The San Mateo County Commission on the Status of Women’s biannual Women’s Leadership Conference (WLC) brings together women and girls for a day focused on cultivating female leaders. After a sold-out inaugural event in 2018, we are launching our second conference on March 7, 2020 at Skyline College in San Bruno, CA.

This year’s theme, “RISE 2020,” invites our participants and sponsors to reimagine, inspire, support, and empower women leading the way for gender equity, inclusion, and access efforts at home and abroad. Our conference program takes inspiration from community conversations held around San Mateo County in 2018-2019 to ask what women here need.

Our speakers will represent diversity of thought and experience that is integral to expanding opportunities for women across social and cultural differences, including gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, sexuality, and disability.

At present, women make up more than half the US population and account for 47% of the U.S. labor force and 52.5% of the college-educated workforce. Yet they lag substantially behind in leadership positions. Even with significant gains in 2018 elections, women only represent 24% of members in Congress, 28% of seats in state legislatures, 18% of governors and women of color represent less than 9% of members of Congress. Overall, there is a gap between the small numbers of women at the top and the vast majority of women nationwide.* Located at the epicenter of progress and innovation, our conference aims to promote inclusive leadership and community-building by supporting current and future female change-makers.

*The Women’s Leadership Gap, Judith Warner, Nora Ellman, Diana Doesch, November 2018