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. 2022 Jun 28:9:908540.
doi: 10.3389/fsurg.2022.908540. eCollection 2022.

Women in Neurosurgery: Historical Path to Self-Segregation and Proposal for an Integrated Future

D Garozzo  1 , R Rispoli  2 , F Graziano  3 , R M Gerardi  4 , A Grotenhuis  5 , A Jenkins  6 , V Sammons  7 , M Visocchi  8 , S Pinazzo  9 , R Lima  10 , F Martinez  10 , M Emamhadi  11 , M T Pedro  12 , H S Shirwari  13 , F Guedes  14 , I D Bhagavatula  15 , D P Shukla  15 , I D Bhat  16 , O A Ojo  17 , A Tirsit  18 , M E Gonzales-Gonzales  19 , F Luna  20 , T Kretschmer  21 , E Benzel  22 , B Cappelletto  2
Affiliations

Women in Neurosurgery: Historical Path to Self-Segregation and Proposal for an Integrated Future

D Garozzo et al. Front Surg. .

Abstract

Despite the rising percentage of women accessing the medical profession over the last few decades, surgical specialties are still largely male-dominated; in particular, a remarkable gender disparity is evident in neurosurgery, where only 19% of practitioners are females. Although women may be reluctant to choose a challenging specialty like neurosurgery due to concerns around how to balance family and career, it must be admitted that prejudices against female neurosurgeons have been deeply rooted for long, prompting many to give up and switch track to less demanding subspecialties. Among those who have persisted, many, if not most, have experienced difficulties in career progression and received unequal treatment in comparison with their male counterparts. In 1989, a group of 8 female neurosurgeons founded Women in Neurosurgery (WINS), an organization that aimed to guarantee inclusivity in neurosurgery, encouraging a better and more egalitarian working environment. Thereafter, WINS sessions were regularly promoted at international conferences, offering female neurosurgeons a platform to report issues related to gender discrimination. Over recent years, the mission of WINS sessions in national and international conferences has taken an unexpected deviation; they have progressively become supplementary scientific sessions with only women neurosurgeons as speakers, thus paving the road to a form of self-segregation. This tendency has also resulted in the establishment of sections of only female neurosurgeons within some national societies. Although there remains a faction that fiercely supports the WINS mindset of reserved spaces for women, such segregation is an upsetting prospect for those who believe that science and professionalism have no gender; a growing part of the global neurosurgical community believes that the conception of a "female neurosurgery" and a "male neurosurgery" is misguided and counterproductive and consider the existence of the WINS as anachronistic and no longer necessary.

Keywords: female under-representation; gender discrimination; gender equality; medical education; self-segregation; women in neurosurgery.

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Conflict of interest statement

The reviewer [JB] declared past co-authorships [Needs of Young African Neurosurgeons and Residents: A Cross-Sectional Study, 10.3389/FSURG.2021.647279 (2021)] with one of the authors [AT] to handling editor. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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