Twenty-five years ago, philharmonic orchestras had virtually zero women within their organizations. This was largely due to a bias in the audition process that favored men. Eventually, a sheet was put up between the musician and audition panel to discourage bias.
This resulted in an uptick in female musicians in philharmonic orchestras; however, bias still found a way to discriminate by listening for the clicking of high heels when walking behind the sheet. Women once again had to trick the system by taking off their shoes.
This is how Blake Irving, CEO of GoDaddy, explained workplace bias during his keynote speech at the Defining Her Future: A Women in Leadership Conference on Friday morning.
The event was put on by the Women in Business Association of Cal Poly to give students networking sessions and panels held by industry experts.
“Women in Business was really founded to build support and empower young women here at Cal Poly,” Women in Business Association co-president Shelby Sly said.
The day started with networking sessions in the Christopher Cohan Performing Arts Center (PAC), followed by Irving’s keynote, then various lectures given by industry experts before ending with a panel and more networking. More than 475 men and women were at the event, including Lionsgate Media CIO Theresa Miller and Christine Songco Lau, a Cal Poly alumnae and senior program manager at Google, as well as team members from IBM.
The keynote highlighted the personalization of technology in today’s world and how diversity in the workplace helps this trend continue, while the various lectures included topics about combating impostor syndrome in the workplace, how women are becoming high-level executives and how to evolve and adapt company and personal brands.
The importance of a conference like this brought in big-name sponsors such as Google and IBM, but it wasn’t just about getting women together for a day of networking, it was also celebrating a change that is happening within Cal Poly as well as society as a whole.
“Something really cool happened in the fall of 2015,” Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong said. “For the first time, probably ever, Cal Poly’s freshmen class was 50+ percent women.”
Considering the fact that Cal Poly’s student body is roughly 54 percent male and 46 percent female, this number could show a change in demographics. But for Irving, it isn’t just about equality or doing what is deemed right. The world’s economy depends on women.
“In most of the world, women are what make the economy move forward,” he said.