If you work in corporate Australia you’ll know all about the various events (usually panel discussions) that businesses tend to host or participate in around International Women’s Day (IWD).

As Cathy Ngo writes, most of these events aren’t particularly “diverse”.

But the problem I see with many IWD events, is that they look a little familiar. The venues may get fancier to attract corporate sponsors, but the line-ups are too often far from diverse. You tend to see the same career narrative presented: often from white middle class women, with backgrounds in journalism or TV.

I’m in no way downplaying the achievements of the speakers and panellists – but it doesn’t exactly reflect society’s broader career-pool and life experiences. An event where we are meant to celebrate all women’s progress and achievements, can quickly become a celebration of white, able-bodied, heterosexual, middle-class women’s experiences.

This, of course, shouldn’t be the only experience we consider when it comes to gender equality.

Observing gender-equality through a solo lens, only allows us to see one angle. It excludes a huge percentage of women who have a completely different lived-experience but whose stories are equally valid and critical to a more nuanced conversation. As a society and in the workplace, we must ensure our gender inclusion policies and practices are made with those who can give voice to the lived experiences of all women.

If you want your event to have more diverse representation, multiple points of view, and a discussion of different lived experiences, check out this article that Ngo wrote for Women’s Agenda (which is where that quote above is from): ‘Speakers, organisers & attendees: Here’s how to make IWD events more diverse’.

I’m on the working group that’s organising this year’s IWD events at Transurban. We know from experience and surveys that IWD events aren’t particularly interesting or useful to attendees if they can’t relate to the people who are speaking or presenting. So we’re actually using some of the ideas from that article to make our speaker line-up as diverse as possible. I’m looking forward to seeing what we come up with!

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Also, is it just me or does the #BalanceforBetter pose look like a smiley-er version of the shrug emoji?

Compare the official photo/social media pose for this year’s IWD theme:

To the shrug emoji:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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