On Keeping Women Speakers In the Literal Picture: The Importance of First Impressions
Traditionally, the national Democratic and Republican conventions mark the official launch of the U.S. presidential campaign season. The conventions introduce — and in 2020, reintroduce — the nominees to voters over a concentrated few days. They often form first impressions of what the future might hold, and this year is no exception. Images of speakers extolling the virtues and the policies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump become forceful imprints of their respective messages to move voters to their candidacies.
I have always believed that images are as important as words. As a result, images must match the message. Images are what most folks will retain while they absorb a few sentences (mostly those repeated by the media), because distractions are aplenty around our homes these days.
At GenderAvenger, we only share what we can see and count. The introduction of the Biden-Harris team was an extraordinary image in itself.
To watch the Democratic National Convention was to witness the great diversity of America.
The image of the Trump-Pence team is what it is. The Republican National Convention speaker lineup did have a good amount of women— white women. Indeed, there were more women directly connected to the Trump family than there were women of color speaking at the convention.
Now that I have your attention let’s agree that first impressions are critical to the success of any venture, whether it’s a high profile national convention or your introduction to an upcoming local event. Whatever you might be invited to participate in or attend, its promotion is likely to be accompanied by a photo of some of its speakers. That initial photo sends a strong message about the organizers’ values and sets expectations for its participants.
In today’s world, first impressions are most often found in event website speaker sections and in email promotions for virtual events.
The FWD Conference, a global digital government gathering of technologists and executives who focus on innovation, is slated for November and is already getting attention for its consideration of gender representation. Of course, it will be important to check back to make sure there is no slippage, but so far, so good.
The CNBC Playbook tells a tale of up, down, and recovery. Good for them. The event launch included strong representation of women, including women of color, but a week or so later they added two men, which dropped them out of contention for a GenderAvenger Stamp of Approval. Happily, at the time of the actual event, they earned a Silver GA Stamp with over 40% women, of whom 45% were women of color. It looks like there was strong intent with a misstep in promotion along the way. This is something for organizers to watch as they proceed.
Attention to the speaker lineup means more than just the creation of a balanced list.
Who is being featured in promotions determines first impressions, and the value of women’s inclusion is diminished if they are not part of the event promotion. More importantly, people’s impressions of the women themselves are diminished. It’s a mystery to me why three white men would be featured when the entire event includes more women speakers than men: WWD Beauty CEO Summit: Gender Imbalance or Just Bad Marketing?
Saying it will change doesn’t work.
Remember what Will Rogers (or maybe Oscar Wilde) said, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression." (Fun fact found in research for this blog: this was the slogan of Botany Suits in 1966.)
You know you are in trouble when you have to say, “wait, wait”: Yale Gets Schooled About Creating a Balanced Speaker List.
And don’t think you can avoid that embarrassment by faking it.
And these are certainly one of my favorite series of tweets:
In honor of these political times, let me end this litany of examples by quoting the great Hunter S. Thompson, “The first impression is always the right one. I rarely change my mind upward about people.”
All this to say, think about the impression you are making from the very beginning of your promotional plans: make sure you have gender balance and strong representation of women of color. It is the world we seek, and it is the world we can create.