In Reply:

Abstract

We acknowledge that Dr. Dara Kass is the founder and CEO of FemInEM, LLC.1 The failure to disclose this was an oversight.2 This research study was not supported in any way financially by FemInEM; we as authors take joint responsibility for this oversight of nondisclosure. We also fully stand by the findings and conclusions of our study. While we respect the commentary by Dr. Donaldson, we cannot agree with the validity of gender equity research being undermined writ large. The letter states “how much more so would the unconscious temptation to selectively collect data or selective [sic] interpret that data to serve one's own deeply held beliefs be present, especially in the polarizing issue of gender and the origins of the gender pay and advancement gaps.” If we were publishing on the effects of exercise on cardiovascular disease, and one of our authors failed to disclose ownership in a fitness facility, would a comment refer to exercise as a polarizing issue or cardiac disease as a deeply held belief? The premise that gender is a polarizing issue, rather than an objective matter, minimizes the scores of validated, peer-reviewed works on the subject and attempts to revert to the belief that the gender wage gap and other gender disparities are opinions rather than well-established facts that the scientific community knows them to be. The letter further states “Businesses like those of these authors make the assumption that the reason for gender inequities in medicine are based on historical and systematic discriminative factors. If the gender wage and advancement gap is instead explainable by one of the myriad social, personal, and productivity factors that have been suggested and demonstrated, and not based on bias or institutional aspects, then the businesses are selling a product no one needs.” This, again, highlights a bias and has little to do with the objective data on gender inequities in medicine. Specifically, the statement that organizations dedicated to addressing gender gaps in medicine—whether by bringing women in medicine together as a community or consulting on methods to decrease bias—were created to convince people of the existence of a nonexistent problem further exemplifies the issue that the commentary seems to have with gender inequities in medicine. Our fundamental concern with this commentary is the use of a real issue (the oversight of nondisclosure) as an opportunity to postulate that the effects of gender on the careers of women in medicine are orchestrated phenomena for the enrichment of those who are attempting to correct the “problem.” This is, quite simply, wrong.