The Pledge – I will not be part of male-only panels

The pledge

“At a public conference I won’t serve on a panel of two people or more unless there is at least one woman on the panel, not including the Chair.”

Frequently asked questions

What happens if we have tried to find women but there is nobody available?

Try harder. I’ll be happy to suggest some women who would be much better than me. You may need to organise your conference a little earlier to be sure of getting women on your panels.

What happens if a woman drops out and we end up with a men-only panel?

There are many brilliant women – please find someone else to take her place.

What if a woman drops out at very short notice?

I get it: shit happens. You could cover yourself by planning to have two women on the panel (gosh!). But if I’ve agreed to be on a panel I won’t let you down if something genuinely unforseen happens. (But if this means a male-only panel, you’ll have to forgive me in advance for the fact that I am going to tease you about this in the meeting.)

Organising conferences is hard enough already?

The Gendered Conference Campaign has some great advice for conference organisers.

What else can we do?

• Keep drawing attention to the issue. If you are at a conference with male-only panels, call it out.
• Audit your events and keep track of the trends
• Be mindful about promoting women through social media

Who has taken the pledge?

2,506	Ms Jason Donofrio	The Ocean Foundation
2,505	Mr Axel Martínez Nieto	AquaHub Nicara
2,504	Mr Mark J. Spalding	The Ocean Foundation
2,503	Ms Jason Kirkpatrick
2,502	Ms Agustín Paulín	Tec de Monterrey
2,501	Mr Philip Hoffman	NOAA
2,500	Ms Emily Wasley	WSP
2,499	Mrs Esmeralda Pelembe	Civil society
2,498	Ms Cecilia Herzog	Puc-Rio
2,497	Mr Antônio Fonseca
2,496	Mr Cesar Diniz	Solved - Solutions in Geoinformation
2,495	Ms Carlos Souza	Imazon
2,494	Ms Gustavo Punheiro
2,493	Mr Stephen Wetmore	SkyNRG
2,492	Ms Arturo Sotomayor	George Washington University
2,491	Mr Donald Roeber	Amazon Web Services
2,490	Ms Racheal Kigame	Help a Child Africa
2,489	Dr. Rahmah Elfithri	National University of Malaysia (UKM)
2,488	Ms Anne-Lise Koch Lavisse
2,487	Mr John Etgen	Project WET Foundation
2,486	Mr Colin Herron	Global Water Partnership
2,485	Mr Ian simpkin
2,484	Ms Dulce Pereira	Universidade de Coimbra
2,483	Ms Maria Paula Meneses
2,482	Ms Quitéria Guirengane	Young Women Leaders Network
2,481	Mr Tom Bowker
2,480	Mr Rakhim Rakhimov	Rare
2,479	Mr John Owens	AWS
2,478	Dr. Kayleigh Mason	Keele University
2,477	Ms Thomas Griffin	Qatar University
2,476	Dr. BRENT SCHOLAR	Arizona State University
2,475	Dr. Matthew Sperrin	University of Manchester
2,474	Mr Prashanth Shankar Kumar	Amazon
2,473	Ms Dácil Casanova	Dácil
2,472	Mr Nicholas Lee-Romagnolo	AWS
2,471	Mr Torge Kuebler
2,470	Mr Kunal Muchhala
2,469	Mr Kevin Dent
2,468	Mr Adam Shepphard	Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust
2,467	Mr Nick Curry
2,466	Ms Luis Duran
2,465	Miss Monica Zolczer	PwC
2,464	Dr. Dominique Roche	Carleton University
2,463	Mr Kent Grayson	Northwestern University
2,462	Dr. Michael tlusty	University of Massachusetts Boston
2,461	Mr Niels Crone	Rare
2,460	Mr Esteban Chavarria	Rare
2,459	Mr Brandon Schauer	Rare
2,458	Dr. Stephen Box	Rare Inc
2,457	Dr. Niels Peek	The University of Manchester
<< < > >>

Another list of people who have made the same commitment: www.manpanels.org

 Coverage and Inspiration

Last year, six leading Washington think tanks presented more than 150 events on the Middle East that included not a single woman speaker. Fewer than one-quarter of all the speakers at the 232 events at those think tanks recorded in our newly compiled data-set were women.

“The mysterious absence of women from Middle East policy debates“ – Tamara Cofman Wittes and Marc Lynch, Washington Post Money Cage, January 20th 2015

Because I believe you cannot conduct constructive discourse on international issues without the participation of women, I recently decided not to speak on any panels that did not include women. I’m not writing this to seek a pat on the back. But because any discussion that does not include women’s perspectives or that reflexively excludes or fails to seek out the women who are leaders in their fields in virtually any and every subject on this agenda will be deeply inadequate and will only compound distortions of gender bias that exist because of our long history of systematic exclusion of women’s views. I’d much rather participate in discussions where the organizers actually demonstrate that they are committed to producing the best possible work product.

“Still waiting for Davos Woman” by David Rothkopf, FP Magazine, January 22nd, 2015

I often attend panels or discussions dominated by men, especially in technology. This is problematic since it sends the signal that only men have the expertise in their given field. To their credit, some men are initiating change.

“Three Ways To Change The Ratio of Women Receiving VC“ – Leah Eichler, Inc Website, November 10th 2014

There is no topic that cannot be discussed by women. There is no circumstance that would prevent one from inviting women. There is simply no rational excuse for excluding women. And, if you are invited to join a panel with no women, you must conclude it is being organized by fools.

“Why I will no longer speak on all-male panels“ – Scott Gilmore, Macleans, October 4th, 2014