Allyson, I want to thank you for posting this. Great points. Great perspective. As a woman of diversity, I found this to be very meaningful, relevant and timely. I think it's sad that this topic even needs to be addressed but if anyone could have addressed it with power and grace, it was you. Thank you!

A few things.

1. There are often Asian men represented at tech events.
2. I think that Brooke Burke spoke at Twiistup here in Los Angeles... she's a girl, right?
3. Jeff Pulver's twitter conference got it very right, it was very diverse in NYC and looks like it will be here again in Los Angeles

and thank you. Because I'm hopeful that in 15 years my daughter will think that a post like this is very dated.

A good, balanced look at the problems facing the tech community, and women in it. There are plenty of women out there who are on the leading, bleeding edge of all aspects of technology and social media. It's past time to shed some light on them too.

Allyson, ditto what Mayra said. Thank you for continuing the ongoing conversation that I helped to start...oh, about 13 years ago when I started Cybergrrl, Inc. and Webgrrls International. I'm one of the women in tech who has been regularly rejected by Web 2.0 Summit since I made my "comeback" after 7 years hiatus from the Internet industry.(http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/2002/01/16/maney.htm) I've actually been accused (mostly by other women) of being TOO aggressive in my pursuit of a place at the panel table and podium. But there are several things I try to do - and I encourage other speakers - women AND MEN - to do:

1. When you are invited to speak at an event, examine the balance of diversity. If you see a lacking, provide the organizer with some personal contacts to help them fill out the program - with a pointed statement about how you'd like to see more diversity at the events where you speak.

2. If you are accepted as a speaker after submitting your proposal, do the same assessing and making referrals to quality, qualified, diverse speakers.

3. If your panel idea is accepted for an event, assess the diversity on your panel and without using tokenism, expand the gender and color to expand the voices in the conversation.

4. Keep the conversation going. The more everyone talks about this, the more we can all impact the diversity of our industry and industry events.

This is not a "fringe" and "just a feminist" issue. This is about making sure we properly reflect the diverse landscape of the world around us and not allow the high-tech, high-growth industries to be the domain of one color and one gender.

Allyson, once again very insightful and on point article. You know how to get things done! Definitely will be coming to you for an article in Fearless Woman Magazine and have you back on the show. Hope to see you on the Twitter Diversity Summit on the 14th!

Adrienne Graham

Thank you for this much-needed article!

It is true that in this day and age it is sad that this needs to be addressed. I've been witness to dozens of conferences, and other events that were minus the "woman" factor. I have pondered the question myself often. Then I witnessed what the "women" have done in such arenas as Blogher and the PR blackout brewhaha and I see why. I'm not saying that its "kosher" that women are excluded, largely, but I'm saying that I can see why.

As a tech savy, social media and publicity rep, I've not been invited, recently, and frankly, its not bothersome to me. But I would like to hear some of the strong, empowered women of tech and social media (not the same rehash of the twitter to 50 mind you) be on the panels of some of these convos.

Perhaps we are attending different conferences but in the nonprofit/social entrepreneurship sector, nearly all the leaders in social media (& you can find them on twitter @kanter @bbravo @afine @jessicashortall @hildygottlieb @e180 @Ventureneer @petrakoon @cathyhc) and many of the tech folks (@webb @netsquared @kenyanpundit @p2173 @jocelynw plus quite a number @techsoup) I have had the pleasure of encountering are, in fact, women. And that doesn't even include the many early adopters and social entrepreneurs who are women such as @kjer (Forge); @leila_c (@samasource); @camfed (Camfed); @staceymonk (@EpicChange); @lend4health (Lend4Health); @SHEnterprises (Sustainable Health Enterprises).
Cheers,
Jill

I co-founded the Green Software Unconference Silicon Valley August 19. http://greensoftwareunconference.eventbrite.com/
Several women tech groups are supporting the event, and several women are leading some great Sessions. Thanks, Mary

It's a beginning. Coming from academia--which, in my field, usually has a ~60/40 male/female speaker ratio--it's been so noticeable that white male speakers dominate the tech/media/social media conferences I've attended. When I've asked about it, I'm just told, "Well, it is even worse in Tech", as if that is a sufficient response. I think it's ridiculous that some criticize women for not promoting themselves enough. Most of the events I've gone to have had invited speakers and what are people supposed to do, pressure an organization to be invited? That sounds desperate but maybe that's how things are done.

