How to make sure you never host an all-male panel again

BRUSSELS — They just wanted it to be interesting. In 2014, a group of women — journalists, lobbyists, and think-tankers — were having dinner in Brussels, bemoaning the poor quality of panel discussions they attended through their work on European Union energy policy. Too often it was the same faces, usually male, often saying the same thing to a largely male audience. “There was a lot of wine being drunk and a lot of complaining, and we just decided to do something,” said Marika Andersen, who was then working for a nongovernmental organization. Skip to October 2017. EU Panel Watch, the organization conceived of that night, has just released its third annual monitoring report. The results are not encouraging. The report looks at events with a minimum of three speakers and a moderator; however, moderators are not included in the figures as “they are not there to give opinions or arguments.” Of 383 panels held across different sectors in the Belgian capital in June, a month chosen for the high number of events, women made up 33.8 percent of speakers — the same proportion as the year before, but up from 24 percent in 2015. As with last year, just 11 percent of panels achieved a 50/50 gender balance. There are glimmers of hope. European Development Days, Europe’s biggest annual development summit, was the most diverse event covered by the report. Across the two days of the conference, 43.7 percent of speakers were women, and 33.5 percent were non-white. However, the report’s authors note that even here there is room for improvement: Across the 112 EDD panels they monitored, only 15 percent were equally balanced, while 43 percent were majority-male and 8 percent were all-male. The male-only panels were on the subjects of security and agriculture, while the 4 percent of all-female panels centered on gender, inclusiveness, and human rights. In addition, the authors note that the size of the event means it skews the rest of the results. If EDD is removed from the data, the 2017 numbers on panel diversity are even worse. “Development is a sector where the outdated habit of someone speaking for someone else is looked down on more quickly,” said Andersen — but it is not yet first in class. When broken down by sector, employment and social affairs events had the highest number of women speakers at 46 percent, followed by trade, investment, competitiveness, and consumer affairs at 40 percent. Development and migration tied with education and culture in third place, at 39 percent. Where appropriate, Panel Watch categorised EDD events under headings other than development. The report claimed a victory this week when Clear Europe, a Brussels-based communications firm, said it would refuse to send moderators or speakers to participate in all-male panels, calling on others to do the same. Here, Andersen offers Devex her insights on what organizations have to gain from building more diverse panels — and how to get there. 1. Initial effort = long-term payoff “There is no good way to spin ‘manels,’” the report argues, recommending that those looking to up their game on gender diversity set easy goals, including never organizing an all-male panel. When Robert Madelin, the former head of the European Commission’s digital department, DG CONNECT, pledged to ban all-male panels in 2015, Andersen said his staff initially resisted — not against the concept, but rather against what they assumed would be more work to find speakers. But Madelin told Panel Watch that after the first effort to source new voices, the workload in preparing for events was unchanged. “It’s an initial investment but then it pays off forever,” Andersen said, “because the next time you have that easy phone call to someone already in your network.” 2. Organize early, plan together For Andersen, the core message of a debate often risks being diluted by poor planning and coordination among the different groups involved. “To satisfy each of those different co-organizers you kind of end up with an event that doesn’t satisfy anyone,” she said. “My Brussels experience working with public relations firms is they have an idea of what an event should be, and their clients have an idea for who they want to see speaking, like their CEO. But often there is a mismatch between what that CEO is going to say and what the event is being billed as, and then you just lose everybody.” The report advises organizers to get in sync before sending out speaker invitations. “Difficulties in guaranteeing speaking diversity often emerge when members, clients or partners set the agenda, provide speakers or finance events,” it states. 3. Enlist the audience At the end of an event, Andersen said, “There’s no shame in saying, ‘We’re having trouble finding a new speaker or a woman or somebody of color or somebody who’s not from Europe to speak on this. Does anybody have any experience?’” Her organization is sometimes asked to help achieve diverse panels and Andersen said “people are so happy to help.” Panel Watch members have also anecdotally observed that a lack of gender diversity on the panel is often mirrored by a lack of diversity in the audience. And she said that all-male panels often elicit more questions from men. “A lot of women we’ve spoken to report feeling invisible in the audience,” Andersen said. In her view, that also has an impact on the nature of the debate that follows. During question time after an all-male panel with a mostly male audience, “there tend to be a lot of non-questions, statements and opinions and not really a debate. A lot of speaking at each other, not with,” she said. 4. Know when to say no Speakers can lead by example, too. Andersen welcomed the efforts of men who have pledged not to participate in male-only panels, but said, “the weakness of a pledge is people don’t really see you not being there.” A better way to highlight the problem, she said, was offered by one speaker on a recent all-male panel who stopped mid-speech and offered his seat to a woman in the audience who was also an expert in the field. 5. Get resourced Andersen said Panel Watch welcomes requests for help in organizing gender-balanced events on Twitter (@EuPanelWatch), and she highlighted other initiatives, including the Brussels Binder. Taking its name from 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s infamous gaffe about considering “binders full of women” for jobs while governor of Massachusetts, this group is compiling a database of female experts for the Brussels policy community. Panel Watch’s latest report also includes steps that event organizers can take toward diverse debate.