Women Continue To Dominate The Meetings Profession

Behind every good meeting, or so it often seems, there's a woman.

Just what percentage of meeting planners are female has not been documented, and perhaps, given the often unofficial nature of the job, it never will. But as anyone who's ever attended an industry gathering can tell you, women form a powerful presence.

Why have so many women gravitated toward this field? Most attempts to explain it fall back on those oft-quoted cliches about female traits: Women are people oriented, women are good at details and, of course, women know all about juggling acts.

Whatever their reasons, many women have recognized meetings management as an important new avenue toward career fulfillment in a world where corporate and organizational hierarchies are still mostly male. A lot of today's meetings management jobs didn't exist 20 years ago, and a lot of those jobs are held by women.

For many female planners, particularly those who began their careers as secretaries or administrative assistants, meeting planning was an unofficial sideline which, for those adept at seizing opportunity, became a passport into management. Inevitably, as meeting planning has gained more recognition and professional status, so have the women who practice it.

That's not to say that women, even in this female-friendly profession, don't have a long way to go in closing the gender gap. According to a 1996 survey by Meeting Professionals International, female meeting planners earn an average of $38,180 a year, while their male counterparts pull in $55,840.

Will things get better? Probably, but a lot depends on how women continue to build on what they've already achieved. The need to master technology, often not perceived as a female strength, is escalating in all directions. Being at home at the keyboard is not enough. Planners now have to brave the increasingly Star Wars world of meetings production and leap through the nets--inter, intra and extra--without getting tangled.

But the greatest obstacle that is facing many women these days is not technology or gender bias, it's time. There is just not enough of it.

Balancing career and family responsibilities, always a largely female burden, is getting even tougher thanks to a downsized corporate structure with little or no support staff, greater workloads and the ever-shortening lead time for meetings. Covering the bases is hard enough these days, let alone finding time for a marketing seminar, networking event or other means toward professional growth.

On a more positive note, the increasingly entrepreneurial aspect of meeting planning holds significance for women in their quest for career advancement and satisfaction. As in all aspects of business, meeting planners who are women are the ones who are the most likely to forsake the corporate structure for an alternative situation in which they have more flexibility and control over their lives.

"The meetings industry has opened up tremendous opportunities for women to go into business for themselves," said Dawn Penfold, a former corporate planner who started her own business, a placement company called The Meeting Candidate Network, seven years ago. "The vast majority of independent meeting planners are women, and they're running companies that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago.