Last week, I was listing to the fantastic BBC Woman’s Hour programme with Lauren Laverne interviewing Caitlin Moran about feminism (while painting a cardboard house with the boys) and I thought, “this is funny, I was reading her book (How to be a Woman, you should read it too) exactly a year ago as I was prepping for my trip to London for the first Capturing Childhood photography workshop.” Then I thought, “I’m about to go back to London in less than a week for their first Blogtacular conference.” And then I had a third thought, “Hey, these women area great examples of what it means to be a modern woman, mother, feminist or whatever label you want to toss out there.” And you know, I was right (I usually am).
So here I am, about to head to the airport for another amazing trip (without children, thanks Chris!) and I am so very lucky to be in a position to leave everyone behind for a weekend, a long weekend at that. This is looking like it will be a stellar conference with sessions on book development, design, branding, photography and styling. Plus there are a few superstar bloggers on the bill (like Joy Cho from Oh Joy!, she crossed the Atlantic for this. It’s a big deal) that will no doubt inspire us us.
I’m super excited for this conference, not just for all the great stuff I’ll learn about how to make this blog even bigger and better, but because of all the wonderful people I’ll meet (most seem to be women). After looking through the attendee list, it looks like there are a bunch of amazing bloggers that are not only blog savvy, but really cool people too. There are moms, designers, crafters and creators that I am dying to meet (and I’m really hoping my socially awkwardness doesn’t get the better of me!) There are a few people that I’ve chatted to on Twitter and a few Irish people that I’ve met in real life that I’m hoping to hang out with more (Is that weird? It’s not like I get out that much here) But most of all I am really looking forward to seeing these two gals again. (look below)
Kat Goldin and Kat Molesworth are the driving force behind Blogtacular. They are really fantastic women and my new role models (sorry if that makes you sound way older than it should). They are businesswomen and compassionate mothers. They are creative, tech savvy and innovative. They get what they want, but also strive to bring others up with them by sharing what they learn and building a community. By my count they have developed four successful businesses while raising six children between them. They’ve left traditional careers behind to jump in the risky start up world and have taught themselves the skills they need (amazingly) in those rare spaces of calm between demands of small children. Ladies, I am firmly in Three Year Old Tandtrumdum and I am in awe of you.
Obviously I drank the Kat M-G Kool-Aid long ago, but I think there is a lot to learn from these traditional, modern women. When I started writing this blog seriously, I took the approach of striving to be a vintage mom in a modern world. I was struggling to define what it meant to be a Stay at Home Mom while still retaining my lefty, feminist street cred. I also wanted to understand what was so challenging for my grandparent’s generation (I think a few episodes of Mad Men can clear that up for everyone) and what caused my mom’s generation to move away from traditional, domestic roles (queue up the Working Girl montage here). I think it’s clear that our generation are showing that we can be mothers and can create our own destinies without climbing a particular career ladder. Thanks to the magic of the internet, can embrace the skills that make us unique without selling our soul to the expected role of a woman (be it the domestic woman or the working woman). We don’t just have to stay at home, we don’t just have to work. We don’t just have to do anything. When we see a gap, we can fill it . When we see a wrong, we can right it. We don’t have to hold on to expectations that don’t belong to us. We can ask for things, we can befriend other women and we can achieve success without bringing others down. All this I have learned from watching the Kats in action over the past two years. I hardly know these women, but I am so exceedingly proud of them.
So ladies, good luck. You’ve got a crazy few days ahead, but just know you’re pretty freaking awesome and that you’re not only responsible for stage managing a great conference but also for being 30-something feminist icons. No biggie.
If you’re not at Blogtacular, make sure you checkout all their social media feeds for updates about the conference and the future projects they have up their sleeve (that will no doubt be amazing).
Photographs © Xanthe Berkely for Blogtacular