📣🚨 Action Alert | When Is the Best Time to Take the GA Pledge for Representation In Public Dialog? Right Now.

People have been doing a lot while stuck at home during the pandemic: making sourdough, buying Peloton bikes, juggling childcare and virtual school, and signing the GenderAvenger Pledge! We are up to 800 signers! That’s 800 people who have publicly stated they “will not serve as a panelist at a public conference when there are no women on the panel."

However, our work is not done. Even though there are so many CEOs, professors, newspaper editors, and even U.S. Representatives who have signed the GA Pledge, men still outnumber women as speakers two to one at conferences, trade shows, and marketing events, and the ratios are even worse for women of color and underrepresented genders. At the current pace, full gender balance in the workplace, politics, and the public dialog will take several generations in the United States. We can't wait that long.

There will come a time when people will be going back to work, heading into offices and conference rooms, and hopefully getting back on stage to talk to hundreds of people at a time in person. Until then, we need to use the time away as a reset and consider the return to the workplace an opportunity to ensure women’s voices are heard in the public dialog. This shift sets a fertile stage for change. Now is the time.

If you’ve already signed the GA Pledge, we thank you and encourage you to inspire others to do the same. If you have not, now is the perfect time to do it. It only takes a minute to commit to being an advocate for gender equality and representation, and it’s the culmination of small but effective acts like these that become the foundation for our more equitable future.

Challenge it. Change it!

Now is the time! As people begin returning to offices, boardrooms, and conference stages, commit to making the #manel a thing of the past by signing the @GenderAvenger Pledge. The world is ready. Are you? #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/action-alert-time-to-take-the-pledge