I finally signed up to Misbehaving.net's feed and was catching up on their recent posts. Liz Lawley commented on the dearth of women speakers at Web 2.0: 8 out of the overall 107. Some say "Oh, its the tech world .. it's 'male-dominated' so of course there will be more male speakers."
Maybe. 
But I've been frustrated with this for a while and not just a "tech" conferences. I went to TED last year. 48 speakers (not counting ensembles); 7 of them women. And three of those were performers. (I posted about this in February during TED.) I hope that this year there will be a more diverse program: gender-wise and race-wise. I'm pleased to note that one of the winners of the TED Prize this year is a woman, Jehane Noujaim.
But this issue of women speakers hits closer to home. The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (disclosure: I sit on the Advertiser's Council) had its Interactive to the Max one-day conference recently here in Toronto. The three keynotes: all men. To be fair, 50% of the panel moderators were women and women were represented on the panels. But not on the keynotes. Same thing with the CMA's Digital Marketing Conference. The keynotes and "standalone" presentations - all men. Again, women moderated a number of the panels. (I promise I won't go on about the idea that women play a strong "facilitation" role which is why they are good moderators .. blah, blah, blah).
It's not like we don't have successful, knowledgeable women in Toronto. Wendy Muller from Google Canada comes to mind. Paula Gignac, executive director of the IAB. Dawna Henderson of henderson-bas. Terry Costantino from Usability Matters.
Though then I read Marketing Magazine's article about its new inductees in Canada's Marketing Hall of Legends (seriously .. Marketing Hall of Legends?). All men.
What does this all mean? That we need (*I* need) to encourage my peers and my mentors to speak up and speak out.
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