Women are less likely to participate in proceedings at medical and scientific conferences, even with gender-balanced delegates, although simple interventions in conference design sparked a significant improvement in female inclusion, a study has found.
Over the last few decades, women have comprised roughly half of undergraduates in medicine, but remain distinctly underrepresented in medical faculty positions. This imbalance should have been corrected by now, said the study’s lead author, Dr Victoria Salem, an endocrinologist and senior research clinical fellow at Imperial College London.
Despite the even gender balance of delegates, the researchers found that women asked fewer and shorter questions at the 2017 conference – about one out of five questions or comments came from women. Questions from men lasted a combined total of two hours 54 minutes, versus 56 minutes for women over the course of both conferences.
For the 2018 conference, the researchers worked with the organisers to ensure more sessions with at least one woman in a chair position – and found that more female chairs resulted in an increase in female audience questions. In addition, if a woman was the first to ask a question, that increased the odds several times of subsequent audience contributions from a woman, according to the paper, published in the Lancet.
Source: Women participate less at conferences, even if gender-balanced – study | Gender | The Guardian