Being the only female on the panel

THE season brimming with festivals, conferences and official gatherings is upon us. One will no doubt find oneself in perilous proximity to a “manel”. The manel – for the nonacquainted – is a men-only panel of experts. Don’t be coy, we’ve all enjoyed a manel at some point recently. It’s just men sharing manly wisdom with an audience, almost always on a subject that affects both sexes.

Sure, it would have been smashing to have a female entrepreneur, venture capitalist, scientist, political thinker, comedian, author and so on behind that foldaway portable conference table, contributing to the penis-heavy banter and blue-sky thinking, but for many reasons it just didn’t happen. I can’t blame just men for the existence of manels.

Both sexes are at fault. The manel’s longevity is a murky, complex affair and it would help if we could all discuss it without fighting and slamming doors. Perhaps someone – with or without a penis – could organise a panel about it.

First of all, I’d argue that the average manel – the poor thing – really does not want to be a manel. It’s an awkward, backwards-looking creature and it knows it.

Manels would be more than happy to include “a woman”, if they could find one. The emphasis being “one”, singular. Not two women. “But we’ve got a woman!” organisers will be able to say each time someone notices there are 38 male speakers, seven of whom are doing a manel at 10am on “Diversity in the boardroom”, chaired by a man.

Women: if you are happy to be “the woman”, you can sneak yourself into all sorts of places that women aren’t usually invited to. I have been “the woman” on many, many occasions. But then that’s unsurprising, being the over-ambitious, pushy, career-minded bint that I am (which are all cheerful terms “the woman on the manel” will hear bandied about if she insists on speaking publicly).

Thankless

Manels are ripe to be broken into, even if it’s a largely thankless task. “Manel + 1 woman” talks will be mainly from a male perspective.

At very best, the woman will look like an exotic, whimsical creature with esoteric thoughts. At worst she will resemble Millie Tant from Viz dragging the chat back to boring things like equal pay.

More gravely still, she might be overcome by the reality, mid-chat, that most panel talks are a massive exercise in time squandering. They’re simply hot air being spouted for hot air’s sake. At this point, a woman might think she could be spending her time more efficiently getting her actual job done, visiting her ageing mother, picking her kid up from school or using her free time staring at a mountain.

But no, instead she is “the woman” on the industry manel and it’s in a conference in a sludgecoloured facility in Vienna, Dudley or Dusseldorf.

And after the event one of the manel, the one with Donald Trump hair, will decide he’s in love with her, while another will treat her like a rookie in her field who must be chuffed to be out of the house.

No one in the audience will remember anything she said – most panels go largely ignored – but there will be chatter on social media about her pretty dress. In her budget hotel room she will sigh into acrylic pillows over how it was no fun at all being “the woman” but at least she was there “representin’”, as Queen Latifah used to say.

But she will not feel remotely like Queen Latifah as she’s in a Schiphol airport hotel and the complimentary hand soap has given her dermatitis. At this point the ambitious woman might check her e-mail to find she’s been invited to be the obligatory pair of t*** on several other mostly-male panels, unpaid, although they can offer an economy return flight as recompense.

And she may then, quietly, slip away from the speaking circuit. I’m quite sure men have their own multitude of private hells when it comes to public speaking, but nothing which seems to stop them en masse coming back for more. – The Independent