It’s been a weird week…

 

Marilee Talkington went to the World Science Festival last weekend. And discovered that while we may be able to get women on stage, sometimes that isn’t enough. Sometimes we have to fight just to be heard.

Her story — we’re calling it “Let. Her. Speak. Please!” — is detailed in a Facebook post that has been widely shared and commented on. Our friends at Gender Avenger called Marilee The Avenger of the Week for her speaking out when a moderator persisted in “explaining” the sole female panelist’s work, and then ridiculing her when she laughed at the situation, i.e. someone else trying to explain her work to her. A friend of Marilee’s shared the web app, Are Men Talking Too Much, so we can easily keep a running tally in the future.
Meanwhile, PR Week’s 2017 Hall of Femme event about women in PR, inclusion and diversity, contained an all-male panel of agency heads. One key piece of advice seemed to be to “that women just needed to speak up.” The panel was in response to a request for more inclusion by men in the event but maybe no one considered the optics of an all-male panel at a diversity event.

 

And Lauren Whaley wrote an article for UnDark about “The Intellectual Emptiness of the All-male Panel“.
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