Thank goodness #iwd2023 is over. Now we can get back to lads, lads, lads.

I saw the archetypal ‘lads lads lads’ photo on LinkedIn this week – car industry awards evening, team photo. Ten white blokes celebrating a win for their luxury car brand. A little frighening really.

I remember several years ago Nicola Kane introduced me to the term ‘manel’ – an all male panel. I’m still coming across people today who have not heard of the term.

All the PTRC fireside chats we’ve run have never had more men than women, let alone sailed close to a dreaded manel. That’s partly why we have such inspiring discussions. And for some time I have been trying my best to avoid being on a manel.

But I have been caught out – accepting to be on a panel before asking who else will be on it, or checking that the organisers are alert to gender balance, only to then find myself on a manel. When this has happened I have offered to step down or tried to call out the embarassment of being on the all-male panel when it takes place.

Now I do ask in advance and decline where necessary and suggest alternative people emminent in their field. I’ve learnt that it is almost always possible to get gender balance AND a top lineup of speakers – if a little more thought is put into it.

This week I had two invitations to join panels. I asked about gender balance. Both were panels with one woman and the rest being men. I would have added insult to injury. ‘But they are not manels’ you may say. If so, I would encourage you to read this *eight year old* article (https://lnkd.in/eMPk-K7Q) titled ‘The man-only panel is bad, but the token-woman panel is even worse’.

Here’s a quote from the article: “the average manel – the poor thing – really does not want to be a manel. It’s an awkward, backwards-looking creature and it knows it. Manels would be more than happy to include “a woman”, if they could find one. The emphasis being “one”, singular. Not two women. Jesus Christ, no, two women would be too much. They’d probably want to talk about similar things. But one woman, well, that would look totally progressive.”

I’ve respectfully declined one of the invitations. In the case of the other, the organisers have said ‘mea culpa’ and the panel mix will be improved.

So – to all those event organisers out there (and all those team photo situations), please for goodness sake work harder at authentically addressing gender balance. It really will make for richer debates and more inspiring future change in diversity and inclusion.

And just to finish, you may want to read up on the (satirical?) article ‘It’s lads lads lads at MIPIM and that’s the way we like it’ (https://lnkd.in/ecr453Wj).

#ladsladslads#manels#genderbalance#diversityandinclusion#iwd2023