The problem with tech conferences isn’t just the lack of women — both speakers and attendees — it’s also that these events really aren’t designed for women, according to Ensono’s second-annual Speak Up report. Microphones designed to clip onto a suit jacket are more difficult to attach to a dress, for example, and on-stage barstools are tricky to navigate for skirt-wearing panelists.

In this year’s report, Ensono looked at these and other unconscious biases in conference design and how they affect women’s experiences. It also asked women of color about their specific conference experiences and found women of color are more likely to experience discrimination than their white counterparts, and even less likely than white women to give keynotes.

But, now that several big conferences this year and even CES 2021 have gone virtual because of COVID-19, there’s an opportunity to fix these problems and diversify events — both digital conferences and, hopefully someday in the future, in-person events as well — said Lin Classon, VP of product management at Ensono, who inspired the study after her experience at AWS re:Invent.

“If we continue to speak up, change will happen,” Classon said. “But this is not going to happen overnight.”

Classon’s a data scientist, so she’s looking forward to seeing the data from next year’s survey of 2020 (primarily virtual events). But anecdotally, she’s seen more women attendees, panelists, and keynote speakers at digital events compared to last year’s in-person conferences.

“If we can, when we are all virtual, include more women, when we go back to the real world we get to ask the question: what is the real blocker? What prevents a company from sending female employees to these conferences? What prevents conference organizers from inviting more female keynote speakers? You no longer have the excuse that we don’t have any female keynote speakers because I couldn’t find any,” Classon said. “They are at your virtual conferences. So certainly once we all go back to the real world, they’re still there.”

Ensono audited 18 major tech conferences in 2018 and again in 2019. These included AWS Summit UK, CES, Google Cloud Next, MWC, and RSA APJ. It also surveyed 500 women from the U.S. and the U.K. who attended a tech conference over the last 12 months. Of these women, 81% held a technical role in their organization. This year, the survey also asked women their ethnicity: 64% said white, 8% Latinx, 14% Black, 1% Native American, 11% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 2% identified as other.

The report found that conferences have made some progress. For example, after famously not including any women in its 2017 or 2018 keynote lineup, CES finally invited women to give four of its nine keynotes in 2019.

Women made up 28% of keynote speakers at tech conferences over the last three years, while women of color made up only 8%. The percentage of keynote speakers who are women of color has risen since 2017 — and that percentage jumped from 5% in 2018 to 14% in 2019. But the report largely attributes this gain to the European conference series The Next Web (TNW). In 2019, 42 of TNW’s speakers were women of color compared to just nine in 2018.

Additionally, of the women who had given a keynote, 71% said conferences were not designed with women in mind — think: the on-stage barstools, taller podiums designed for men, and microphones that don’t attach easily to dresses. “This is what we call design bias,” Classon said.

Overall, survey respondents say a lack of facilities for women remains an issue, and only 24% of survey respondents said they’ve been to a conference with on-site nursing rooms.

The problem is that conference organizers often aren’t aware of these seemingly small things that make conferences less comfortable for women to attend, Classon said. “It’s not because they don’t care, and we have seen a lot of male allies that really want to drive change as well.”

Classon said she has had colleagues ask her why these things matter. “It’s like death by 1,000 cuts,” she said. “It assumes the speaker is male. All these women are experts in their fields, they are very well respected by their colleagues, and when they get to the conference, they are constantly being reminded that this field does not assume that they should be here.”

While part of the problem may be due to unconscious biases, some is blatantly overt. 39% of women who have given keynotes said they’ve experienced sexual harassment at an event, compared to 29% of women overall. Additionally, 62% of women who have given keynotes say they’ve experienced discrimination at an event compared to 48% of women overall.

Conferences organizers have a role to play in driving change. They can designate more mothers’ rooms, rent smaller podiums, and address sexual harassment and discrimination allegations. But companies’ can also send more female employees to these events and take steps to improve female attendees’ experience, the report says.

First, large tech companies that run their own conferences or are high-level sponsors at others can set clear guidelines for amenities they require for women such as mothers’ rooms, on-site childcare, or child-care stipends. They can also refuse to send employees to events that don’t meet these standards.

“And if they would like to take a step further, they could demand the keynote speaker lineup not be an all-male panel. The so-called manel,” Classon said.

When female employees return from conferences, the report suggests soliciting feedback and sharing it with event organizers. Similarly, companies should look for similar design biases at their own facilities and equipment.

Companies can also vet conferences for female-friendly features ahead of time, thus exerting subtle pressure on the organizers. “If representatives from dozens of companies proactively ask whether the conference provides mothers’ rooms, conference organizers will likely make mothers’ rooms a higher priority,” the report says. “While it’s unlikely many in-person conferences will move forward this year, now is a great time to start planning for 2021.”