With the Return to In-Person Conferences, There Are No Excuses for Excluding Women

In March 2020, when the world was shutting down and conferences, along with everything else, went virtual, Brady Hahn advised event organizers to remember that “as we move to digital events at this pivotal time, it’s imperative to keep women in the conversation by giving women equal stage time.” She stated, “now, more than ever, we need to be sharing strategies on how to keep (or add) women to the conversation” and outlined four ways organizations could ensure that their digital events supported women.

This was well before we started talking about how the pandemic was adversely affecting women, and before we started talking about disaster patriarchy (as if we need ANOTHER form of patriarchy). It was before we started seeing women leaving the workforce in droves because so much more of the child care, schooling, and household maintenance was left to them than ever before. And it was well before the light at the end of the tunnel: the vaccine and return to normalcy people in the United States are starting to see over a year later.

That return to normalcy means events are starting to be held in person again. So how do we advise event organizers on how to keep or add women to conversations that are no longer virtual? Honestly, the suggestions are not that different.

For example, Hahn’s first idea is for companies to “partner with like-minded organizations to expand [their] speaker and audience reach.” Nothing needs to change about that. Combining resources with other organizations means event organizers will learn about and be introduced to content experts they may have otherwise missed or overlooked. In addition, her other three tips — recording sessions, paying women for their time and expertise, and focusing on good content, rather than “women’s content” — are all strategies that can be implemented whether the conference is taking place in person, online, or anywhere in between.

There can be no more excuses. Women need to be brought back into the workforce immediately, and, by raising their voices and allowing as many people as possible to hear those voices, companies, conference organizers, and content managers can help bring back the millions of women who were forced out during the pandemic.

This is one of the reasons why GenderAvenger has upped the ante on representation. We want to hold people accountable. Last month, we changed the way we calculate gender balance in public dialog. Women overall represent 51% of the population, so why shouldn’t we demand they comprise 50% of conversations in the public dialog? Now we do. We also changed our women of color target to 20% of all speakers. We are no longer just looking at how many of the women speaking are women of color, but rather we’re looking at how many of the TOTAL speakers are women of color. In addition, we also introduced a change to the Time Who’s Talking feature that measures women’s voices in the GA Tally. Now when someone keeps track of who is talking and how much, the GA Tally will calculate the number of minutes men, white women, and women of color speak respectively, instead of the original split between men and women.

There has been so much talk about how the pandemic has changed workdays and offices. More companies are choosing to offer flexible work arrangements, or they’re closing offices altogether. Now is the perfect time for those same organizations to start anew with gender equality and not only to recognize that women’s voices belong wherever men’s voices are heard, but also to take real action to establish equal representation as a norm that ensures women’s voices continue to be heard.