, Hanes, Microsoft, all have booths. Estee Lauder wants to give me free wrinkle cream. Also, um, Tim Gunn wants to know what I'm wearing to the conference. So he can wash it in Tide (tm)? But Tim! The "My Marxist Feminist Dialectic Brings All The Boys to the Yard" baseball shirt is already clean!
So is my "Keep your panties on, I'm blogging" shirt. And the evil sluts will have sumpin for me to wear too.
Conferences like this have to be paid for. Should the glee with which this particular conference has turned "blogging plus women" into outreach to a million woman free-stuff stuff! STUFF! marketing venue for us female internet entrepreneurs have me worried? I mean, marketers have always been such supporters of women's independence:
I'm not trying to be a troublemaker, but seriously, if someone at the WalMart booth decides to offer me free wrinkle cream, I might hafta...um...videotape the encounter for my blog.
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