Breaking the glass ceiling in science leadership benefits us all

Just about three years ago, I introduced a special edition of Hutch Magazine focused on standout women scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. We highlighted esteemed female faculty members, including Nobel laureate Dr. Linda Buck, and rising stars at the forefront of our work to understand biological systems and eliminate cancer and related diseases.

At the time I noted that we needed to recruit and hire more female faculty members and ensure they were represented in leadership positions. For the benefit of employees of every gender, one way we could do this was by ensuring that families of every shape could co-exist with innovative work.

It’s easy to say meeting that challenge is simply a matter of fairness, that women deserve to be represented at every level of our organizations. While that is true, gender equity is imperative for reasons beyond fairness. It is a matter of critical importance for our institutions and, most importantly, for those we serve.

Organizations like ours will not realize their full potential without diverse leadership, including gender-diverse leadership. There is peer-reviewed data that supports this assertion. For example, studies show that diverse teams tend to apply more objectivity when reviewing data and are more likely to avoid decision-making errors. Diversity of ideas and life experience helps draw talented people to organizations and drive more innovation. In biomedical research, diversity enhances the types of questions we ask and how we ask them, making our work stronger and relevant to more people.

This International Women’s Day, amid a time of enormous consequence for women across the globe who are confronting systemic disparities and abuse, I’m again drawn to questions of inclusion and equity: Are we meeting the challenge of opening leadership roles to women? Are we doing enough to inspire young women to enter STEM fields — and to foster success throughout their careers?

The cycle must be broken, and it’s up to all of us to do our part — not just women, and not just for the benefit of women.

Here at Fred Hutch, we are taking deliberate steps to achieve and support gender equity because it is essential to scientific excellence. There is progress we can point to with pride:

• Four of our five scientific divisions are led by women, all of whom also serve in national and international leadership roles. The two individuals who most recently took up these senior leadership positions at the Hutch are Drs. Nancy Davidson and Sue Biggins. Nancy, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, is one of only two women to have been president of both the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Sue is a member of the National Academy of Sciences as well as an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

• Much of our female faculty members’ leadership is felt and acknowledged by those far beyond our campus. Dr. Stephanie Lee, who is currently serving as president-elect of the American Society of Hematology, and Dr. Veena Shankaran, who co-directs our Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research and was recently recognized for working to mitigate the financial burdens of health care, are just two of many examples.

• Nancy and Stephanie are among the women faculty members who hold 11 of our 21 currently occupied endowed chairs, which provide long-term support for scientists doing truly transformative research.
• Fred Hutch reaps the benefits of women’s leadership across our entire organization. More than half of our administrative vice presidents are women. Critically, our board of trustees, which includes leaders like Vice Chair Kathy Surace-Smith and Immediate Past Chair and former Washington state Gov. Chris Gregoire, continues to champion all of our diversity and inclusion efforts.
• We closely manage our compensation program to ensure competitive, fair and unbiased salaries for faculty and staff. Just this year, an outside study we commissioned revealed that our pay practices are notably better than national and international benchmarks. Based on our approach and measures, we believe we have attained gender parity for our faculty salaries.
• We have improved our parental leave policy and prioritized family-related benefits, such as excellent on-site child care and backup child care services. A Women in Leadership employee resource group will soon join other such groups focused on people of color, the LGBT+ community and parents. And, Fred Hutch was the first U.S. cancer center to sign the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion pledge.

These are steps in the right direction, but as a scientific community, we must push ourselves to eliminate all gender disparities.

Women in the biosciences in the U.S. still see their research published less often, and they are less likely to be senior authors or have their work cited. They are recognized with fewer awards, less prize money and less prestige than men. They also receive less mentorship, which only exacerbates disparities by depriving women of opportunity and role models.

Thanks to the determination of women at this research center and others who serve as mentors and bring fresh perspectives to leadership bodies, we’ve come a long way. Increasingly we’re recognizing the societal costs of gender inequity. The cycle must be broken, and it’s up to all of us to do our part — not just women, and not just for the benefit of women. A better future, one free from the burdens of cancer and infectious diseases, climate change and hunger, for example, depends on us contributing a mix of experiences and insights to solve our greatest challenges.