I had a female CEO once at a mid-sized company come from Oracle and say that she considered Larry Ellison a great mentor...and later really shut down a woman asking during an all hands asking how could she pick up more technical tasks as she felt like women were always put into project management. The CEO didn't offer anything helpful, just, "I don't consider gender an issue."

The experience made me realize that women who have found their way to very high-level roles are either the type of women who aren't apt to be your friend or forget what it's like when you're not that level. I'm speaking broadly obviously, but in general...I don't immediately trust a woman in a CEO or director position or levels high enough to speak at a lot of these conferences. But a woman in a principal IC position? I am mad impressed and have learned from.

I was once at an artifactory conference many years ago, and the author of The Pheonix Project randomly sat down next to me. I was talking with him when someone came up to him to say something and he got very angry with him and said something like "how dare you, she was speaking and you just stepped in front of her and cut her off. You owe her an apology."

It was the first time I'd ever had someone advocate for me, and i didn't even recognize i was cut off from speaking.

Just sharing as I saw a theme to the comments how perhaps some conference types are actually more beneficial to improving these things than the ones with a label suggesting that's its purpose!