That 'We Can’t Find Women' Excuse… We're About to Crush It

At GenderAvenger, the number one excuse we hear is "We know we have no women. We are always looking for ideas. Could you please send some names?"

It would seem that the person most often asking the question, the list maker or conference host, would have the most comprehensive list since they use one everyday, but alas their lists always seem to consist of men, men, and more men.

Well, Melanie Ehrenkranz (@melaniehannah), a writer at Mic.com, has a fix for that. She put together a comprehensive list of 1,000 tech and science speakers who aren't men, and Avenger Cat Moon (@inspiredcat) is working on a similar list of legal minds.

We knew there must be more of these lists of women speakers, so we put a call out to our network and they delivered these gems:

• Outspoken Agency: Every person at every age, gender, and socio-economic status deserves to hear an inspiring message.
• SheSource: An online braintrust of female experts on diverse topics designed to serve journalists, producers and bookers who need female guests and sources.
• FRESH Speakers: Evolving beyond the antiquated “speaker circuit,” and creating an ecosystem of thought leaders who are young, brilliant, diverse, and making a mark in the world.
• Carrie Hammer’s Role Models: Role Models Not Runway Models
• Women in Transportation Technology: Women available to speak on topics involving smart cities, urban tech, mobility areas and the like.
• Forty Over 40: Christina Vuleta and Whitney Johnson created this list to bring awareness to the reality that innovation gets even better with age.
• Luvvie Ajayi, New York Times best-selling author compiled this list of black woman who speak and present professionally.
• Let's Be the Change: a master list of women in the music industry who are happy to speak at events, or have never spoken at events and want to start.

Anyone who  organizes a conference or is creating a list of “the best” this or that should use these lists to augment their own. And they should keep the lists dynamic by continuing to add names based on their own research.

Are you compiling a list of great women speakers, experts and/or panelists, or do you know of one we missed?

We want to know about it. Send it to us at actionalert@genderavenger.com, or leave the link in the comments below, and we will add them to this post.