In 2013, in the stylish atrium of a Seattle ad agency, I moderated a panel for the 3 Percent Movement, an organization founded to address the dismal statistic that at the time of its beginnings, only 3 percent of advertising creative directors were women (according to the organization’s website, that number has climbed to 11 percent). There were three women and one man on the panel. The audience was almost exclusively women.

Our conversation was wide-ranging and sometimes contentious: We talked about the implications of men sculpting women’s insecurities to maximize corporate profits and how even a gender-blind application process isn’t a perfect fix in a society that punishes feminine boldness and confidence.

Whenever talk turned toward solutions, the panel came back to mentorship: women lifting up other women. Assertiveness and leaning in and ironclad portfolios and marching into that interview and taking the space you deserve and changing the ratio and not letting Steve from accounting talk over you in the meeting.

During the closing question-and-answer period, a young woman stood up. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice electric with anger, “but all I’ve heard tonight are a bunch of things women can do to fight sexism. Why is that our job? We didn’t build this system. This audience should be full of men.”