Panel Parity Pledge
All Gender Champions adopt the Panel Parity Pledge: to avoid whenever possible appearing on single-gender panels. We recognize the difficulty for Gender Champions whose organizations’ missions are to advance women’s leadership. For these Gender Champions, they pledge to use the questions below to further diversify the panels that they appear on in ways that are not only gender-related, in support of the variety of perspectives among those who identify as women and the intersectional nature of this work.
This Pledge applies to the Champions’ own appearances, not to their entire organization, as a way to demonstrate Champions’ personal commitment to gender parity.
The Panel Parity Pledge is both a concrete process and a thoughtful internal and external exercise for the conference organizer and potential panelist. This Pledge applies to participation by the Champion him/herself, not to events hosted by their organization (although that could be an additional pledge if a Champion so determined).
When invited to participate in a panel discussion, the Champion or their designee will obtain answers to the following questions:
- What are you doing to ensure gender diversity at your event?
- Are there any women, or equal numbers of women, speaking on the panel/s?
- (If not), have the organizers reached out to female experts?
- (If not), can we share our evolving list of dynamic experts in the field that happen to be women?
- (This list is composed by the potential panelist or organization. It also has the knock-on effect of the potential panelist championing a number of brilliant and knowledgeable female colleagues)
- Are conference organizers using the list to identify and invite expert women panelists?
In certain circumstances, a Champion may determine that their participation in a particular event is critical enough that they would join a single-gender panel. As well, they have the option of identifying themselves as a champion while on the panel or noting the composition of the panel. The intentional nature of the process should, however, generate a conversation each time a panel is composed, and the process of including high-performing dynamic female experts should eventually become reflexive, rendering the Panel Parity Pledge obsolete.
Champions, or their designee, will develop a mechanism for tracking and reporting on their panel appearances.