Art historian and co-founder of Niche Berlin Stefanie Gerke is sadly accustomed to seeing discursive events headed by solely men. In this thinkpiece she makes the case against all male panels. It could make a big difference to the way we think about many things.
Getting big fish to speak at your conference, workshop, roundtable, panel or other type of public talk can be important to attract crowds. All of us can contribute to making sure these fish aren't all male, though. It is in nobody's interest to simply reproduce existing visibilities. The "Making Spaces" project was started because we could not easily find information on interesting architects that "identify as women", to quote our super p.c. assistant Miriam. Creating visibility for interesting women architects (which we would like to consider simply as "architects", basta) is one of its major objectives.
One step to avoid missing visibility for women is to avoid creating and recreating All Male Panels. Gender diversity in public events is a good thing, it guarantees broader perspectives. That's why you should try to achieve it. It should not just be something you feel you need to do nowadays. Achieving diversity, though, might mean you need to look further. Jacqueline O'Neill recently published "7 rules for avoiding all male panels" on The Foreign Policy website and while she focused on public events related to politics and security, she made many good points that concern architecture issues, too. The next time you organise a public event in any domain, actually, please 'try smarter' to include women. It'll be to everyone's advantage.
One step to avoid missing visibility for women is to avoid creating and recreating All Male Panels. Gender diversity in public events is a good thing, it guarantees broader perspectives. That's why you should try to achieve it. It should not just be something you feel you need to do nowadays. Achieving diversity, though, might mean you need to look further. Jacqueline O'Neill recently published "7 rules for avoiding all male panels" on The Foreign Policy website and while she focused on public events related to politics and security, she made many good points that concern architecture issues, too. The next time you organise a public event in any domain, actually, please 'try smarter' to include women. It'll be to everyone's advantage.