Quick confession: I google myself fairly frequently. I didn't really do this - much - until last summer, when a friend emailed to let me know she had googled me and found that I popped up as an acrostic on some random man's website. That got me wondering what else was out there.

In addition to all the usual suspects - links to the articles I've written, my blog, this blog, to other work I've done - my name occasionally pops up in a couple of less-than-pleasing places: There's a "Christian" site that attacks both me and the company behind Gifted For Leadership for a post I wrote last summer about Harry Potter (though I have to admit, I got a smile out of their calling Christianity Today, "Christianity Astray." While I disagree with the assessment, I thought the word play was pretty good. I digress?) A search of my name sometimes brings up some rather troubling "spanking" sites - all because I once wrote an article called, "To Spank or Not To Spank" about disciplining your child. Never in my life did I think my name could be linked to some freaky fetish or porn sites, but alas, it is.

Finding these reminded me of something I heard a politician say at a charity fundraiser last fall. He said he thinks people hesitate to step up to the leadership plate for two reasons: One, they don't want to bear responsibility. And two, they don't want to put themselves "out there" - for criticism, mocking, skanky fetish site, what-have-you.

As a typical first-born, responsibility-loving person, I don't relate to number one at all. But number two? That I get. As leaders - in all our realms - we've all had times when we've had to make a tough call or say some tough words or show some tough love. None of it easy; all of it putting us "out there."

Men leaders, of course, go through this too (remember, the politician who said it was a man), but I've wondered since then what difference this out-there-ness of leadership makes for women. I've experienced it two ways - meaning experiencing it both worse and better, I think, than men have it.

Sometimes, I've gotten the feeling that I'm being treated with kid gloves because I'm a woman. Perhaps because it's not polite or gentlemanly to call me on the carpet. While other times, I've sensed being treated harsher because I'm a woman - daring to speak at all. And still more times, I think it may all be in my overly analytical and sometimes paranoid head. That it's simply what I've said or done and not the gender behind it.

So I wonder what your experience has been when you've put yourself "out there," making a controversial point or decision? Do you think women are treated the same as men in this regard? Do you see or treat controversial women the same as controversial men?