How can Israel 'Face Tomorrow' with so few women at its Presidential Conference?

Maybe there were no women on that panel because it's not news that women assess and evaluate actions, identifying modes of improvement. For men to admit they make mistakes...that's panelworthy. (remember when we used to do that "coding" sarcasm thing instead of sardonic hashtaggery?) But in all seriousness, most Jewish conferences need to get their acts together on this issue. The World Council of Jewish Communal Service, which just finished yesterday in Jerusalem (#wcjcs12) had a much better ratio - while the content may not have been as sexy as the big names brought by the President's Conference, it was a much better representation of the Jewish present and future.

What is the big surprise having few women in cohgress The reasonoing is that the women are doing a more important line of work THEY ARE KEEPING A HOME STRONG There is no lack of women except for the few taht being feminists do not care for congress but want to show off

I know it seems a small point but women are not a minority. In fact, they are a slight numerical majority. Perhaps that is part of the issue: men and women alike have to remember that women are more than 50% of us and must be treated as such.

I am man and was at the Conference as well. At some point, I also noticed that there was a jarring lack of women on the panels. Jarring because women were well represented in the audience, as moderators and even among the journalists covering the event. Jarring, as well, because my entire professional (and educational) career to date I have been surrounded by women in a female majority environment. Statistically, this is also true in most white collar jobs below the boardroom level in Israel and the US today. I also noticed the absence of important issues at the Conference such as education, which you really don't need to be a mother, or even a father, to appreciate their importance for the future. So kudos to Allison for pointing out the white elephant in the room. I would only add to what she wrote by stating that I still expect conference organizers to pick panel speakers based on their accomplishments and level of importance to the issues at hand. But to think that this would naturally lead to only 18% women panel participation, anecdotally and probably statistically, doesn't mesh with the realities in a lot of the fields represented.

Three interesting women that could be invited to future international conference in Jerusalem are : Lenore Terr Judith Lewis-Herman Jennifer Freyd

The tomorrow is to sell Israel to the outside world - techno world. It is not to look inwards at our society and discuss the issues that concern us as women, mothers, etc. This selling has its own importance for us, our biggest export is brains. I can not remember when there was a serious trans cultural conference with male and female 'experts'. I am not surprised that actual day to day living was not discussed.

Allison, thanks for writing a more in-depth post about this huge issue that many of us seemed to notice at the conference this year. It's really quite infuriating and it makes me feel like the liberal left are not much different than the Charedim.

Time to stop this overt and unjust discrimination. There are zero excuses anymore.