How should we address the pipeline problem?

Excerpt

The article by Paulus et al. is the most recent in a growing area of investigation dedicated to understanding why substantial numbers of women fail to reach the highest ranks of their profession [1]. While the authors focus on gender differences in promotion in academic medicine, the medical field is one of many facing a similar problem: of 197 heads of state, only 22 are women [2]; of the top 500 companies by revenues, only 21 are headed by women [3]; in politics, women hold just 18 % of United States congressional offices [3] and 24 % of European Union membership [4]; in Hollywood, women made up only 1.9 % of the directors for the 100 top-grossing films in 2013 and 2014 [5]. There is certainly a pipeline problem, and it is not confined to medicine. …