My personal gripe is the organizations that continue with this "girl geek" image. Please! Are women over 30 supposed to identify with being called a "girl"? Talk about just giving away your power & authority. "Girls in Tech" sounds like a club for high school science students. I know all of the garbage about reclaiming an identity, etc. etc. but the truth is that you will never be taken seriously as a professional, much less leader, as long as you continue to identify yourself as a "girl". "Women" might be less sexy but, face it, you're not in high school any more.

Geekspeakr.com has a good listing of female speakers in various areas of tech.

This is a great article and seemingly timely. I hear this issue come up time and again. However, I'm not so sure that conferences aren't finding women speakers as much as just not asking the women to speak. As the founder of Chicks who Click, a social media conference for women, I am finding so many amazing women in tech/social media to speak at our conferences. We try to combine local and national speakers, and yes, we are mostly finding women, who are trailblazing the social media scene. If you can't find brilliant women, you just aren't looking! So hey guys, for your next conference call me, I have a list of women from Colorado, KC, Vancouver, and San Jose-they're out there you just have to do some research! Check out the San Jose women at http://www.chickswhoclick.net, you can start there!

Check out this Panel about the "Growing Pains of Innovation" during the AlwaysOn Summit At Stanford 2009 - http://alwayson.goingon.com/page/display/33013
An all women panel.
Nice.

As a member of the male community (but not a member of the boys club), I'd like to add: Right on! I've been bemoaning the lack of women on stage at major tech events (not so much the social media events I've been attending) for years. If tools like act.ly help spur positive change, all the better!

While I am happy if more women are featured at Tech events, I'm equally concerned about putting quotas such as the 50/50 rule in place- when did conferences require affirmative action? While ideally all conferences would look like America, and all speakers would be diverse, I am more concerned about the diversity of ideas and the excellence of the content than just the gender, race or demographics of the speakers.

We had a long discussion about this at Podcamp Boston 4, and there are many reasons why women may not have as prominent a role in Web 2.0, but I still think women need to hone their skills and not be shy in promoting their talents. If women on the web are guilty of anything consistently, it may be selling ourselves short.

Allyson, this is an important topic you have raised. There are some women appearing at some tech and new media events - but they don't usually represent 50% of the speakers - and yet women are 50% of the population.

We all need to ensure that diversity is represented at tech and social media conferences. Additionally, when women are speaking at these conference we can treat them with respect, cover their speeches in the media, and support their accomplishments.

And as Cindy Alvarez mentioned in her response, Geekspeakr.com has a good listing of female speakers in various areas of tech. We can only hope that some of us on that list (like me) might actually get asked to speak at the next big tech and social media gathering. Wouldn't that rock? And we could say that we owe you, Allyson!

Thanks for your candor and insights.

I agree that women need to be more aggressive in promoting themselves, but there is also a fine line. I see many women using their sexuality to get noticed in the tech/social media space - versus what they know/think.

I spoke on a panel at sxsw that addressed the issue of women being taken seriously on the web. It was such a much needed discussion.

As a veteran of the dot come 'boom' in the mid 90s, it's about time we discussed this topic again.

Cheers all!
Blagica
GalsGuide.com

While I don't doubt that sometimes qualified women don't get the nod to speak at conferences and what have you I think the major reason are underrepresented in Tech and Social Media events has nothing to do with actual discrimination. There simply are not as many women going into the technology profession in the first place. In my entire computer science program in college there might have been less than 10 women out of well over 100 students. In both companies I've worked in there were precious few female programmers.

