Influence of speaker's gender on speaker introductions at the 2018 ACVS Surgical Summit.

Abstract

To evaluate whether formality of introduction differed between male vs female speakers at the 2018 American College of Veterinary Surgeons (ACVS) scientific meeting and identify other variables that predisposed introducers or chairs to informal introduction. Observational study. Thirteen session chairs introducing 68 lectures (41 by females, 27 by males) by 63 speakers. Observers recorded the session introducer, speaker, and whether speakers were introduced with a formal or informal title. Information evaluated included type of oral presentation; introducer gender, year, and country of graduation from veterinary school; speaker gender; whether the speaker was a resident; and speaker's year of graduation. Female speakers were introduced by their first name in 9 of 41 introductions compared to in 1 of 27 introductions for male speakers. This difference reached statistical significance when data independence was assumed (P = .043); however, this significance was narrowly lost when data clustering on session introducer was controlled for (P = .067). In this study, female speakers were more likely than male speakers to be introduced by their first and last names rather than with their professional title at a recent ACVS scientific meeting. Additional research is required to determine the effect of this type of subordinate language and gender bias in veterinary surgery.