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Description: Gender diversity and the lack of women in leadership in academia has been an issue of academic interest for decades. However, little is known about gender diversity at academic conferences as an essential aspect of academia. We investigated the gender diversity of 86,719 contributions to ICA conferences over the past 18 years. We also investigated how gender diversity changed following the introduction of childcare, during the global pandemic, and under female division leadership. Lastly, we analyzed differences in gender diversity between divisions/interest groups and by authors’ national affiliation. We found that gender diversity scores are very high in all conference years and are representative of the gender diversity of ICA members. We found differences in gender diversity between divisions, countries of author affiliation, based on the availability of childcare, and during the global pandemic. We discuss implications for the field of communication science and for the organization of future conferences.