The poor representation of women on panels discussing important social, policy, and theological questions at Muslim centered events has “dire consequences for our communities” explains Samar Kaukab, who’s Executive Director at Arete, University of Chicago.
She goes on to add that the Muslim communities in the U.S. lose out because “our collective thinking, ideation, and even group decision making suffers when we don’t have diverse voices at the table.”
Having actively participated in the #noallmalepanels hashtag conversations, Samar explains the importance of the hashtag:
“This hashtag conversation was a strategic mechanism to bring this topic of visible female representation on our panels, our conferences, and gatherings forward. People noticed, they discussed the topic, and most importantly, they asked questions about what it would actually mean to to implement something like this.”
“Essentially, by giving people an easy way to increase women’s participation (i.e., have a woman on every panel), organizations and panel hosts have a metric they can easily achieve and measure their efforts towards this essential goal.”
Read more.
See altM’s coverage of the #NoAllMalePanels twitter event.
I recently wrote about the RIS convention in Toronto.
http://mezba.blogspot.ca/2015/11/why-ris-list-of-speakers-is-inexcusable.html
On the same day as the government of Canada unveiled a 50-50 gender split in cabinet, Canada’s premier Islamic conference published its list of speakers. Only 6 out of 23 speakers scheduled are women, and only 1 Canadian.