I'm proud to attend my own conference

With any “Why aren’t there any women doing x” question, the risk is it can sound like “Someone else is doing something fun, why can’t I join in?” – a strop from those who feel excluded, just kicking off because they want something they feel is being kept from them. But actually it’s even more annoying than that, because many women simply don’t really want to take the podium. The situation has occurred not through men overlooking women, as organisers doing the minimum possible work to get their conference. Again and again, people are just inviting their friends to speak. And if you think it’s OK to just invite people you know, because that’s what everyone else is doing, you end up inviting people who are similar to you – and so does everyone else.

• This is a quality control issue, not (just) a sexist one, and it seems to be a problem among conferences in general. Electing people close to their friend circle is easy for organisers, but when if the point is to showcase challenging ideas and provoke stimulating thought, taking the easy option renders the whole thing pointless. Conferences should be a chance to find out about, new, unexpected work, to hear from great people from different worlds to yours, great people you disagree with, great people you’ve never heard of. The idea of being a speaker means nothing if it’s just a reflection of a personal relationship. Conferences have no value if they’re just a collection of opinions from the same 50 white Shoreditch men. My problem isn’t that white middle class men are being over-valued, it’s that the great people who make and think, and the very concept of innovative thought, is being utterly devalued. So if there’s no kudos to speaking and nothing really impressive about conferences, in some ways the question becomes: why should women want to talk?

• I don’t know anyone currently organising events who doesn’t care about the gender imbalance. Event organisers are constantly looking for women, sometimes clearly just paying lip-service to it, and almost always not trying hard enough. But you have to try really hard, because persuading women to get involved can be very hard work.

• I know from organising events and booking guests for a weekly podcast for a year, that we have to work 10x as hard to get women. Every week I asked 10 women for every man, and still it would always come out 70:30 in favour of men. Finding women I was interested in wasn’t a problem, but it was usually just the beginning of a struggle. In my experience, the women I wanted to get on the show were much busier, didn’t reply to emails as often, were more likely to feel it “wasn’t for them”, and cancelled much more frequently than men. And it was an absolute boon when one of them came through, because by virtue of their rarity in the worlds of tech/comedy, the stories of women were usually considerably more interesting than those of their male counterparts.

• Whenever I see an all-male event, I think “Did they ask any women?” and shortly after, “Why didn’t they ask me?”

• For me, this isn’t about enriching events by hearing from “women” and their special “female points of view”. At best it’s massively patronising and at worst, actually damaging, to imagine women come at things in some kind of feminine, gentle, lady-way. For me, we just need to address this unchecked slide into really poor quality events, and the rest will follow.

• It’s obviously self perpetuating. Women have less experience at talking and are less confident because they don’t speak. Women don’t speak because they have less experience and are less confident. High profile women are considerably more over-subscribed than high-profile men in their field, and most women seem to prioritise other things over the chance to speak. If we want to get women in, we have to accept that it’s more important to us that we hear them than it is to them; to many women,this won’t seem prestigious or seem like a great opportunity. We need to both realise they’re doing us a favour, and to make it into more of an opportunity – something worth doing.

• We need to try to be positive and suggest some solutions. Pointing out that we have a problem isn’t enough. We need to be looking to make everything generally better, to give people a reason to want to take the mic, to resist easy options, and generally work much harder at improving the quality of every event we host that gives people a chance to be heard.

One thing I’ve noticed is that at “unconferences” – like BarCampLondon – there are plenty of women presenting their ideas. I don’t have any hard evidence – although I’ll try to look for the old grids – but my strong impression is of attending as many male sessions as female sessions.

This is only anecdata, I know, but I wonder why that is.

The gender balance of attendees may have something to do with it – or simply seeing more women on the presentation grid is particularly encouraging.

Thanks for the interesting blog post.

Leila I think your point about quality control is hugely important: the same people saying the same things, and from the same perspective, adds up to a really rubbish experience. We need more voices.

An example: I have heard Julie Meyer – founder and CEO of Ariadne Capital – speak several times. Ms Meyer is an incredibly accomplished person who comes across as very genuine… in short, an ace speaker who leaves audiences feeling very inspired, indeed. (And a woman!) Yet I wonder why it is that I don’t see other female VCs on conference speaker lists. Ms Meyer isn’t the only one. Is it possible that she is the only female VC willing to share her time? I can’t believe that. So what’s the story, then? Are conference organisers sharing the same shortlist? Are they approaching speakers based on who has spoken before, rather than where the new ideas are coming from? Why is no one looking for new people in new places? Because that’s what we need – new voices and new ideas.

• I want to be very clear here that no criticism of any sort is meant towards Ms Meyer: I have huge respect for her – both as a businesswoman and as someone who gone above and beyond in terms of giving back to her industry.

