Women in Agile and its members frequently receive requests to recommend female speakers because apparently they are hard to find. While I appreciate the effort and attention to gender parity, I feel like asking for female speakers is the wrong approach. It feels more about a quota than caring about the quality and the expertise of the speakers themselves. As a conference organizer I wouldn’t want to get called out for not having enough diverse speakers on a panel, but as a speaker I also don’t want to feel that the token reason I was chosen was because of my gender. Conferences need to challenge themselves to consider what their outcome is for a more diverse lineup of speakers, not just diversity for diversity’s sake.
Women in Agile
Supporting the work of outstanding women