Gender Diversity in the Psychiatric Workforce It's Still a (White) Man's World in Psychiatry

Although academic psychiatry is marginally better than academic medicine as whole, women and BIPOC women continue to be underrepresented in the higher ranks and leadership positions in academic psychiatry departments. There are numerous barriers that influence the lack of career progression for women ranging from harassment and discrimination, lack of mentorship, life integration issues, and participation in non- promotion-generating academic activities that slow women's career progression. In addition, Impostor Syndrome is more common in women, which also hinders a woman's confidence in her abilities to generate promotion-supporting activities. The slower rate of promotion of women to higher ranks results in a vicious cycle of a lack of successful senior women who can in turn mentor younger women. A thoughtful approach to increasing both gender and minority diversity at upper ranks and in leadership is needed and will improve the academic culture across the board for everyone, including men. Similar to the need to reconstruct the DEI role in departments in order to support the role in achieving the goals of DEI, redesigning academia to not just value research but to also value education and clinical care will improve the academic environment for all academic psychiatrists. Providing the resources to support those in education, clinical care, and providing mentorship to others will increase the likelihood that women are not only promoted faster and have more successful careers, but will also be able to provide mentorship to others and to add their voices to leadership roles. It is our hope that academic psychiatry will become a model for other academic departments in how to support women and BIPOC women to have successful academic careers and to promote their leadership within departments and medical schools. It is time for psychiatry departments to take a serious look at what has been the traditional approach to academia and to redesign their processes, resource allocation, and overemphasis on research for promotion to promote diversity in leadership.