I am sensitive to the reality of the world in which I work and live. My world is male-dominated. More specifically, it is white-male dominated.

How many senior management teams in companies are male dominated? How many conferences have I attended which have primarily male speakers? How many …

I am a white male. I do not feel the impact of this reality as much as others do. Yet, this problem is there, and I will not ignore it.

Do you see it?

I have heard conference organizers talk about the difficulty in creating diversity in their speaker line-up. The organizers talk about how they would select female speakers if only more females would apply.

Has the same become true for senior leadership teams in companies?

“You can’t be what you can’t see” – Mariah Wright Edelman

Edelman studied why girls don’t go into some professions. One of her conclusions is when males dominate a career or position, girls will be less likely to see it as an option for them.

Edelman’s conclusion makes sense to me and assuming this is true then talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

This reality says it will continue to be hard to find female speakers for conferences until we see more female speakers. The same might be true for various positions, levels and jobs.

Despite this challenging reality, we cannot give up on one day changing these realities. Let’s keep pushing and keep going after equality and equity.

One day we might be able to stop talking about this. Until then, I will keep talking about it.

How can I help?