Thanks to Art-Sweet & Trista, I learned that I was wrong, ClubMom has a lesbian blogger.
What I truly don’t get is why her blog doesn’t come up when you search ClubMom for lesbian? And why ClubMom didn’t say to me “Uh, yeah. We have one, dumbass.” Or words to that effect.
Author: Cheryl Dumesnil and Alan Shannon
A freelance writer and writing coach, Cheryl Dumesnil likes nothing more than laughing at the crazy things her kids say. Her books include a memoir,
Love Song for Baby X: How I Stayed (Almost) Sane on the Rocky Road to Parenthood; a collection of poems,
In Praise of Falling; the anthology
Hitched! Wedding Stories from San Francisco City Hall; and the anthology
Dorothy Parker’s Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos, co-edited with Kim Addonizio. When she’s not writing or teaching, Cheryl’s hiking, yoga-ing, begging her children to stop the potty talk
please, or trying to toss pop flies, without tearing her rotator cuff. Check her out at
CherylDumesnil.com.
Tag your pics #villageq to be included in the family album at
um. Have you read her blog? She seems very much in disguise.
So are you going to stick with this site?
I did read the posts that are on the page when you first click her.
I found one reference to her daughter needing to study better Internet search strategies with “both moms.” Which says to me, ok, she is out, although not being identified as such by ClubMom.
Here’s my new question. Do they really need 7 blogs about homeschooling? Is more than 15% of ClubMom’s audience really homeschoolers?
I cannot seem to make wordpress stop inserting backslashes (\) every time I use a single or double quote mark. I have tried every editing thing I can think of, except for re-writing the post to avoid using them. Sorry for the ugly.
And another thing about ClubMom: There’s no way to find other lesibans in the MomToMom section through the Mom Network or on the message boards. It isn’t just the lack of a (identified as such) lesbian blogger; it’s the lack of inclusion throughout the entire site. If you’re looking for moms dealing with, say, interfaith issues (and is that really a huge demographic?), hey, no problem.
I used their little feedback form yesterday to express my concerns about the issue, but based on yours and Trista’s experiences, I’m doubting I’ll hear back.
I wasn’t trying to defend clubmom at all. I was disturbed by the lack of outness and the lack of community for lesbian moms there.
Especially because being visible in “mainstream” forums like that one help us to gain support for our families from others.
One thing I might do – email some of the clubmom mom bloggers whom I know to be more progressive and cool and ask them to raise the issue with clubmom or on their blogs.
Someone thinks I am in disguise? Why? because I don’t talk about some dykey things all of the time? Good grief, I am a dyke and Clubmom knows it and so do 99% of my readers. There isn’t just ONE post that mentions “two moms”, there are several. When I talk about my s/o, it is always with the female pronoun.
Don’t assume I am in disguise simply because my blog(s) aren’t filled with dyke power posts. That’s not who I am in the “real world” why would it be who I am on my blogs? I am not the type of dyke to be anyone’s political or social tool. I have a voice, and I use it when and where and how I choose to use it. I don’t bow to the patriarchy but I don’t bow to the sisterhood, either.
And by the way, it’s a homeschool blog – that is my agenda and that is Clubmom’s agenda for that blog. It’s not a “feeding time at the zoo” dyke family blog, that’s not what I signed on for and it isn’t what Clubmom contracted me for.
Denise, I don’t think the frustration people have is with you, it’s with ClubMom. It’s clear from your posts that you signed on to be a Homeschooling blogger, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But.
It does mean that no one blogging for ClubMom is particularly blogging about the challenges & rewards of being a lesbian mom.
No one is saying that should be YOUR focus. But we would like it to be someone’s focus within the ClubMom blogger universe. Or at least that there be a couple of bloggers like you, where that may not be their focus, but they are out and blogging there, and most importantly, are FINDABLE.
It’s just about impossible to find other lesbian moms via ClubMom.
A search for “lesbian” on ClubMom doesn’t generate a link to your blog. But it does generate a link on the message boards to a post looking for “Lesbian board???” and the answer, “At this time we are not adding any additional boards to the system.”
Between those things and the relationship status options on the profile, a lot of us feel like the environment is unwelcoming for lesbian moms.
