I was at a TEDx-conference yesterday, and a person that I vaguely know. We talked a bit in the first pause, which was preceded by three speakers. Neither of us were super happy with all of them, but had both found some gems. Then she asked me about what I thought about the lineup overall. I had nothing to say about it, so I returned the question.
I think there should’ve been a woman speaking in the first block, it was far too male.
Just next to us stood Helena, who was the moderator of the whole conference. She was the one putting the lineup all together, and so the woman turned to Helena and asked quite aggressively:
“Why wasn’t there a woman in the first block?”
Helena was caught off guard, being in an another conversation at the time. And she responded calmly that she had a plan with the lineup in full, and thought these three speakers could be grouped perfectly. And to the point is that 8 out of 13 people on stage were female.
It’s not really about the gender thing here, nor about representation. It’s about how we ask questions, how we show up in the world.
There’s a million ways to ask the same thing as the woman was trying to find out. ‘What was the thought behind the grouping of the speakers?’ ‘Do you think there’d been any difference if you’d put a woman among the first three speakers?’
The way we ask questions is a window in to the kind of people we are at a certain point in time. This specific woman might have been a subject to injustice treatment because of her gender recently. It might be that she thinks that taking a fight over any type of representation will make a difference. I don’t know, I didn’t ask her.
Ask your questions with care. If you’re curious, show curiosity by opening a conversation up. If you’re not, questions might not be the tool to use at that moment.