Promoting Gender Equity in the #MeToo Era

The recent #MeToo movement in social media has brought the important issue of gender-based violence and harassment in the workplace to the forefront of public attention. As in other fields, gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment continue to be a problem in medicine, and gender inequalities are particularly apparent in surgical specialties. Whereas the #MeToo movement has successfully raised awareness and held some perpetrators accountable, there have been unintended backlashes, including reluctance from some male surgeons to mentor female surgeons for fear of false accusations of sexual misconduct at both the trainee and the faculty levels. Gender-based neglect is harmful to the career advancement of female surgeons and threatens to continue to promote gender inequalities in surgery. We propose systems-level strategies to promote gender equity at the academic-training level and within the field of hand surgery.