There’s been a movement around #payToSpeak conferences on Twitter and elsewhere, that is conferences where the speaker essentially ends up paying to speak there (travel expenses, time put into the talk, time not working when being at the conference etc.). I think that speakers should be paid, or they at least shouldn’t be going negative in budget to speak at a conference. Here’s my experience:
I was taught asking someone how much money they made was a rude question. You just don’t do it along with talking about politics and religion and a myriad of other somewhat taboo things. But why? Equal pay day wasn’t that long ago and a contribution to the reason that women don’t get paid as much is because we don’t know that we aren’t…so let’s talk about it! I got the motivation from this great article by Ellen Pao. Check that out for more ideas.
