TEDWomen. What’s Next, TEDAfricanAmerican? TEDGay?

TED recently announced a new conference: TEDWomen. TPUTH‘s snarky headline said it all: “Sexist TED finally allows women on stage.”

TED’s rational for the gender segregation: “Over the past several years, our ideas on women have changed. A new lens reveals women and girls as powerful change agents in the area of economic growth, public health, political stability and beyond.”

Really? This is news? This JUST happened? We can do more than cook and clean? Did the feminist movement never happen?

Imagine if TED decided to launch a TED African American. Imagine the justifiable outcry. But apparently it’s still okay to marginalize women in the name of gender equality. And, this strategy of creating a new ‘special interest’ wing for an organization is a common strategy used to avoid the integration of women or blacks into the main organization, and thus accessing power and position.

Maybe TED should work on including women more in regular TED (should we call it TEDMen now? Or not, because apparently maleness is still the default and assumed gender). If the gender balance totally sucks, why not figure out why and fix it? If there are so many awesome women (enough to fill a new conference), it shouldn’t be a problem.

No comments yet.

Leave a Reply