@edenT – I totally concur that women and other non-white-male types are better represented at unconferences… but doesn’t that just create a ghetto around the mainstream? We don’t need any more binaries! I agree too with your point about attendees squaring with speakers and vice verse. As Sarah Milstein said in her piece, “If every speaker is a man, or if everyone is white, or both, I know this isn’t an event for me. I don’t need to hear more of the same prominent voices, and I don’t get much value out of an environment that takes a narrow, old-school view on who’s worth listening to.”

Really like the quality of comments here so far.

My issue, apart from the ‘same people, therefore same thoughts, therefore I’ve had enough of it’ argument – you’ll notice I didn’t say women – is mainly due to the lack of representation of diverse thoughts, as has been mentioned above. I place good ideas above gender as a criterion when I go to see people speak, or indeed to speak myself (though arguably an all-white male panel doesn’t say anything positive about the organizers). And diverse thoughts come from all parts of the world, not just white males or females. I bet that very few of you have seen non-white or non-Caucasian women or men speak too often. I haven’t myself. The argument is the same as Sara’s: surely they exist, so where are they? I’m looking at Leila’s self-perpetuating argument again: it very likely holds true here too, and it holds true because people who aren’t as confident with the language and culture will not come forward voluntarily, and they don’t hang out with conference organizers as much so they aren’t known about, even if they have way more brilliant thoughts than the same old, same old set of speakers.

The truth is you have to seek them out. I found a really good talk by a Singaporean (female) designer when I was looking at a TEDx website the other day (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVtrTDwbn4k&feature=player_embedded). But a) you have to put the time in to search for talks like that and b) in this specific case, she’s based in Singapore, so getting her over to the West will require funds, and many conferences either don’t have that money or can’t be bothered when they have a more easily accessible person to fill that spot. I’m not saying people like her don’t exist in the West – arguably London and New York are two of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. But you do have to seek them out.

Having said that, I think a conference like TED does a very good job of getting diverse speakers from both genders, but they do have the money, and probably the time as it’s their full-time job.

Soooo much to think about with this one.

There is a major stumbling block which knackers quite a few women in terms of getting confident on the speaking circuit, and that is: just at the time when they, and their male colleagues, start getting reasonably good at this speaking thing, or get to the stage in their careers where, yes, I do have something to day, actually, they go and get themselves bloody pregnant, don’t they, the idiots.
Put slightly differently, that single point can knock five years off your ‘going to conferences at all’ schedule, never mind speaking at them. It’s not just the ‘lack of childcare at conferences’ issue, but, women have other priorities. I know from personal experience that the idea of being away from my small kids for three days for a decent O’Reilly-fest (five days, when you include travel time back to London) is not something I’m prepared to do – granted, I know women who will do that, or are able to travel with their partners and therefore kids. I definitely know many chaps who are able to deal with that level of distance / time away from the kids.

That discussion could go on for ever. The point though really is by the time you begin to stick your head above the parapet again, your contemporaries are all doing keynotes (well, some) and the thought of just not being as good on stage as you’d like to be, because you haven’t had the same level of practice is a big hurdle. Although that of course could be just me, I think it’s a valid point to make.

I’d love to take the points raised by Sara, Leila, Zoonie and Anjali a step further. What can we do to redress this? Or, what can you, gentle readers, do to change this situation?

As an idealist, and an eternal-optimist, I buy the notion that events organisers try damn hard to broaden the net, searching for men and women from diverse perspectives and cultures to contribute at their conferences. And, ostensibly, it’s hard-work. Whatever the effort, the same roster keep appearing under a new title or topic. So, how about we throw the question to the panelists and not the organisers?

If the organisers can’t help—-because they’ve a limited network to tap—-then what about the roster of panelists? Who do they know? Who do they work with, read, or follow? Is there a new face they can recommend?

If you’re a well-known member of the speaking circuit, why not decline one of your many invites and nominate someone in your team who you feel is worth listening to, but hasn’t thus far had access to the microphone?

Clearly, this is not particularly radical, nor is it the solution. But it may go some way to broadening the pool of people who are available and keen to speak.

Hello,

was going to post this on Leila’s blog, but the discussion seems to be in full flow here.

We are really glad that Storywarp went well, and very disappointed to have missed it (especially as Tom seemed to be talking about stuff we’ve been thinking of quite a bit lately). We fully intend on making next time.

The ‘Diversity Issue’ is a hard one, and with over 6 years of trying to develop interesting, new, exciting and fun events, we are still learning. From where we stand, it’s not “down to people … doing things they way they’ve always done them: talking to the same people and looking for inspiration in the same places”.

For us at Playful, there has long been a problem of a lack of diversity of speakers on stage. No question. The root of this is unclear — are there a lack of ‘women speakers’, a lack of willingness to speak at conferences or a lack of invitations? In our various industries there are less than 20% women, games has less than 14%, 6% if you look at production alone.

