How about a group for those of us who are _trying_ to address this?
Hi Dori,
I applaud your effort to highlight this issue but, as a conference organizer who has been making a crazy effort at getting women speakers, I'd love it if there was also a group that acknowledged our efforts.
Comparatively, I think that the Singularity Web Conference isn't doing that badly at all. We've got some amazing women speakers and I feel that to label the conference as "needs women speakers" also does an injustice to those women speakers we do have speaking.
(And we're going to be announcing more speakers this week, a number of whom are women.)
I know that I've been trying like crazy to get more women speakers and I'm going to keep trying.
And it's not only women either. We rarely talk about it but have you noticed how _white_ conference speaker lineups are?
We have a long way to go in addressing these issues and, as I said initially, I applaud your effort at brining attention to it. I just feel that we also need to acknowledge those of us who are making real efforts to try and address this issue.
One thing that I would love to see is an effort to make more women aware of conferences and make it easier for them to approach conference organizers and to apply for speaking positions.
How about a program, for example, to get people who have never spoken at a conference to speak with an equal allotment of male/female positions? A "Geek Idol" program if you will. If we can manage it, I want to implement this at Singularity this year.
Mon 25 Aug 2008 at 04:57 AM
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looking at last year's A List Apart survey http://www.alistapart.com/articles/2007surveyresults 82% of respondents were male, 16% female, plus some "other". now, admittedly ALA's survey might not be the sole authoritative source on the matter, but maybe, just maybe, the speaker gender breakdown is fairly in line with the industry as a whole?
just a thought.
At the time I added Singularity to the list, there were *many* fewer women speakers. Given the current numbers, I can definitely believe that you've "been making a crazy effort at getting women speakers"--so I've removed it from this group.
As to how "white" most tech conference speaker lists are? Yep, definitely. And how young. And, and, and.... But I can't take on every injustice in the world, so I'm just trying to do what I can.
I agree that Singularity, now, doesn't have a problem. OTOH, take a look at the Fronteers Congres--17 men, zero women. Or the C4[2] Mac developers conference--ten men, no women. I don't believe that those numbers are anything like the gender breakdown in those fields!
And in general: if you think that your conference has been added to this group and it shouldn't have been, just notify me or the person who tagged it. Conferences often change speaker lists up until the last minute, and I know things change. If it no longer applies, just say the word--'cause hey, that's GOOD news!