  In recent years, the striking gender imbalance in the physical sciences has
been a topic for much debate. National bodies and professional societies in the
astronomical and space sciences are now taking active steps to understand and
address this imbalance. In order to begin this process in the Australian Space
Research community, we must first understand the current state of play. In this
work, we therefore present a short 'snapshot' of the current gender balance in
our community, as observed at the 15th Australian Space Research Conference.
  We find that, at this year's conference, male attendees outnumbered female
attendees by a ratio of 3:1 (24% female). This gender balance was repeated in
the distribution of conference talks and plenary presentations (25 and 22%
female, respectively). Of the thirteen posters presented at the conference,
twelve were presented by men (92%), a pattern repeated in the awards for the
best student presentations (seven male recipients vs one female). The program
and organising committees for the meeting fairly represented the gender balance
of the conference attendees (28% and 30% female, respectively). These figures
provide a baseline for monitoring future progress in increasing the
participation of women in the field. They also suggest that the real barrier is
not speaking, but in enabling conference attendance and retaining female
scientists through their careers - in other words, addressing and repairing the
'leaky pipeline'.
