Blogher: Three Four points of Controversy (Point 4)

It started with a Blogher report at Ambra Nykol's blog, nykola.com, and it seems to have snowballed since. There's no way I could sum it all up here and keep it brief (or even close to brief), so I'm going to do a little re-cap, including my involvement with each party, and a few excerpts and links.

I came across Ambra's piece when I was still feeling high from the whole Blogher experience. Combing through the Technorati tagged posts, I found one of Ambra's Blogher reports:

"There is a fairly good male population here - around 20%. I expected that. What I didn't expect was a male dressed up as a woman (commonly referred to by the progressive society as a 'transsexual,' a term I will not use because it consciously validates our society's dysfunction). People with testicles do not get to claim womanhood without a menstrual cycle, cramps, and at least having once had the semblance of the ability to push a watermelon through a Cheerio. And though I run the risk of sounding terribly shallow, I'm going to quote Jennifer Anniston aka 'Rachel Green' from one of the 6-episodes of 'Friends' I watched in my 'backslidden days' of predominately white prep schools, 'No uterus, no opinion.'"

I cringed while reading this, having briefly met Ambra at the informal "Birds of a Feather" session, and again hearing her speak as a panelist at the "Political Blogging Grows Up" session. Although I disagreed with a few points she made on the panel, and knew that she was definitely not, politically, in the same camp I was, she impressed me with her confident air and enthusiasm, and I found her to be an engaging speaker.

I had also been in email correspondence with Koan (to whom Ambra refers) just prior to Blogher, having left a comment at her blog, Multidimensional.Me. Koan was friendly and we soon had an email correspondence going about Technorati and the upcoming Blogher event; and I saw Koan speak as a panelist at the "How to Get Naked" session.

Post-Blogher, reading Ambra's piece, I felt disappointed, and hoped it would get buried with alot of other writings about Blogher so that Koan would never come across it.

Rather naive of me, this being the internet and all. Koan did come across the piece, and so did a number of others. It's interesting for me to read that Grace of I Am Dr. Laura's Worst Nightmare had a similar assessment of Ambra Nykol in-person at Blogher:

"Ambra's performance on the panel was lively and spirited and I enjoyed a teeny chat with her afterwards at the lunch buffet line. Naturally, I was curious about her blog and checked her out as soon as the heady BlogHer rush was over."

After reading Ambra's post, though, Dr. L's Nightmare goes on to say:

"Great. Just great. This young woman clearly did not take the time to get over to Koan's blog, get her bio, and basically get educated. Ambra dismissed Koan as a human being, not even using her name. This post was disrespectful, lacking in substance and obviously just a reason to connect "progressive society" with "society's dysfunction." ... she chose to snark. This was the sole snark I have seen in all the BlogHer debriefing reading I have gobbled up since last Saturday."

The article at Dr. L's Nightmare has generated 45 comments and counting. There are some defending Ambra, and some agreeing with Grace. Melanie McBride (chandrasutra), who did not attend Blogher, wrote:

"I found Ambra Nykola's comment repellent on a few levels. I attempted to comment in her blog but it appears she's made it as convoluted as possible. So I read her comment policy, which, in addition to being lengthy, reveals a controlling young woman who believes that she is entitled to a dignified and polite response to her superficial, bigoted and insensitive content. And then I read her bio - so should you all. It says so much about this young woman's sense of entitlement and smarmy conceit. I then read a few of her posts. The reason I mention this is that it appears her worldview and sensibility seem very firmly in place and that what she said about Koan is the result of genuine conviction - as opposed to confusion or misinformation. Given her conservative poli[ti]cs and preference for smarm/sarcasm/insult over substance it seems she quite enjoys being controversial. In fact, given that she is a fan of Ann Coulter I don't doubt that she views this entire episode as an opportunity for self promotion (however negative the attention has been)."

The comments at nykola.com are worth a read, too. Here's a polite but pointed one from Amy Gahran of Contentious:

"Ambra, sorry we didn't get to meet at BlogHer. I would have loved to have the chance to discuss your opinions on transgendered people with you face-to-face.

Thank you for providing such excellent contrast in this posting. Without voices such as yours, the rest of us might start to forget what willful ignorance and bald-faced terror of anything beyond the mainstream sounds like. And then we might forget how important it is to confront and counteract those problems directly."

I believe Koan weighed the possible consequences of her attendance at Blogher and decided to attend anyway, because it might help others as well as herself. I'm giving the last word to Koan (you can read more of what Koan wrote at Dr. L's Nightmare):

"Whether one agrees or disagrees with the path I'm on or not, that opinion doesn't have to be expressed in insulting or inflammatory language... unless, of course, that is the desired effect. I stayed away from commenting on other people's blogs, yesterday, reserving my energies for responding to comments on my own blog, and for private emails - but I read what was unfolding, here and elsewhere, and while I'm sorry that my presence consumed such an amount of intellectual and communications bandwidth, I'm glad, in a way, that my point about the need for that discussion was made."

Update 08/09/05: Koan comments at her own blog, which is a must-read. One quick excerpt: "Ambra's post so eloquently makes my point for me - and I'll see you at BlogHer next year, Ambra, without the testicles that seem to bother you so greatly."