I do a fair bit of blog browsing, and discovered through various blogs that the Tokion conference organizers this year were unable to find any women to present. (In the end, and under some pressure, they found a couple.) My first question was: are they serious? I then learned (through further blog trawling) that they were. Jen at Personism started a list to aid these helpless conference programmers, so that they need only refer to this list to find several suitable choices for their content needs. Anne Galloway has also long maintained an excellent list of women researchers in culture and technology that would aid anyone seeking to augment their conference line-up.
For your convenience, here are those links again:
Jen’s list
Anne’s list
Coincidentally, in the same period of time that Tokion was having such difficulty finding women speakers, Studio XX, Montréal’s centre for women and technology, kicked off its 10th anniversary celebrations. It seems that Studio XX hasn’t had any trouble finding women to take part in its residencies, festivals, workshops, and online publication for a solid ten years.
It is certainly tempting to get lazy, and make safe speaker choices, presenting and re-presenting the tried-and-true. However, as a conference-goer I find I have begun to ask myself why I would want to attend Conference X, since I have seen Speaker X about a zillion times, and in various configurations (You liked him as a Panelist, and you will love him as a Keynote!). New/unknown talent is hard to sell, but the right mix of unknown elements/known elements might lead me to believe a conference is worth bothering with, since I know I will get the usual insightful commentary from so-and-so, and hmmm! might learn something new from New-to-me Speaker.
It’s sad to think that Tokion and many, many other groups still see women as too “chancy” or not known “enough” – certainly too unknown to carry keynote sessions, let alone be slipped in as a panelist or respondent.
So bonne fête Studio XX – and keep it up. Even after ten years, it’s clear that the work of carving out a space for women to discuss, cultivate, and celebrate their work is far from over.