Female participation at conferences is weaker – study
Female participation at conferences is weaker, researchers say. According to a new UK study published in the Lancet, women are less likely to actively participate in medical and scientific conferences, even with gender-balanced delegates.
The analysis was based on the female participation at the UK Society for Endocrinology (SfE) annual national conference, the SfE BES. Researchers analysed questions and comments from multiple sessions conducted at the conference in 2017 and 2018.
Both conferences were attended by approximately 1,000 delegates – of which roughly half were women – each year. More specifically, 1098 delegates attended SfE BES in 2017, of whom 516 (47%) were women. In 2018, 962 delegates attended and 481 (50%) were women.
Gender balance in delegates, but weaker participation
What researchers found is that despite the gender-balanced delegacy, 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 the conferences.
In 2017, just 24% of all questions and comments at the conference were from women, and 48% of these questions were from session chairs. Only 30% of questions from men were from session chairs. Thus, even with a gender-balanced audience, women are less likely than men to ask a question, and women in the audience are least likely to ask a question, researchers say.
A simple intervention sparked an improvement in female inclusion
For the 2018 conference, researchers carried out an intervention intended to improve female inclusion. They asked 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.
As a result of the intervention, in 2018, there were more sessions with at least one woman in a chair position (47% of sessions were male-only chaired in 2017, compared with 34% sessions in 2018). Also, the proportion of questions from women (35%) was significantly greater than in 2017 (24%). The proportion of questions from women coming from session chairs did not change between 2017 (48%) and 2018 (45%).
Based on these observations, researchers suggest that more female chairs resulted in an increase in female audience questions.
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