Dr Sue Matthews is the chief executive of the Royal Women's Hospital. She is an experienced health service leader with more than 20 years of senior operational and strategic leadership in hospitals, community care and government. Sue is one of six women on the VCCC Board.
I think we, as a sector, are familiar with the persistent issue of gender bias in research. We all acknowledge the obvious benefits of having women working as researchers – and we are shocked when the needs of women are not routinely considered in research design.
But how many of us acknowledge the systemic barriers that stand in the way of greater female participation and lead to the underrepresentation of female leaders in research? I’m referring to the cultures, values, policies and practices we have created and that affect our capacity as a sector to attract, nurture, celebrate and progress female researchers.
To be fair, the gender imbalance in research has been gradually improving over the decades. In a recent study examining the careers of nearly 1.5 million researchers globally, we can see that around 35 per cent of active authors are women - up from 12 per cent in 1955. But on this trajectory, we may well have to wait until 2046 until we achieve gender parity.
And it’s not only about participation. Female graduates certainly are interested in pursuing careers in research, but we are not seeing women progressing through the ranks in the same way as men. In 2016, women made up only 31 per cent of STEM academic and research staff in Australia and only 14.5 per cent of STEM professors were women.
More recently, the Office of the Chief Scientist’s Australia Stem Workforce report states the percentage of women who qualify in STEM is increasing at a faster rate than men but that this does not continue once they enter the workforce. Further, qualified women employed full-time had lower incomes than their male counterparts. And women with a university qualification in STEM who had children fared far worse; 19 per cent left the workforce altogether after having a child.
"a person’s gender has a direct impact on their career as a researcher."
What does this tell us? Well, we can be certain that we are losing some of our best and brightest talent. It also tells us that the system is not designed to support and sustain women throughout their career and reproductive lives; and perhaps most alarming of all, it tells us that a person’s gender has a direct impact on their career as a researcher.
Why, we might ask ourselves, does this matter? Surely educated women are simply exercising their career, life and parenting choices? Well, apart from the issues of systemic bias, lack of parity, unfairness and unequal opportunity, there is another consideration. And that is patient outcomes.
Women experience health conditions, treatments and symptoms differently to men. Our needs are different, and our perspectives are different. Women’s bodies metabolise medication differently and we recover from injury and trauma differently. For instance, many of you will be aware of the extensive work into the use and outcomes of cardiovascular drugs for women – most of which have been tested on middle-aged men.
Listening to, and designing health care and medical treatments that consider the unique needs of women is essential. I’m pleased to say, at the Women’s we have many female researchers and a large number of women leading our research centres. We also have some wonderful male researchers who have dedicated their careers to women’s health. But I believe that creating an environment, a workplace culture and a system - including a funding system - that supports female researchers to thrive - as both investigators and leaders – and to pursue a satisfying and rewarding career will be the making of us as a country.
Imagine, having hundreds of thousands more people pursuing a career in research, further driving competition and innovation, bringing wider-ranging views and perspectives, new understandings and different motivations.
Imagine, if our system did not punish women for taking parental leave, rewarded effort equally and supported career continuity. Just think of the advances we could make in medical research, the treatment of disease and in customising patient care.
It may seem to some that I am advocating for a female utopia, a world completely geared to the needs of women. Well I’m not; I’m just wanting better outcomes, for researchers, for patients and for the sector. Research is fundamentally important for our country, it’s the engine of our economy, the driver of innovation and the motivation for change. Ensuring that women play an active role is a no-brainer.