So to say, "Oh there aren't 50% women at conferences, it is unfair and wrong," just doesn't make sense. The population might be 50% women but the Tech sector is nowhere near 50% women so why should there be 50% women at conferences? That would be like saying, "There should be 50% men at teacher's conferences even though men make up only 25% of teachers."

If people are truly interested in getting women better represented then the effort has to be made at the primary and secondary education levels to get females into the Tech sector. Rather than going with the easy, simple, and wrong approach of quotas and ratios, why not put effort into fixing the problem at the source? Clearly part of the solution is to change attitudes about women in technical jobs and maybe increasing visibility of women in tech will make an impact. But great care needs to be taken with the affirmative action approach because it can lead to women being taken less seriously rather than more.

I happen to adore women. But I don't get it. It's a free country. Let the free market take care of it. If there's money to be made servicing the unique technology needs of women, well go out and meet the needs and make the money.

You think you're being left out of conferences because you are a woman? How about people over 50 or blacks? Sparsity there too. The thing is, these are all private events not sponsored by the government. Women are not ENTITLED to anything. (Neither are men or anybody else BTW.)

If you don't like the gender mix of a conference, organize your own conference with your own gender mix. If the market is interested in what you have to say, people will attend. If not, they won't.

How hard is that?

While I think the women in tech, design, digital content, software and social media need to be more represented, I'm having trouble with two of the calls to action here:

"Also, consider having 1-2 committee members solely focus on recruiting diverse speakers.
Take on a 50/50 keynote challenge."

I've been very lucky in

* being raised by a woman with a very strong and 'driven' personality (who made a big splash in local healthcare)

* married a woman who was very confident in her own ideas and what she wanted to do (and successfully runs a really popular blog on http://dressjunkie.com - much more popular than mine!)

* worked with women in my career who were not afraid to stand up and be counted. (running their own businesses, becoming knowledge leaders).

I think all of them would have love to be involved in all of their industry meetings and all of them would be _horrified_ to find out they had only been included because of their genitalia.

You post is insightful and I might add that the missing faces are not only women.

Recently, I attended a social media conference and a panelist introduced himself as the only "brown" man present ( to which I blurted out..."Here I am!).

I approached him afterward and he admitted he was just trying to break the boring pattern of panel introductions. At that moment, I saw a "brown" man who was not me, a Hispanic, but rather an East Indian.

Is it the technology or price of events that seems to attract a lighter shade of color to social media events?

Your post is insightful and I might add that the missing faces are not only women.

Recently, I attended a social media conference and a panelist introduced himself as the only "brown" man present ( to which I blurted out..."Here I am!).

I approached him afterward and he admitted he was just trying to break the boring pattern of panel introductions. At that moment, I saw a "brown" man who was not me, a Hispanic, but rather an East Indian.

Is it the technology or price of events that seems to attract a lighter shade of color to social media events?

I'm in the same camp as Matt. I don't really care who's on a panel as long as they're smart and chosen for their qualifications, not their body parts. I would be upset if I was included in a panel not only because of my gender but because I was a white man, which is apparently a "bad thing" and a "problem". Trust me, I'm all for diversification, but I'm not a fan of being forced into 50/50 challenges.

Lastly, I'm not sure why the 'white man' comment had to be put in this article in the first place when it seemed the larger idea of it was to let us know about the lack of women in industry speaker panels. I think the same awareness would have come out of it without the comment. IMHO.

Probably the main reason for not including women speakers on the panel is that women would make the panel uncomfortable with their non-conformist common sense opinions. Most technology solutions are built by men for men, are funded by men and are being touted by men. Women don't buy Swiss Army knives. Then why should they buy a phone that also plays music badly and runs out of power in no time? Women don't try to fix it themselves just because they have the tools. They'd rather pay a professional. So, give them online services instead of online tools. They have no time to fiddle with software interfaces. These are just a few examples. Obviously tech geeks would not tolerate having a woman on the panel who will label as moronic their idea of a "smart refrigerator" that tell you your milk is past the expiration date.

