Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
1. Uluslararası 25. Ulusal Klinik Eğitim Sempozyumu, İzmir, Türkiye, 19 - 22 Mayıs 2022, ss.82
BACKGROUND AND AIM: Although the proportion of women in
science has substantially increased over the last century, women remain
underrepresented in academia, especially at senior levels. In addition,
their scientific achievements do not always receive the same level of
recognition as do men's, which can be reflected in a lower relative
representation of women among invited speakers at conferences or
specialized courses. Our goal was to describe the proportion of female
representation among speakers and moderators at the 57. National
Congress of the Psychiatric Association of Turkey (57NC-PAT).
METHODS: The public conference program of the 57NC-PAT was
obtained online. Three independent researchers coded sessions and
presentations. The concordance between coders was 100%. No ethics
approval was needed since we used publicly available data. Since the
data were not normally distributed, we present our results as median
and quartiles.
RESULTS: We retrospectively evaluated a total of 19 courses, 61
panels, 14 conferences, 29 other sessions, 77 poster presentations, 33
oral presentations, eight oral presentations as nominees for the award.
Females presented as following mean percentages: 50 (0-100) for
courses, 60 (0-67) for panels, 0 (0-100) for conferences, 50 (33-71)
for other sessions, 50 (38-100) for poster presentations, 50 (33-90) for
oral presentations, 100 (100-100) for oral presentations as nominees
for the award. According to data, women were equally represented
among sessions. Sessions that had "only male" or "only female" speakers
compared: panels (29.5% vs. 14.8%), courses (36.8% vs. 26.3%),
conferences (57.1% vs. 28.6%) had higher percentages of only male
versus only female teams. On the other hand, poster presentations
(11.7% vs. 31.2%), oral presentations (6.1% vs. 24.2%), and oral
presentations as nominees for the award (12.5% vs. 87.5%) had "only
female" teams more frequently than "only male" teams. There were 18
foreign speakers at the congress; only 22% were women.
CONCLUSIONS: Compared to male scientists in the scientific
community, the lower visibility of female scientists stems partly from
presenting research as an invited speaker at organized meetings.
Although the gender gap among speakers at the 57NC-PAT was narrow,
we must remain cognizant of its presence, especially regarding highranked positions, including moderators of sessions. Therefore, we must
continue to work towards equal representation.
Simple rules may be followed to achieve gender balance for future
meetings. Although individual contributions such as mentoring,
sponsorship, or speaking up about inequity are invaluable, a significant
change likely requires organizational initiatives. Furthermore, a potential
starting point might be gender parity on program committees.