US actor and gender diversity advocate Meghan Markle spoke about Australia’s Panel Pledge, initiated by us at the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia, adopted by the Male Champions of Change in 2013 – and now many more leaders and politicians have since taken the pledge worldwide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-WyIamHOHo

MEDIA RELEASE (From the State Government)

Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade Philip Dalidakis tonight took the Panel Pledge to get more female leaders from STEM and business represented in Victoria’s industry panels and conferences.

The pledge was made at an event co-hosted by the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia (WLIA), who also launched the inaugural WLIA Media and Panel Pledge Awards.

The awards will recognise and celebrate individuals and organisations who achieve the greatest impact in their implementation of the Panel Pledge, as well as media professionals who achieve gender balance in their stories.

By taking the Panel Pledge, Mr Dalidakis chooses to only participate in panels and consider government funding for conferences and events that have clear 50/50 gender representation in their speakers.

The WLIA initiated the Panel Pledge in Australia in 2013 to address gender imbalances often seen on panels and at conferences. It was immediately taken up by the Male Champions of Change movement, under the leadership of former Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick AO.

While women make up 46 per cent of Australia’s workforce, it is estimated that they make up less than 15 per cent of panellists in industry events across the country.

The pledge comes just days after the Andrews Labor Government unveiled Safe and Strong: A Victorian Gender Equality Strategy.

Victoria’s first ever gender equality strategy includes a series of landmark reforms to support women and girls – a Gender Equality Act, gender audits across government and public sector, scholarships to encourage young and emerging women leaders and hosting the first all women trade delegation to China.

The Labor Government has been leading the push for gender diversity in Victoria since it first introduced a requirement for equal representation in all public boardrooms. The average proportion of women on government and public boards now sits at 49 per cent, a considerable jump from 39 per cent just six months ago.

We are honoured to be featured on the US-based Gender Avenger website.

Our Executive Director, Amy Mullins, wrote to Gender Avenger to share with them WLIA’s work on the Panel Pledge and to thank them for their inspirational work.

Gender Avenger is a community advocacy group, founded by Gina Glantz and Susan Askew, who seek to ensure women are equally represented and heard on panels and in public forums.

They recently created a wonderful video on how we can all call-out the gender imbalance at conferences:

To read our article on the Gender Avenger website, click here.

The following videos were aired on August 25th at the Male Champions of Change (MCC) Business Forum in Sydney. They are short, engaging and useful videos about the key areas the MCCs have taken action on: setting targets with teeth, committing to the Panel Pledge, tackling family violence and making ‘all roles flex’.

25 August 2015
Dear colleagues,

Chief Executive Women, the Male Champions of Change and the Women’s Leadership Institute Australia share a common goal – a significant and sustainable increase in the representation of women in leadership in Australia. We are working together to identify approaches, put them into practice and disseminate those that are successful.

The purpose of this letter is to invite you to commit to the Panel Pledge. Attached we include information about the Panel Pledge, its rationale and how it can be implemented.

You may share our concern in noting that in Australia and around the world, many high-profile conferences and events lack gender balance, particularly in regards to keynote speakers and panels.

We experience this first-hand. As members of Chief Executive Women, we are more often than not the only woman on stage at events. As Male Champions of Change we consistently find ourselves sitting on panels that are exclusively male.

The absence of women at public professional forums is a problem. Because speakers are usually male, audiences are given an exclusive perspective. The lack of diversity limits the quality of the conversation. Moreover, when visible role models are male, absence of women perpetuates absence of women. Fewer women choose to speak, and fewer are chosen. Compounding this problem is that without the opportunity to serve on panels women lack profile-building opportunities, which is an important contributor to experience and recognition.

At the suggestion of the Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia, the Male Champions of Change in 2012 committed to a Panel Pledge: when asked to be involved in or sponsor a panel or conference, we each inquire about organiser efforts to ensure women leaders are represented.

We believe gender imbalance at events is entirely solvable and the opportunity for improving is awaiting widespread sign-up.

With this in mind, we invite all Australian leaders to commit to the Panel Pledge.

We hope you will join us.