Women in academic rheumatology

In the scientific program of the meeting of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) in Lisbon in June 2003, only 16% of 144 chairperson positions were held by women. This proportion was much the same at the EULAR meeting in Berlin in June 2004, with a distribution of 19% female chairpersons. A slightly higher but somewhat similar proportion was seen at the 2003 meeting of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) in Orlando, in which 26% of the chairpersons were women. In most of the scientific meetings in the rheumatology field, there appears to be an overwhelming majority of male academicians among the chairpersons and keynote speakers. These observations raise some questions regarding the impetus of this male predominance. Do these numbers reflect a significant gender difference in scientific activity in more general terms, and in academic positions in the field of rheumatology specifically? Moreover, is the predominance of men in academic rheumatology a reflection of a more general phenomenon in academic medicine? Does a gender difference among rheumatology professors reflect the female:male ratio among physicians in general or rheumatology specialists in particular, and does it reflect the female:male ratio among medical students or graduate students? Finally, and most important, is this a problem? The purpose of this report is to stimulate discussion on the status of women in academic rheumatology by presenting a historical, social, and cultural perspective of this situation in different parts of the world. We therefore investigated the proportion of female and male faculty members and professors in academia in general (Table 1) and in rheumatology in particular (Table 2) in some selected countries. A striking similarity was found among most countries worldwide, with an average of 10–15% of full professors in general academia being women (Table 1) (1,2); in rheumatology, the overall situation is similar, except that there is a slightly higher percentage of women, an average of 20%, among full professors (Table 2). For purposes of illustration, we have provided more complete data from a few countries in Europe, Latin America, North America, and Asia. We devote extra interest to the situation in Turkey, a country that is culturally traditional, predominantly Muslim, and much less developed than its Western counterparts, but has better female representation in all areas of academic life, including medicine, than most European countries. We contend that this is due to the affirmative action policies implemented by the founders of the Republic, and in this respect, such an approach could be considered for possible emulation by other countries.