IBRO President, Tracy L. Bale, and her lab members at the University of Maryland School of Medicine strike the #EachforEqual pose for International Women’s Day 2020.

International Women’s Day
An Equal World is an Enabled World
8 March 2020

#IWD2020 #EachforEqual #GenerationEquality

IBRO celebrates International Women’s Day and its 2020 theme, I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights. We join this global effort to challenge stereotypes, fight bias, broaden perceptions, improve situations and celebrate women’s achievements in order to create a better, gender equal world.

Although significant advancements have been made, no country has achieved real gender equality, and human rights for women and girls remain threatened around the world. According to the 2020 UN Women’s publication, Gender Equality: Women’s rights in review 25 years after Beijing, women today on average only occupy 24% of parliamentary seats, are paid 16% less than men, do 3 times more unpaid and domestic work, and 31% of young women between ages 15 and 24 are not in education, employment or training.

The field of neuroscience has not escaped these globally pervasive challenges. In order to confront them, IBRO has offered regional diversity grants and global engagement seed grants to help raise awareness about these issues. We helped establish and continue to promote the Women in World Neuroscience, and became a founding partner of the ALBA Network to increase diversity and equality in the brain sciences.

We are also extremely proud to have been able to support thousands of women through research and return home fellowships, short lab stays, travel grants, schools, training courses, mentoring sessions, leadership opportunities, workshops, conferences and symposia since we were first established in 1961.

This year is especially notable since IBRO is being led by our first ever woman President, Tracy L. Bale, from the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She is taking collective action with the other members of IBRO leadership to ensure that we keep increasing participation, representation and access for under-represented groups in order to create a more gender equal global neuroscience community.

Get inspired and involved in today’s global campaign. Let’s celebrate and empower women and gender equality efforts together, because we are better when we’re all at the table!