Gender balance in skeletal radiology: suffrage rather than suffering?

Reaching equity in the distribution of opportunity between men and women is in the agenda of premier international agencies worldwide, and in the last decades a significant improvement in women’s access to care and education as well as in terms of equality in the labor market has been achieved. In the medical field and, in particular, in radiology, the number of women progressively increased but still much has to be done to guarantee equal opportunities. Aiming to provide an overview of the European musculoskeletal imaging community regarding gender equity, we developed a 39-item survey addressed to the 2481 members of the European Society of Musculoskeletal Imaging (ESSR). The responses of the 74 participants (3%) demonstrated that for most of the addressed clinical, academic, and ESSR-related questions, no statistically significant differences gender-related occurred except for instance for the experienced gender discrimination, which affected women more often (55% of women vs 21.9% of men; p = 0.017). Despite the low participation rate, our results suggest that there is hope of ‘suffrage’ with leadership and steering roles in the Executive Committee and Subcommittees and a real-time reduction in the gender gap.