Thirty Years and Counting: Do We Still Need the ICIS Women’s Breakfast?

Abstract

This article discusses an important panel held at ICIS 2011 in Shanghai to mark over thirty years of an ICIS institution, the ICIS Women's Breakfast. The panel addressed the controversial question-is there still a need for the ICIS Women's Breakfast? Panelists were asked if the ICIS Women's Breakfast could be seen as divisive, and if women's issues are different from issues of diversity such as race or sexual orientation. They were also asked why they thought women were still underrepresented in our academic community, and if the lack of women at senior levels was a concern for the community. Finally, the panelists were asked what practices the community would need to adopt to combat what could be seen as structural discrimination in our community, which we believe reflects the wider world we live in. We frame the debate and the ensuing discussion in the literature about women in academia, and conclude with some practical and constructive recommendations for the community as a whole. Thirty Years and Counting: Do We Still Need the ICIS Women's Breakfast? Thirty Years and Counting: Do We Still Need the ICIS Women's Breakfast? 82 Volume 33 Article 6  How far can we help each other? Does structural discrimination exist, and, if it does, how can it be dealt with? Volume 33 Article 6 83Each panelist spoke for a few minutes and answered questions from the audience. After each panelist had spoken, the floor was opened and a lively debate ensued. This report summarizes the panelists' responses to the questions and the discussion that followed. The report is structured as follows. First, the debate is given a context using current literature on the position of women in academia. Second, the responses to each question and related discussion are presented and the open discussion session described. Finally, we discuss the steps needed to ensure the dialogue continues, again framing the discussion with current literature. Volume 33Article 6

AIS Women’s Network: Advancing Women in IS Academia

“…The number of women in information systems (IS) has been declining for over twenty-five years, and this decrease exceeds that found in other STEM disciplines such as math and the sciences (Dubow 2010;Loiacono et al 2013;Ramsey & McCorduck, 2005). In the academic community, this disparity has manifested in a significantly lower percentage of women journal editorships, the underrepresentation of women on conference panels and committees, and their absence in top-tier IS journal publications (Lamp 2007) even though women make up approximately 25 percent of the IS discipline (and approximately 29% of the AIS).…”

“…In fact, in 2012, the need for the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS) women's breakfast 1 , a long-standing support vehicle for women networking in the IS academic community, was called into question. This resulted in a panel discussion at ICIS 2012 (Loiacono et al 2013) that firmly established the criticality and need for a strong, independent network and support group for IS women.…”

“…Only then can we develop viable, practical solutions to help solve these problems. Attempts have begun to address some of the difficulties that women AIS members have identified (Loiacono et al 2013).…”