Eric Meyer made a brave statement on the lack of gender diversity at web conferences (as previously posted by Kottke). He said it shouldn’t matter.
I agree with him. Who cares if the speaker is male or female, gay or straight, white or black? If they are the expert on the subject, that is all that matters.
I’m saying this despite being female and Asian, which would probably narrow things down much further if you looked at the conference speaker demographics. Gender and ethnicity should not matter in a truly meritocratic society.
Surely we’ve got past the stage where we say, “Wow that was a great woman speaker,” or “I’ve never seen such an outspoken Asian before”. And I am glad for that. Just because there are less women speakers at web conferences doesn’t mean that women are inferior overall. There will be more women experts in other industries. To each, her own 🙂