Is Your After Dinner Speaker a Man?

Have you been addressed by an after dinner speaker lately and was the speaker a man? You might not have thought much of it during the speech, but actually most professional after dinner speakers are men. Take any speakers’ bureau in the UK and look through their roster of business and politics after dinner speaker: the majority will be male.

In our modern society where equality of the sexes and political correctness are central to the daily running of businesses, looking into the facts behind why after dinner speakers should be so overwhelmingly male is interesting. Many people firmly back the argument that the industries from which many after dinner speakers are sourced are sexist and not the speaking business itself. This does make sense: most after dinner speakers previously worked in politics, business or sport. All of these industries are very male dominated. It is also true that the spheres in which after dinner speakers work are likely to be mostly male. For example, the business speaker will mostly work at business conferences which are attended by more men than women, although women are increasingly moving into the business sphere.

However, as time goes on, the after dinner speakers you can see in the rosters of the leading speaking agencies are beginning to change. There are more female speakers than ever. Female after dinner speakers are in higher demand than ever before. All the same, in our politically correct society there are still claims of discrepancies in the levels of pay of male and female speakers. Even in the glossy world of after dinner speaking, equality is a long way off.