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Datagrid Girl

Marcie, ASP.NET Datagrid Blogger Girl

Women Speakers

via private email, from a (male) Australian:
Just thought I would pass along a comment about how odd it seemed to me that you appear to be the only lady speaker listed in all of the listed sessions at the forthcoming TechEd 2003 conference in Australia.
 
I don't really know why, but I decided to take a close look at the speakers list on the Tech.Ed 2003 Commnet site while I was building my own agenda.  I am always dismayed at how few ladies there seem to be in our industry.
 
Anyway, that's all I wanted to say.  Apart from wishing you a great trip down here & hoping that the conference goes well for you.

I agree completely.  During the U.S. Tech Ed Women's Luncheon, one of the panel members said that as many as 20% of technical jobs are now held by women, but at the technical conferences that I've been going to, it seems that only about 5% (or less) of the speakers are female.  If anyone has suggestions on how to get more women involved in speaking, I'd love to hear about them.

Published Jul 30 2003, 08:16 AM by datagridgirl

Comments

 

Douglas Reilly said:

Well, marcie, upon thinking about this post, I feel better about being one of the older folks at an event like the one at Microsoft a couple of weeks ago. Sure enough, while I might have been outnumbered by much younger people, you, Dana, Terri and Rachel were at least as outnumbered by males.

I wonder why that is? There is a thread on a newsgroup I am on about whether you ever feel like a fake - that is, inadequate, like folks will find you out as an imposter at the techical area you are supposed to be an expert. Someone posted this on that thread:

<quote>As some of you know cuz I told you 4000 times... my roommie is a psychologist. She told me once that a study was done and the top number one fear of women was "fear of being found out". </quote>

Perhaps this explains some of the difference between the percentage of women in IT and the percentage that show as speakers at conferences (personally, perhaps even 5% is a bit higher than I have seen...).

Good luck in Australia!
July 30, 2003 11:32 AM
 

julie said:

hmmmmm....
July 30, 2003 12:20 PM
 

TrackBack said:

July 30, 2003 3:01 PM
 

TrackBack said:


Julia Lerman Blog
July 30, 2003 3:01 PM
 

TrackBack said:

July 30, 2003 4:02 PM
 

Jason Bunting said:

For what it is worth, I enjoyed hearing Kate Gregory at TechEd this year, I thought she was a much better presenter than %50 of the men I heard from.
July 30, 2003 5:04 PM
 

HumanCompiler said:

I'm not a woman, so I wouldn't really know what would help, but it seems to me like it's a confidence thing. Seems like most women don't think they coudl compete or really make it doing that sort of thing.

I think that's total crap! ;) From my standpoint, I don't give a rats ass who's speaking up there in front of myself (and many others). I only care about a good presentation, given by a knowledgable and good speaking person.

Anyone that wants to get into it really should! Glad you (and others) have! Good luck in Australia!
July 30, 2003 6:24 PM
 

paul said:

Amanda Silver of Microsoft's VB.Net team and Kimberly Tripp the DB authority are high on my list of speakers.
July 30, 2003 9:39 PM
 

Rob Zelt said:

I'm glad to hear that Kate Gregory is getting a lot of praise. I had been fortunate to hear her many times before my move south when she spoke regularly at Canadian MSDN events. I got used to her presentations and have to say that many speakers I have heard since do not measure up! Does she blog?
July 31, 2003 12:37 AM
 

mukul cambridge said:

yes yes more females in more places, that's how it was meant to be! And ASP.NET is for women! so i'm going to attend TechEd now!
August 11, 2003 1:45 PM

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