Are Manels Losing Ground?

November 8, 2019

Stay in the know with exclusive industry news, click here and subscribe to our eNewsletter today!

The first time Gina Glantz used social media to call attention to the lack of female representation on a conference panel, she was “rebuked,” recalls Glantz, the founder of the nonprofit initiative GenderAvenger.

That was nearly seven years ago, when Glantz, a veteran political campaign strategist and consultant, was a lecturer at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School. When the school’s Institute of Politics announced a lineup of five white male speakers for a prestigious panel, “well,” Glantz said, “that just sent me around the bend.”

In response, she fired off a Facebook post, pointing out that the institute had overlooked and excluded highly qualified women from the panel. After a power outage forced the panel to be postponed, Glantz wrote another post, attributing the turn of events to divine retribution. When her widely circulated posts got the attention of influential people, Glantz was called on the carpet for her critique. That didn’t faze her, Glantz said, but the experience did sensitize her to how wherever she looked, men dominated the public dialogue — and that there was a price for speaking up.

Read full article

Back To Top