I think this is total crap. I want the best panelists, presenters, keynoters, etc. independent of gender, race, color, etc. When we start to shoot for quotas or balance, we ultimately end up watering down the final product because more well deserving panelist get booted in favor of balance. Shouldn't we want to get the BEST people regardless of their gender? To me this is a classic case of using leverage that you know can't be pushed back upon because of the politically correct environment we live in.

As a hispanic, maybe I should create a petition demanding more latino speakers since they are under represented. At what point can simply focus on the qualifications? I don't want to get on stage as a presenter because of my gender or skin color - I want to get on stage because I know what I'm talking about.

Allyson, you call this a win. If I were a woman, I'd see it as a loss, because I'd be questioning of my inclusion on a panel was because I'm qualified or because I'm filling a quota. Shameful and sad.

Matt and Jason: Who is advocating for token women panelists? That's insulting! My point is that there are numerous qualified women in tech and social media who would serve as excellent panelists. I know this first hand because I organize a conference for women in tech and social media. My problem isn't finding enough women panelists who are "experts" - it's having to turn down panels because we simply don't have enough time to fit them all in. You claim to support diversity, yet at the end of the day you say it’s cool for conferences to continue to have 80% to 90% male panelists because a conference steering committee has deemed them the most qualified to speak. If conference organizers expand their network, research and cultivate women experts who are qualified to speak on their conferences topics, then their conferences will become more diverse. It’s not rocket science.

Also, as I mentioned in my article, conferences do a disservice to attendees when all the expert panelists we hear from are from the perspectives of white men. We create tech and social media for all not just white men.

Allyson

If the most qualified candidates are men, tough luck. If the most qualified candidates are women, great. I want the best, I don't want mediocrity because of a quota or forced balance system. No one wins there.

Adam

Women and men are both qualified to speak at conferences Adam. That is my point!

Re: "Women and men are both qualified to speak at conferences Adam. That is my point!"

Allyson, no that's your opinion

The point is, you don't run the conferences. The conference organizers select the people that they think are the best because it's their conference.

Conferences are part of the business process. And the business process is about making money. If diversity contributes to making money, conferences will be diverse. If not, then they won't.

BTW, there are plenty of commercial domains that are women-centric. They have their conferences (mostly women). Should there be hew and cry about the paucity of men at those?

Hi Allyson. As an Ami who is often taken for an Amy, more power to you. One small thing that works, I think, is when you go to a conference where there are plenty of women in the audience, but the panel on the stage is all men, use the Q&A time to ask the moderator or the organizer if they couldn't really find ONE woman. This tends to get their attentions. Thanks again for the great work!

Women and men are indeed qualified. But, I'd love to see some data from YOU - since it's your argument. Show me the top 100 leaders in the space. Rank them. Would the breakdown be 50/50? I think not.

Amen - Stephen. I love the hypocrisy. My favorite example of this is that Michelle Wie gets to plan on the PGA, yet men are barred from the LPGA. People like Allyson often get away with this, because the topic is taboo. After all - you as a man, can't dare question an overly narrow focused pseudo-femenatzi (my female colleague's word) like approach. It's rare that you'll find people who speak up against the argument. Glad to see someone else is willing to call her out on it.

Allyson, I'm not knocking you personally. I'm just making observations about the confluence of the free market and human nature.

BTW, Ami's advice should be taken with caution. Because you will be embarrassing the host of an event in front of his audience, both female and male.

If he blinks, you're in luck. If he doesn't, that's it. You're out. Might as well look for another line of work.

Adam:
I think you're missing the fact that many invited speakers are people within the conference organizers' own personal social networks. If they don't *personally* know any women or have any recommended to them that are top-tier, they won't know they exist. Whereas, in other social circles, those women are highly regarded. Saying "I know there are women who know stuff, but I don't know who they are. Someone, please tell me how to reach them" isn't a bad thing, and it isn't selecting gender over competence.

