Female optometrists are being short-changed. I salute those fighting for a better deal

Professor Shahina Pardhan of Anglia Ruskin University was the first female professor of optometry in the UK. In 1984, she qualified with a First from the University of Bradford and progressed through research scholarships and a doctorate to take up this role in 2001 at, what was then, Anglia Polytechnic University.

She will have been one of the many female optometry undergraduates who outnumbered their male peers – indeed, more women than men still graduate from medical school – but the difference is that Professor Pardham continued on her ground-breaking course. Looking at the gender breakdown in senior doctors, the position is dramatically reversed. The majority are men. What happens to so many of the female graduates – particularly those with degrees in optometry or ophthalmology?

Determined to restore the balance, three women from University College London’s Institute of Ophthalmology met to discuss what could be done to give a proper voice to women working in the vision world. Dr Mariya Moosajee is a consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields and Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, specialising in genetic eye disease. She is also a Wellcome Trust Beit Prize clinical research development fellow and senior clinical lecturer at the Institute of Ophthalmology, UCL. Dr Maryse Bailly is a reader in cell biology at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Professor Julie Daniels specialises in regenerative medicine and cellular therapy at UCL.

The original plan conceived by these senior doctors was merely to create a list of women able and willing to be part of all projects in the vision world – be they school visits or international conferences – and redress the gender imbalance of those representing the ophthalmology and vision profession.

However, the discussion went further and it became clear that there was a need for support and guidance for women working in all parts of the vision professions, particularly those who were coming up through the ranks. Tapping into talent, fostering the potential high-flyers so as not to lose them by giving these women the chance to excel through media profile opportunities, sitting on assessment panels or presenting their work at academic and other conferences – all of which tend to be dominated by men – was the obvious way forward.

With support from the NIHR Moorfields Biomedical Research Centre, it was decided that a network, with female role models and mentors available for support, would encourage women to be more confident about their place in the profession and about putting themselves and their work forward for awards and accolades – not to mention fighting for gender pay equality.

Michele Acton, CEO of Fight for Sight, the only eye charity to fund research into all eye diseases, gave a welcoming address at the inaugural Women in Vision meeting, in which she quoted Professor Shahina Pardhan’s figures for the lack of equality in scientific research. In the EU as a whole, female scientific researchers are paid 18 per cent less than men per hour, with the UK doing slightly better by paying our women scientists only 10 per cent less than their male peers. As with every disparity in gender pay, it is astonishing that – considering the strength of the women’s rights movement – the various paymasters have got away with it for so long.

In line with every other medical specialty in the UK, the world of vision is lacking professionals and one aim of Women in Vision is to visit schools, universities and other educational institutes to encourage young women to consider a career in vision, with the assurance that they will have the same chances of promotion as their male colleagues and will have the comfort of a network of women behind, beside and before them.

There are more women who live with sight loss than men and many of these are supported by the charity sector, which plays a huge part in the world of vision. It is interesting that so many of these charities are led by women. Michele Acton at Fight for Sight, Tina Houlihan at RP Fighting Blindness, Cathy Yelf at the Macular Society, Karen Osborn at the International Glaucoma Association, Sally Harvey at RNIB and even the founders of smaller organisations – Birdshot Uveitis Society, The Molly Watt Trust raising awareness of Usher’s Syndrome and myself with Esme’s Umbrella – are all women too. I am not sure what this tells us, but I, for one, will be joining forces with this new initiative.

As Dr Moosajee said of the initiative: "It has the potential to impact positively on so many people, including patients and the public, leading to policy changes in the UK and worldwide. This will change the face of ophthalmology and vision research.”

Membership is open to all women working in and around Ophthalmology and Vision, from basic research to clinical practice. I am proud to be a member.