Have you ever noticed the phenomenon that, overwhelmingly, it’s the men who ask the questions at the end of panels? We’re not talking about women being interrupted, we’re talking about women not taking the floor.
In my professional life, I have the great good fortune to be regularly invited to moderate panels or take part in technology-related conferences. My role is to make sure I ask the right questions of the panelists, so that their expertise comes to the fore, as well as offering an enriching experience to the audience. The flow of a panel is fairly standard. It’s often 45 minutes, or an hour, of discussion between the panelists, followed by 15 minutes of questions from the audience.
Men ask more questions than women
Whenever it’s time to open the floor to questions from the audience, whether I’m moderating the evening or just attending, it’s a given: men will ask lots of questions and women will ask almost none. This is not my subjective impression. Science has looked into the matter. In a survey of over 600 academics in 20 countries, researchers at various universities discovered that women report asking fewer questions after seminars than men. This impression was confirmed by observation data from almost 250 seminars in 10 countries. It seems that men tend to ask 2.5 times more questions than women at conferences, according to an article in The Economist.
Why is this a problem?
There’s a lot of talk about the importance of representation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and research, to close the gender gap. We want more women and more people from diverse backgrounds to help shape our industry. But this representation would be worthless without participation and commitment. That’s why it’s so important for women to ask questions at panels and conferences.
When the audience is mixed and no women ask questions, it unconsciously sends out the message that no women are interested in the topic, or worse still, that no women understand it well enough to take the discussion further. Because, let’s face it, that’s what panels and conferences are for: to show off your expertise to your peers.
Solutions observed for more female participation in conferences
I’d like to make it clear that men are obviously not to blame for their enthusiasm for asking questions at conferences. It’s more a question of how to get everyone to ask questions. Because women want to ask them. A study in Nature reports that women explain that they keep silent because they don’t know if their question is appropriate, or because they don’t feel bold enough to ask it.
I was a panelist at the annual Physics Symposium for a Future in Research and Industry (SAPHARI), organized by Université de Montréal students, in early March 2020. When the question period opened, some very pertinent and interested questions were asked. The problem? They were only asked by men. After the third question, the moderator, Marie-Ève Naud, announced that we would take a few seconds before opening the floor to the next question, giving those who hadn’t yet dared to speak time to prepare their questions. And then the women’s hands went up.
NousSommesCyber, an organization dedicated to stimulating women’s interest in cybersecurity careers, organizes monthly panels around this theme. The format of their panels is similar to all other technology panels, with one detail: there is no Q&A period between the panelists and the audience. Instead, there’s a networking cocktail that allows all participants to exchange ideas. It’s a formula that gives everyone a chance to chat, not just two or three people, while the others wait their turn. If you’re too shy to ask a question in front of everyone, you can at least ask it face-to-face.
Another solution implemented by some moderators is to specifically ask women to ask questions. I’m not in favor of this tactic. I find it puts extra pressure on women to find a question to ask, where they may not want to. What’s more, since they’re most likely already in the minority in the room, as is often the case in STEM, it only accentuates the feeling of being different from the majority.
An article on the Oxfam website reports an interesting idea. One moderator says that before the panel starts, he announces that there will be a question and answer period, and that he will take them in the order of “woman-man-woman-man”. This allows the audience to prepare themselves mentally and not be presented with a fait accompli.
The researchers who carried out the above-mentioned study offer several other possible solutions:
- Encourage event organizers not to neglect inviting speakers from within the organization. Research has shown that women tend to participate more when the speaker is known.
- Increasing the number of questions allowed increases the proportion of questions asked by women.
- Keeping questions and answers short allows more questions to be asked and could be an alternative method of allowing a higher proportion of questions from women.
- Give priority to a woman for the first question asked. Indeed, a question asked first by a woman is a good indicator of a low gender disparity and a benevolent environment that will encourage women to speak up.
Finally, I’d like to pass on to you the advice of Louise Lafortune, professor emeritus at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, researcher, author and consultant in education and health, which she herself implements in her professional life:… and how to make sure they do.
- Ask a question and announce that the audience will be given a few seconds to think of an answer.
- Encourage by asking “Who’s interested in this subject…?
- Use the same vocabulary as the people you’re talking to, so as to stay in the same register and avoid creating a distance between the audience and the experts.
- Relate your own stress about expressing an idea in front of an audience of strangers. Especially if you know that there may be people who disagree with you.
- Be careful about using “that’s a good question” or “that’s an interesting question”, as this may indicate that the other questions are not.
- If someone in the audience says “that may be a silly question, but…”, we may need to question ourselves as moderators. Maybe we haven’t created an inclusive climate so that the audience feels comfortable asking any question. We can make up for this with the phrase: “All questions are welcome”.
