An Update on Gender Parity Trends for Invited Speakers at Four Prominent Virology Conference Series

Historically, men rather than women have been selected for invited speaking positions at the four prominent virology conference series we have followed since the 1980s. However, the low ratio of female representation in most earlier years (20% in 1982 to 2010) has shown encouraging improvement (37% in 2011 to 2017), particularly over the last few years (48% in 2018 to 2020). Here, we describe this promising rise in inclusion and discuss factors that may help perpetuate and extend this overdue transformation toward gender parity.