All-male panels at Labour Conference Fringe events don’t exist, right? They’re a thing of the past, a dinosaur panel lumbering in from some bygone era when women still stayed in the kitchen and listened on the radio while their politico husbands were given platform after platform at political conferences…
Gone are the days when male MPs would employ their wives as Parliamentary secretaries, right? Gone are the days when a Labour Conference panel could casually announce its speakers – and not one women would sit on that list.
Well no, actually, those days aren’t gone. Whilst casually browsing through the Labour conference fringe guide, I was reminded (as I often am when looking at any political event speakers list) of quite how many men there were speaking. So I decided to do a little monitoring of the worst culprits – where there’s more than one speaker at the event, and none of them (including event chair) are women.
I used the Labour Party Fringe Guide to produce my statistics. If there’s a 50% chance that a panel member is a man, then the probability of an event with three speakers and a chair being all-male should be 6.25%. By that statistic, all male panels should be pretty rare. I found 34 on the Labour Party Fringe Guide. And the number creeps even higher when I looked at one-speaker events.
This figure is far too high. If there are 300 events each with 4 speakers (not an unreasonable assumption), then statistically you would expect to find 15-23 of them were all male. Yet there are 34 all-male panel events at Labour Party Conference.**
Of course if you expect to see 19 events with all-male panels, you would also expect to see 19 events with all-female panels. But I only found 3 – and one of those was Labour Women’s Conference.
These statistics serve as a sharp reminder that women’s voices are underrepresented in politics. Even the Liberal Democrats are waking up to the fact they have as many MPs who are knights as are women. It is the responsibility of conference fringe organisers to ensure their events have the best panels they can get – and part of that is ensuring a variety of voices are heard. Is it really the best panel you can get on a subject when all the speakers have had male experiences of the topic?
As ardent LabourList fans will remember, Emma Burnell highlighted a number of panel discussions at last year’s conference where there was not a single woman’s voice to be heard. She asked conference attendees to think twice before attending an event with an all male panel. I will not be attending events with all male panels this year, becaue I think women’s voices need to be heard, and not just in discussions about “women’s issues”. I’m voting with my feet.
You should too.
So, it’s time to name and shame. Here are the all-male events I found in the online Labour Party Conference Fringe guide with more than one speaker, where there were no women, not even as a chair.*
|
Fringe title |
Organisation |
Date |
Time |
|
Investment in infrastructure – powering the economy |
The Guardian in partnership with Hitachi |
22nd |
17:30 |
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What Difference can Labour make on Ireland? Meeting followed by traditional music from 21:30 |
Agreed Ireland forum |
22nd |
20:00 |
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The Squeezed Middle: Can Britain afford not to save? |
Social Market Foundation and Association of British Insurers |
23rd |
08:30 |
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Growing the local social economy |
Social Investment Forum |
23rd |
10:00 |
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Kurdistan Region: Energy security and global politics |
Kurdistan Regional government (KRG) UK Representation |
23rd |
12:30 |
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Unlocking Mutuals: New capital investment for growth |
Mutuo |
23rd |
12:30 |
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Does the key to your health care lie in the community? |
Optical Confederation, National Community Hearing Association and Pharmacy Voice |
23rd |
13:00 |
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A Portrait of Political Britain: How to win in 2015 |
Populus and Policy Exchange |
23rd |
13:00 |
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Can research and innovation fuel the UK economy? |
The Royal Society, The British Academy, The Royal Academy of Engineering and The Academy of Medical Sciences |
23rd |
13:00 |
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Sharing the cost of social care: A new settlement for later life |
Demos and Just Retirement |
23rd |
17:30 |
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Launch of the remote warfare policy comission |
University of Birmingham |
23rd |
17:30 |
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From welfare-to-work: Local solutions to a national problem? |
London Councils in association with Total Politics |
23rd |
17:45 |
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“Abortion Harms Women” |
Labour Life Group |
23rd |
18:30 |
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Does EU membership benefit British business? A debate |
The Law Society, British Influence and Business for Britain |
23rd |
19:30 |
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Constructing the future: How can we get young people back to work in our cities? |
Centre for Cities and Willmott Dixon |
24th |
07:45 |
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What do the banks and the NHS have in common? Cultures in crisis |
CIPD |
24th |
08:00 |
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Modern slavery: How can the UK step up its fight? |
The Centre for Social Justice |
24th |
08:30 |
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Future of local public services |
Westminster City Council |
24th |
12:30 |
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Employers are from Mars, Young People are from Venus: Bridging the Gap |
CIPD |
24th |
13:00 |
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Homes fit for Families: Achieving a quality, safe, competitive private rented sector |
Residential Landlords Association |
24th |
13:00 |
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Manufacturing: How to be pro-growth |
Demos and MBDA |
24th |
17:30 |
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Air tax, visas, connectivity – does the UK have an aviation policy for growth? |
Transport Hub, AOA and ABTA |
24th |
18:45 |
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Powering sustainable growth: Seizing economic opportunity from renewable energy Labour Friends of Cycling |
Dods Renewable Energy Dialogue Labour Friends of Cycling event |
24th 23rd |
19:30 12.30 |
*NOTE: Some events have recently confirmed female speakers and posted on their websites. We have struck through these events to highlight this. To create our table, we used data which was correct as of midday 19th September, from fringe.labour.org.uk .
**[statistical side note – expected value is 19 events, with standard deviation 4, so 34 is approximately 3.5 standard deviations from the expected value, and would generally be assumed to be statistically significant]
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