Tonight I sat in as part of a panel on gender in communications. I was so excited to be asked...it was like my tiny step-ladder to the kinds of things I've imagined the successful writers I admire partaking judiciously in--respect and recognition, intellectual discourse, free food and booze, et al.
It was hosted by a communicatons professor I had interviewed for my recent "Women in Media" story, which featured the prof's quotes prominently in the lede. The professor--an attractive woman who I figured to be about my age or a couple years younger--was an especially amenable interview subject, as she had done considerable political reporting just after college. Anyway, after that story came out, she graciously invited me to participate in the panel for one of her classes. The panel was to take place at the professor's house in Marin.
In preparation, I studied the list of questions she'd sent: How have you been aware (or become aware) of how gender differences can impact (both positive and negative) the work dynamic in a business/organization? Are skills individual to the person regardless of gender or does gender play a role in the kinds of skills and character strengths/weaknesses one has? What strides and setbacks have Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin made for women generally in the workplace? Etc.
All day, I scoured websites and thought about my career path and how being female has affected my work and what sort of larger role gender plays in society, media, politics and communications. I ruminated about how to present an alternative angle, should the other women on the panel say the same sorts of things I was thinking about--it was important to me that I presented a balanced, well-thought and fresh perspective on the subject.
But then I arrived at the professor's house, after a winding road up a hill overlooking a lush valley with several typical Marin mansions. From what I could tell, the professor's pad was the largest of them all--a beautiful, sprawling Mediterranean-style villa. I waved at the professor's handsome youngish German husband and their darling two-year-old playing in the driveway on the way in.
Once inside, I met the other panel members--hugely successful mid-age women who work as heads of communications in companies like Disney and Autocad, or the one older guy who was a television documentary and crime writer for the Discovery channel--in a sort of waiting room lounge, drinking wine and comparing second home locales.
That's when I first started to doubt myself. While a couple of the women talked about a colleague who was involved in some business-related drama that was being reported in the
NY Times, I kept thinking, "What the hell am I doing here? Why am I on a panel with these semi-major players?"
And I clammed up. We were all seated in front of a group of about a dozen university students with notepads, in a spacious room with several plates of food on a nearby table, in the upstairs right wing of the house. The professor introduced us all formally with brief bios... and I started to shake. Questions were asked, I always waited to answer last after the other panelists, and when I had to speak, I felt my face burn, my heart was in my throat, my ears were pounding and I don't know what I was saying. Everything I had studied and thought about during the day was gone.
I know I let myself get intimidated by my surroundings, by the amazing women (and the one guy) on the panel, by stage fright, and by the knowledge that impressionable students were taking notes on whatever garble was coming out of my mouth. And I'm more than a little disappointed in myself for that. I know I'm probably being hard on myself, and that I quite likely said some halfway intelligle things. I honestly can't remember. But I just don't think I did it well. I definitely didn't embrace the experience...
I recently came upon an old journal (I'd been looking for my birth certificate, which I'd needed to get my California driver's license, only I didn't actually need it because they had on file my original driver's license--and proceeded to have a good hearty chuckle about my 1987 hair) from when I was 10. In it, I'd written that I wanted to be an actress or a rock star when I grew up. I had drawn myself as a glamazon in sparkling dress on stage with a microphone and a crowd of adoring fans.
...And yet, present day, here I was in a room with maybe not so much a sparkling dress or a crowd of adoring fans but at least an audience and a figurative microphone, and I was frozen. Where was that bold 10-year-old who'd yearned for the spotlight? And really, although on another level, how is that different from what I do for work now? Or how I interact casually, in social situations, and from all the holoholo-ing on Maui??
I can't quite wrap my head around how I'm feeling but it's definitely conflicted and strange and anxious and inspired and... hopeful.
