At a major cybersecurity event in April, the only woman out of 20 keynote speakers will be a social commentator.
Her name is Monica Lewinsky, and she advocates to prevent cyberbullying.
The other 19 keynote speakers and moderators, who will present during the four-day RSA Conference in San Francisco, are men. Of those men, all but one are cybersecurity experts.
The lineup has frustrated people in the cybersecurity field, with Facebook's chief security officer, Alex Stamos, taking to Twitter to criticize the conference organizers for leaving women out of RSA's top speaking roles. He even suggested he'd host an alternative conference nearby with a host of women experts, at which his role would be to hand out popcorn.
Lewinsky said on Twitter that she found out about the all-male lineup this week, and told USA Today in a statement that she's asked organizers to do better. "I'm disappointed by this oversight but RSA has about six weeks until the conference, so I'm optimistic that the matter will be rectified by then," she said.
RSA Conference vice president and curator Sandra Toms said in an interview that the lineup is not finalized and that more women could join the list of keynote speakers before the event begins. US Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has been formally invited, for example, but isn't yet confirmed to speak. Other invitations to women keynote speakers are still pending, Toms said.
"We strive each year for a diverse speaking panel," Toms said.
The dustup reflects a persistent problem in tech that happens to be even worse in cybersecurity. Women work in just 11 percent of jobs in this field (PDF). That's bad because security companies say they can't hire skilled people fast enough. Alienating women with the potential to excel at cybersecurity could make us all less safe, especially as hackers continually hammer computer networks to steal our sensitive information.
It also comes as tech conferences continue to take heat for gender bias. In January, organizers of CES, a giant consumer electronics trade show in Las Vegas, caught criticism for excluding women from their slate of speakers, too. And in 2016 at Defcon, a major hacking conference in Las Vegas, women complained of a hostile atmosphere that left them feeling unwelcome.