Women speakers at conferences redux

A few months back, Chris Messina started something of a storm about the representation of women at web conferences.
Many bits were expended on the issue, including by me. I won't reprise all that here, however Jason Kottke has just posted an analysis of the % representation of women at a number of tech conferences, including Web Directions North. We came in just behind SxSW, with 25% of our speakers women.
I'd also point out that two of the four keynote speakers were women, that 1/3 of our workshops were run by women (1 in 3), and that women were represented across a broad range of disciplines (front end development, back end development, user experience, and more).

Kottke writes in summary

From this list, it seems to me that either the above concerns are not getting through to conference organizers or that gender diversity doesn't matter as much to conference organizers as they publicly say it does

Some of the conferences come in with very low percentages for women, it is true. And in fact other groups, like ethnic minorities (which Kottke doesn't mention) are even less well represented.

But, I wonder what numbers Kottke thinks is acceptable? 24%, 33%? 50%? I'd suggest that given SxSW comes in around 30%, and we came in at around 25%, and I know SxSW works very hard on ensuring a diversity of voices, as do we, that 25% to 30% is probably the kind of number right now you might aim for.
Without wishing to sound whiney, but we have worked very hard for the last three years (after an admitted screw up with our first conference) to make sure that women are well represented - not just numerically, but in terms of expertise.

But, Kottke is right to point this out. In my opinion, as a conference organizer, you are, whether you like it or not, putting your hand up as a leader in our industry. You are helping to shape opinions as to what techniques and issues are important, and you send out all kinds messages, that you need to be responsible for. We all draw the line in different places, we all have thoughts as to what is or isn't an important message to present, but we can't shy away from the consequences.

Just on a side note, The Turing Award, is the Association for Computer Machinery's most prestigious technical award. "It is given to an individual selected for contributions of a technical nature made to the computing community. The contributions should be of lasting and major technical importance to the computer field". This year's recipient is Frances Allen. She is the first ever recipient in the 41 year history of the award. That's 0% until this year, and 2.5% overall.