Why aren’t more women in leadership roles?
“Dad, would you carry this box out to the car for me?” Feeling manly and helpful having carried the 15-pound box to her car, I pass my 120-pound daughter carrying a 35-pound squirming little boy, an overnight bag, diaper bag and car seat, like a Sherpa up Mount Everest, all the while laughing with my grandson.
Hmm, who’s the “weaker sex”?
A study from Duke University published in 2017 looked at gender-specific survival in seven populations under extreme conditions from famines, epidemics and slavery. In virtually all populations, across almost all ages, women survived better and lived longer than men. Newborn girls were able to survive severe mortality hazards better than newborn boys, where behavioral and social differences would be minimal.
Stronger? Check. Survivors? Check.
Over 70 countries have had female heads of state. Currently, Christine Lagarde heads the International Monetary Fund. Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine have been awarded to 18 women. The Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to 16 women, and the Peace Prize awarded to 16 women.
In terms of being law-abiding citizens, women have the clear lead: 95 percent of those incarcerated in U.S. prisons are men. In the past century, more international conflicts and wars were started by men than women.
Leadership skills, intelligence, law-abiding and peaceful? Check.
How about gender equality? When I was a student at Texas A&M University in 1968, I had a total of six women in all my classes. Women now represent 49 percent of the 51,000 undergraduate students at A&M.
September is national Women in Medicine month. How is gender equity in medicine?
Data gathered from the American Association of Medical Colleges shows that women accounted for 49 percent of medical school graduates in 2007 and 47 percent of graduates in 2017. Data specific to the KU School of Medicine for the same time shows women accounting for 39 percent of graduates in 2007 and 40 percent of graduates in 2017.
Currently, 31 percent of medical school basic science departments nationally are headed or chaired by women, while 18 percent of clinical science departments are headed by women.
Locally, female physicians hold the position of chief medical officer and chair of the Surgery Executive Committee at one hospital, and chair of the Ob-Gyn Section in both hospital systems.
Female physicians also have served both hospital systems as president of the medical staff and been elected president of the Medical Society of Sedgwick County and Kansas Medical Society.
Still, leadership roles are lagging, in medicine and elsewhere. That’s nothing new, of course. As Virginia Woolf wrote, “For most of history, anonymous was a woman.”
How do we change that? We can start by acknowledging that women are equally qualified for leadership positions. And then, every month, let’s all go to work on the bias that has held them back.
Jed Delmore is president of the Medical Society of Sedgwick County.