There’s been a lot of buzz lately about the state of gender bias in the tech industry when it comes to women tech speakers. I was recently an innovation keynote speaker for Cognizant Technology Solutions to a group of Fortune 500 women executives and the question came up “Where are all the women in STEM?”
Bizzabo just released its top 100 list of tech speakers and not a single woman made it to the top 10. Only 2 were listed in the top 20. Most tech conferences only have a token woman speaker, if they have any at all, and an average of 10% represent minorities.
Many reasons have been thrown around, like the fact that there are fewer women in tech to begin with, the ones who do speak are in high demand, decision makers are mostly men, and that women don’t tend to respond to the invitations like men do.
But I’m glad to see that at least the topic is on the table and some people are starting to address it. Articulate, run by Caper and powered by Lanyrd, is setting out to raise awareness of the issue of having more women in the tech and creative conference arena. Their goal is to get to a 50:50 ratio and eliminate the all-male and token women speaker status quo that we currently have.
This began after a conversation that started a couple of years ago regarding the topic. They were flooded with suggestions from men and women who said they wanted to see change. But change, when it comes to women in any area of STEM, is slow.
A recent article in The Atlantic created a firestorm of comments. Whether you agree with their solutions or not (getting men to sign a pledge that they won’t speak at all-male tech conferences), at least the subject is being talked about.
One thing I discovered in doing research for the Cognizant Technology conference was the huge amount of societal bias that still goes on today as it relates to women in the STEM fields in general. As a woman inventor I hear it constantly.
So, what’s your solution to the problem? Any suggestions?