A study found that women are less likely than men to attend scientific and medical conferences. However, simple changes in conference design can result in significant improvements in female inclusion.These conferences are crucial for the professional visibility of academics and clinicians. Researchers conducted this analysis using data from the Society for Endocrinology's annual national conferences.Women have accounted for roughly half of medical undergraduates over the past few decades but are still disproportionately underrepresented on medical faculty. This imbalance must have been rectified by now, according to Dr Victoria Salem (an endocrinologist, senior research clinical fellow, Imperial College London).Inertia is a system problem. Part of that is due to the lack of role models. The next generation won't be able to dream if there aren't more women speaking up and being expert voices and spokespeople.Salem and her coworkers analysed the questions and comments received from the Society for Endocrinology conference of 2017 and 2018. Nearly 1,000 people attended the conference, with roughly half of them women. The 2018 conference saw the authors implementing interventions to increase female inclusion.The researchers found that, despite the equal gender ratio of conference attendees, women asked less and shorter questions than men at 2017. In fact, one in five comments or questions was from women at the 2017 conference. The combined time for questions from women and men was 56 minutes.There are still clearly visible differences between male and female behavior. Salem said that whatever the reason, it doesn't matter if it is biological or social engineering. We need to address this and make sure that we deliver platforms that allow equal access to science.It's common to talk about women needing support, but in reality, we have created a scientific culture that may make it more difficult for them, said Kevin Murphy, senior author and professor of metabolism at Imperial College London.Many men will be happy with this, but it is incumbent upon us to take a closer look at our behavior. He said that while endocrinology was considered a female-friendly specialty, it was likely that men were taking over in other specialties.The 2018 conference saw more sessions featuring at least one woman as a chair. Researchers worked closely with conference organizers to ensure that this happened. They also found that there was a greater number of female audience members asking questions. According to the Lancet paper, the chances of a woman asking a question was increased severalfold if she is the first one to do so.According to the authors, these findings show that small changes can make a huge difference. Murphy said that conferences are constantly being improved to make them more accessible. If we believe that more diversity and equality is a positive thing, we should tweak things to make it easier for people to achieve equality and diversity.