We can certainly say from our perspective, it is not for a lack of trying. Of the people we’ve invited this year, 80% of men accepted whereas 60% of women turned us down. Currently, 20% of people on-stage are women, with the hope of more before we complete the line-up. Last year we had 25%. (Not saying this is good enough, but it is better than a lot).

We’re also very pleased that the women we do have appearing are not the ones you usually see ‘on the circuit’. Getting new speakers, male or female, is a big part of what keeps these events fresh. We are trying to avoid our mates as that is what the pub/cafe is for.

We have worked really hard to introduce our audience to new speakers – students, architects from NYC, academics from Sweden, designers from France, programmers, producers and of course planners. Balancing this with speakers that will draw the crowds again is hard. New, unheard of voices vs the “big hitters”.

Personally, I want to see more non-London speakers, more accents. We want to see events in non-standard locations, picnics, stuff in chapels, museums, mills. This year, Playful was nearly a dinner and dance on a cruise ship.

An aside to the main problem of women-on-stage, another big danger is of tokenism, and that’s always going to be the same. We invite people to speak based on their relevance, not their gender. We don’t want to patronise the audience or speakers by inviting people to make up the demographic numbers.

We would love to have more women who would like to speak at Playful in the future. We will continue to invite, twist arms and coerce. Hopefully next year, we will have more on-stage. Consider this an open request for introductions to help address this cultural problem (on both sides of the fence).

Really, really interesting to watch this discussion unfold. @thisisplayful, I agree that the challenge – diversity – isn’t just about gender. It’s different accents, different backgrounds, different levels of experience.

Leila and I have been talking about this a lot, trying to figure out how we can provide diversity of thought at Storywarp. We’ve decided that a small step would be to ensure that every panel features at least one conference newbie. We’re going to have to work hard to find relatively inexperienced speakers with have a lot to say (and the ability to say it well), but having started this thread in the first place… and valuing diversity in the conferences we attend as audience members… we can’t not!

Very interesting article and comments.

First when I started reading the article, I was thinking “Women need more visibility, let’s make a little platform, a digital directory of female speaker (Or we could use platform like peartrees)”.

I was thinking solution but maybe I was looking at the wrong problem.

A striking information written by @Finalbullet and @ThisIsPlayful is that women are turning down the opportunity more often than men.

Why ?

Is it a schedule issue (busy mums ?), Is it a self-confident issue ?
Is it a more “low profile” mentality ?

I have no answers to this (and been a men is not helping me), but my point is maybe we should start looking at the reason on the speaker’s side.

I’m not denying any problems on the organisation’s side but maybe it’s a more efficient way to start solving this problem.

(This problem reminds me of a statistic here in France: girls have better marks than boys in high school but boys are more numerous attending best universities, best business schoos and PhD.)

Looking forward to discussing all of this in detail when I speak at the MadeByMany offices on the evening of Aug 31 for the GirlsClub event – and am particularly keen that just as many men as women attend :)

Thanks Olivier and Cindy for contributing to this thread.

I think, Olivier, that you’re right: the challenge is a composite of factors and an open discussion on the matter might lead to some useful insights. A colleague of mine recently pointed out that as a mother, “I am my child’s primary carer. That has to come first.” I don’t believe this is the way for all two-parent families, but it could be a factor in women’s turning down speaking opportunities. I’d be very curious to know what factors are at play in your French school example.

Cindy, we are so excited to have you here in August. I think it would be fantastic to explore this challenge during that discussion. You’ll have an audience of men and women, from as wide a range of backgrounds as we can muster: after all, the solution to gender (and culture) ghettos won’t be hashed out from inside the ghetto… of that I’m pretty damned sure.

Anyone else who reads this and thinks, “What event? I want to come!” please keep an eye on the @madebymany Twitter account for more info over the coming weeks.

Hi Sara,

I made a little of research about the French example (for the record, in these research papers, it seems that girls succeed better than boys in secondary education in every developed countries).

What I understood from studies (mainly from the INSEE which is the french UK statistics authority) when people choose their higher education :

- boys will choose more depending on job opportunity after graduation
- girls will choose more depending a life project

Thereby girls will go more to social or medical studies, when boys will be more generic or job oriented like business school or engineering.

If anyone reads French and wants to go deeper into the subject :
ftp://trf.education.gouv.fr/pub/edutel/dpd/ni0414.pdf
http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/hcfps04d1.pdf
http://www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/docs_ffc/donsoc06i.pdf

PS: Based in Paris, I’m moving to London in September, I’ll be glad to attend your next conference

Hey Olivier, sorry about the delayed reply, I’ve been on holiday. Thanks too for the research and links, it’s really good of you to share this stuff.

The next Storywarp event will take place on Wednesday 5 October, so please do keep an eye on @storywarp for more info and to RSVP. We’d love to meet you.