New ICANN Board of Director Appointments
When the ICANN Nomcom (ICANN’s substitute for elections) announced its new picks for the Board, GNSO, CCNSO and ALAC imagine my disappointment. Except for returning 2 women to posts they had served one term in, no women were appointed. No new women were added to the ranks of ICANN’s leadership. Only 2 women were appointed out of 9 appointments. Where is the gender balance in that? Did anyone ever consider gender balance?
This is not to say that there weren’t some excellent choices among those chosen. I do not want to mark them with those who despise me, so I will not single out the ones I think are marvelous. But they know, because I wrote and told them how I happy I was about their appointments.
In regard to the Board, where currently only one woman is a member (1 in 15) and where another 2 are non-voting liaisons for a total of 3 woman’s voices in a group of 21, this is a real problem.
In the best of all possible worlds, I would like to see the Swedish standard for the Board of Directors - full gender parity. Instead we see something more reminiscent of what we see in the male dominated cultures of the world (you know the ones where women live in a separate space, and have to hide behind a burka, or cover their hair with a fake wig and sit on the other side of the curtain).
I do not expect ICANN to come out of the male dominated darkness all in one step, but it would be good to see some forward movement each year. And the Nomcom is the place where such steps must be taken. Gender MUST become one of the balancing factors used in deciding who gets what post.
The ratios in ALAC, ccNSO and GNSO are a little better.* They could be closer to parity, but I admit that, unfortunately, that may be a pipe dream. But the Board is, as one friend said, embarrassing. It is embarrassing in this day and age for an institution with such an influence over the most modern of our institutions, the Internet, to still reflect such an old fashioned and regressive gender balance in its leadership.
It is too late for this year, but another Nomcom is already cranking up for next year’s class. I surely hope that gender balance for its leadership, especially in the Board of Directors, is among their goals.
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* Worse then I thought when I originaly wrote this. It seems that 4 women, 1 in the GNSO and 3 in ALAC were replaced by men. So instead of remaining constant, the number of women in ICANN leadership roles has gone down.
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Note the writer, me, has a part time Adjunct Professor’s appointment in the Division of Gender and Innovation in the Department of Work Sciences at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. As an American living part time in Sweden, I get to see the difference gender parity makes. More about that some other time.