And when it comes to a Call For Papers, I can tell you from experience on BOTH sides of it that women don't submit proposals as much as men.

I wouldn't have considered speaking at a conference (believing I had nothing to say) until the organizers from Ohio Linuxfest (some of whom knew me from a Linux Users Group) sent someone to a hacking conference I was attending to find me and tell me that they wanted me to submit to the CFP. I said I'd have nothing to talk about, believing that to be true. The people around us turned around and said "sure you do!" and started listing off topics they'd heard me converse about that they knew I'd be knowledgeable enough to present on.

This year, I'm on the speaker selection committee for Ohio Linuxfest, and only 5 of the 42 proposals were from women! I wish we could've convince Emmajane Hogbin and Leigh Honeywell to come down from Canada, Akkana Peck and Valerie Aurora from California, but alas...

Adam, (reposted here with Brooklyn love)

In every area, there are men and women who are qualified and deserve positions and recognition.

Yet positions, recognition and even conference speaking invitations are given by those in charge. I've had a series of fortunate events and I've been hired and promoted by people who knew me or knew my work. Many people haven't had my luck and that is a problem that exists in our society. I'm taking the time tonight to tell you why you need to change your attitude about this topic.

CORA!

I was surprised to see you were the father of a baby girl.

My father understood in the 70's his role of being a Dad to a girl. He bought me legos and erector sets so that I could build. I had dolls, but I had "boys toys" because he knew that I would go to school with boys and need to be able to compete with them. My father is a feminist because he watched women get stepped on and overlooked for positions at his company. He was an actuary and he made sure that women who were interested in the area prepared for tests and got positions in the company. He knew back then what I would be facing in a man's world.

You know what it is like to be a minority. I do too. I sat in computer conferences 10 years ago and was one of three women in a room full of about 150 white and Asian men. Again, I'm lucky because I was the free spirit and I didn't realize what the statistics were back then. I just thought "wow this is cool, they love computers as much as I do."

Now, when I am not being a fantastic tech teacher to some talented middle schoolers, I work for a company that let's me hire the people who work on my team. Men and women are needed to work together in my opinion because we think differently and as a result make a great team. To overlook that aspect, would say that we don't have a good understanding of society. Conferences that leave out women as speakers is uncalled for in our day. There are just as many qualified women as there are men. Anyone who doesn't believe that they can be replaced by someone else who is just as qualified is naive.

Finally, tonight I realized that women have so far to go. Not because we aren't THERE, but because there are people who aren't THERE with us. I will accept every single speaking opportunity that is sent my way as a result of your words tonight. May my students, nieces, your daughter and my future children never know that we lived in such a backward society.

Props to my Dad, my professors, J. Adams, L.Ani and all the men who I have worked for and with over the years. I have always felt supported and acknowledged as a professional and equal.

Mackenzie-

I agree with everything you said. My issue is with her desire to have a quota. No one wins with that.

Adam

A lot of people have brought up the point that they think quotas are fake, and they want to see the BEST ideas in tech and they don't care what the genders are.

That's all well and good. But if the conference leaders are truly skimming the top of an industry which is 25% women, there should be roughly a 75:25 ratio of men to women, and there is not. Which means you are not REALLY getting all the best ideas. You are getting ideas from the (white) boys club.

Quotas that reflect industry composition raise awareness and demand that they dig deeper into the industry and TRULY include the BEST.

I am very interested in hearing an objection to having a quota that reflects the industry as a way to ensure proper representation at conventions.

I think in different areas of tech, the statistics are different. In social media, it must be close to 50%. I can name just as many women as men who could present at a conference.

Amongst Linux users, I can't name as many females, so I will accept your 75:25.

Kapin mentions a quota because conference planners need to realize that there are many equally qualified women to present at a conference and the conference attending population should be represented in their Keynotes.

As Allyson suggested it comes down to conferences putting together a diverse enough programming committee so that we hear from more than just male(white) geeks.

All of these dudes at conferences, and I still can't find a boyfriend. :)