When we attend certain meetings, questions about gender inequality are bound to come up in our minds. When all of the speakers in a meeting are men it makes you wonder what happened to the women. Could it be that they are just too busy or maybe they are not qualified enough? Women should be encouraged as much as possible to not only attend meetings but also fully participate. Below are 5 simple ways that will help you in getting more women to be speakers in your conference.
#1. Create a balanced gender law
Establishing a speaker policy in your meetings will give the committee an idea of what to work towards in terms of selecting speakers. Make sure everyone has access to the policy. The policy could be something like ‘we strive at getting gender balanced speakers’. Include this message in emails, leaflets and everything relating to the conference.
#2. Encourage women at meetings
A notable difference exists in the attendance of men and women in meetings. While both men and women are needed in meetings, women especially married ones have the responsibility of taking care of their kids, homes etc. This responsibility is mostly the reason why women reject invitations for meetings and conferences outside working hours especially if the location is far from home or for more than one day. To solve this issue, the conference committee could come up with an idea to assist women in this situation which might include providing a child-care support.
#3. Build a balanced organizing committee
The committee needs to be balanced first before the speakers can be. The more diverse your team is, the more diverse your speakers will be. Make sure that those doing the selection of guests are well informed about the policy.
#4. Personally, invite women to speak
Personally, talk to the women you want to invite as speakers at the conference and tell them why you think they are the best fit. Let them know how you got their names and how much you will like them to give a talk. Having a personal dialogue with them will place more emphasis on their importance. Explain to them how important it is to you to get an equal number of male and female speakers.
Most people will say that having a balance in speakers is not the most important thing in a meeting and that the essential thing is to have ‘a quality meeting’ but having balanced speakers does not contradict this. Women can equally come up with great ideas that can help in moving the society forward. Therefore, their voices need to be heard too. Hopefully, one day we can put together conferences by focusing solely on the awesome work people do regardless of age, gender or ethnicity.