{"id":393,"date":"2008-06-11T11:19:49","date_gmt":"2008-06-11T10:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2008\/06\/11\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\/"},"modified":"2010-10-08T14:31:44","modified_gmt":"2010-10-08T13:31:44","slug":"fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2008\/06\/11\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiona Godlee: Where are all the women?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/channels\/icons\/fionagodleenhs60.jpg\" alt=\"Fiona Godlee\" width=\"160\" height=\"110\" align=\"left\" \/> It&#8217;s only since taking on this job that I&#8217;ve noticed how few women speak at medical conferences. It seems to me that half the time I&#8217;m the only woman on the programme and the other half I&#8217;m in the audience listening to an all male line up. I don&#8217;t believe in tokenism and anyway, given all the talk of the feminisation of medicine, it shouldn&#8217;t be necessary.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>After all, two of the six major general medical journals (<a title=\"BMJ\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\">BMJ<\/a> and <a title=\"JAMA\" href=\"http:\/\/jama.ama-assn.org\/\">JAMA<\/a>) now have women editors-in-chief, which can&#8217;t be entirely down to exceptional individual talent.<\/p>\n<p>So where are all the women speakers? What&#8217;s going on? My guess is three things: there are still fewer senior women than men in certain fields, conference organisers don&#8217;t know about them or don&#8217;t bother to find out, and those women that are asked are more likely than their male counterparts to say no.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s to be done? One senior academic I know will only accept an invitation to speak if the organisers invite at least one other woman onto the programme.<\/p>\n<p>Another friend is drawing up her own Emily&#8217;s list of women who can speak on various topics. A third has made a vow to say yes to everything on the grounds that the men she hears speaking, not all of them brilliantly, don&#8217;t seem to suffer from self doubt so why should she. There are risks to this strategy.<\/p>\n<p>A colleague did an audit check of their organisation to check how many committees had women on them. He was pleased to find that there was a woman on every one, until he discovered that it was the same woman. One can only speculate about the effect of all these committees on her academic productivity.<\/p>\n<p>For my part, I&#8217;m going to increase my network of excellent women so I can name an equal number of men and women when asked for suggestions by conference organisers. And although I hate to be a bore, I&#8217;m going to raise the issue whenever I find myself the only woman on a panel. What with this and my commitment to ask to speak via video link, the invitations may dry up. So be it. More time to read and write.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Have your say on the blog.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fiona Godlee<\/strong>, Editor in chief, BMJ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s only since taking on this job that I&#8217;ve noticed how few women speak at medical conferences. It seems to me that half the time I&#8217;m the only woman on [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2008\/06\/11\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116,1691],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-at-large","category-fiona-godlee"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Fiona Godlee: Where are all the women? - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2008\/06\/11\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fiona Godlee: Where are all the women? - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s only since taking on this job that I&#8217;ve noticed how few women speak at medical conferences. It seems to me that half the time I&#8217;m the only woman on [...]More...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2008\/06\/11\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bmjdotcom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-06-11T10:19:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2010-10-08T13:31:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/channels\/icons\/fionagodleenhs60.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@bmj_latest\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@bmj_latest\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"BMJ\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2008\\\/06\\\/11\\\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2008\\\/06\\\/11\\\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"BMJ\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ba3da426ed20e8f1d933ca367d8216fe\"},\"headline\":\"Fiona Godlee: Where are all the women?\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-06-11T10:19:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-10-08T13:31:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2008\\\/06\\\/11\\\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":408,\"commentCount\":17,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2008\\\/06\\\/11\\\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.bmj.com\\\/channels\\\/icons\\\/fionagodleenhs60.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Editors at large\",\"Fiona Godlee\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2008\\\/06\\\/11\\\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2008\\\/06\\\/11\\\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/bmj\\\/2008\\\/06\\\/11\\\/fiona-godlee-where-are-all-the-women\\\/\",\"name\":\"Fiona Godlee: Where are all the women? 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