Editorial: Women in surgical oncology: 2021

Currently, female researchers represent merely a minority, accounting for an estimated 29.3% who end up covering this position worldwide, with a great variability according to each country (1). Specifically, Central Asia exhibits the greatest proportion of female researchers with an estimated 48.2% as opposed to South and West Asia with the lowest count globally (i.e. 18.5%) (1). In response to such a large gender gap in the scientific research community, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) is in the midst of developing new indicators in order to better comprehend the reasons behind women’s decisions to pursue one career over another. Several could be the reasons implicated in limiting and discouraging women’s access to the scientific community, including ancient biases and gender stereotypes. By further understanding such issues, the UIS project concurrently aims at reducing the gender inequality in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, by possibly promoting reforms in policies and implementing changes in favor of gender equality in all countries with the ultimate goal of empowering women (2)