And THAT is what is frustrating and making people angry.
Roni, sorry I missed your Q — yes, I am going to stick with this site!
It’s been hard to get it looking good and some of the conversations are emotional & on the difficult side, but so rewarding too. Would you like your blog added to the “Friends of the Family” (or some other category) blogroll?
Liza – Thanks! I’d love to be included. I’m gonna blog about you very very soon!
When clubmom put out the call for mom blogs, did anyone submit a resume and in doing so sell themselves to clubmom as a “lesbian mom blog”? If nobody applied under such category, then I’m not sure there’s a valid complaint.
I know that long ago there was a fairly decent lesbian mom representation on their boards, but that was many many years ago. Until I hear differently, I would assume that clubmom doesn’t have such a folder/community/message board because there hasn’t been enough traffic to warrant its creation. And, as the board response says – they aren’t adding any boards at this time. That’s a pretty common thing for message board communities. It can take months, if not years, to get a new board pushed through. Message boards aren’t huge money generators for online portals – and it is all about making money, after all.
The reason my blog doesn’t appear in a search for “lesbian” is because I don’t believe I’ve used the word “lesbian” on my blog. If I ever do, then it will appear. And, I probably will at some point do so – it just hasn’t come up as a topic on this blog yet. Coming out day is coming, as is our local “PRIDE” festival so I’m sure I’ll blog at least once using the word “lesbian”.
Denise, Trista did apply; here’s her post about her experience: http://anaccidentofhope.blogspot.com/2006/09/my-experience-with-well-known-site-who.html)
I can’t speak for anyone else. I didn’t know about the call at the time it happened. But I am upset by the fact that your comments here are the closest thing to an “official” response from ClubMom that I’ve gotten to several efforts to communicate with them about this topic. And I’m sure that neither you nor they would consider those official ClubMom communications.
Even a “thanks for your feedback, but we’ve decided not to go that direction at this time” would at least have me feeling less utterly blown off.
Reasonable minds may differ on whether there is a “valid” complaint about the blog category issue, but IMO, not about the other issues.
I notice that you simply don’t identify a relationship status on your profile, for example. Does that have anything to do with the fact that there are 4 options, none of which appear to apply to lesbians in a committed relationship, unless they’re lucky enough to live in Massachusetts and be legally married?
The same problem exists re: challenges and interests in the profile. Dozens of issues are pre-packaged so that it’s easy to find other homeschooling or breastfeeding or special needs moms. But a search for other moms facing the same challenge of “lesbian” or “lesbian mom” produces no results.
None of the relationship options apply to me. I am in a relationship but am not a gay marriage friendly sort of lesbian. That’s why I don’t identify my realtionship status on my clubmom profile.
Thanks for the link to Trista’s experience, I’m heading there now to take a peek.
(Lesbian does produce results on clubmom search. It may not include the number of results you want it to but it does include results.)
Denise, you seem to be checking back here, so hopefully you’ll see this.
I certainly do not expect you to be a lesbian poster child (in both senses of the word poster). It’s what sucks about being a member of a minority group — too many people expect you to the beacon and the spokesperson, and really, no one person should have to bear that burden. It’s what Liza said above. It’s not frustration with you for not representing us in a certain way. It’s frustration with Club Mom for appearing to disallow the representation to happen at all, by anyone. It seems to be a systemic problem, not an individual one.
I’m sorry that your blog got caught in the crossfire of our discussion, but when you’re the only one, that’s what happens. And I think you’re a great writer and I have enjoyed reading your blog since I found it. My own child is tiny tiny, but I hope to homeschool her one day…
In some parts of ClubMom, searching for “lesbian” produces results, in other parts it doesn’t.
Honestly, I enjoyed reading the blog results. Very supportive, very friendly — and not from lesbian moms.
My point is that since they actually do have a lesbian blogger, that blog should appear in the results. IMO, most people looking for for “lesbian” in a ClubMom blog search are looking for lesbians, not people talking about lesbians.
ClubMom has multiple ways to help readers find the blogs they hope will be of interest, and tagging your blog to turn up when someone searches for “lesbian” shouldn’t be terribly technically difficult. Plus I bet it would drive up traffic to your blog, which I assume you wouldn’t mind.