Speaker Gender Representation at the North American Neuromodulation Society Annual Meeting (2017–2021): Have We Made Progress in Closing the Gender Gap?

Abstract

Background Speaker gender representation at medical conferences is a significant site of gender disparity. Our primary objective was to quantify the proportion of female speakers and compare plenary session opportunities by gender at the North American Neuromodulation Society (NANS) Annual Conference. Methods Data from the 2017–2021 NANS Annual Conference presentations were abstracted. Primary outcomes included gender composition of speaker slots, gender composition of individual speakers, and comparison of plenary speaker slots by gender. Secondary outcomes included comparisons of session size, age, professional degree, and number of presentations per speaker based on gender. Results Gender composition of annual speaker slots was (% slots presented by women): 2017:14.6%; 2018:20.5%; 2019:23.5%; 2020:21.0%; 2021:41.4%. Annual gender composition of individual speakers was (% women): 2017:18.7%; 2018:20.6%; 2019:24.6%; 2020:24.9%; 2021:33.8%. Of all speaker slots, the percentage of plenary slots did not differ based on gender, with 11.4% presented by female speakers versus 11.2% presented by male speakers (OR 1.0, 95% CI 0.7–1.5, P=0.893). Compared to male speaker slots, there was an association of lower age (43.9±5.6 vs 50.8±8.9, P<0.001), lower odds of holding a single doctorate degree (OR 0.3, 95% CI 0.2–0.5, P<0.001), and lower odds of holding a dual MD/PhD or DO/PhD degree (OR 0.3, 95% CI 0.1–0.5, P<0.001) in female speaker slots. Compared to male speakers, there was an association of higher number of presentations per female speaker at the 2021 NANS Annual Meeting (2.48±1.60 vs 1.79±1.30, P=0.008). Conclusion Although the volume of female speaker slots and individual speakers trailed behind their male counterparts, female speaker representation steadily increased at each subsequent annual NANS meeting. We identified no difference in plenary session slots based on gender.

Gender representation at scientific congresses: focus on functional and female urology—a study from the EAU Young Academic Urologist Functional Urology Group

“…This study confirmed the existing gender gap for functional urology sessions. A comparable analysis of the North American Neuromodulation Society meeting identified similar results, although a steadily increase of female speaker representation over the last 5 years was observed [ 10 ]. Nevertheless, female representation in the field of functional urology is notably higher when compared to urology congresses including all oncology and non-oncology topics in Europe and the United States [ 4 , 8 , 11 ].…”