On March 18, 2025 the international conference Breaking BAIS took place at the Technical University of Munich. The event brought together experts and guests from science, business, politics and media to discuss strategies for increasing the visibility of women. Around 700 people took part, exchanged expertise and took advantage of the opportunity to network.

Key topics of the conference
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One focus of the conference was on the structural barriers faced by women in public perception and on strategies to reduce them. Studies show that women are still underrepresented in science, business and politics and are often stereotyped. In order to counteract this problem, targeted measures were discussed:
- Media partnerships and networks: Women should be more heavily represented as experts in reporting.
- Mentoring programs: Young female scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians benefit from targeted funding.
- Technological support: Tools such as the Gender Equality Tech Tool (GETT) (Germany), the Gender Gap Tracker (Canada) or EqualVoice (Switzerland) can help to make gender relations measurable in reporting.

Diverse perspectives and impulses

The speakers discussed various aspects of visibility and equality. A particular focus was on:
- Gender-sensitive research that can not only save lives but also bring economic benefits.
- Prejudices in media and business that influence the perception of women.
- Diversity in companies and an inclusive management culture, which are crucial not only for greater equality but also for economic success.

International best practices showed that targeted diversity strategies are crucial not only to promote a fairer society but also innovative and successful companies. This is reflected in financial figures and measurably improved culture.

The Breaking BAIS conference made it clear that the wider visibility of women in science, business and media is not only a question of justice, but can also promote innovative strength and social progress. The interdisciplinary exchange provided valuable impetus for future strategies and measures.

The conference was organized by the team from the IFIF project SESiWI — “Structural increase of visibility of female scientists at universities, research institutions and in traditional and digital media” from TU Munich. The project is part of the funding guideline “Innovative Women in Focus” of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research and is actively committed to strengthening the visibility of women in science.

28.11.2024 W:Science Online Workshop
As part of the SESiwi project, we held the W:Science online workshop on the topic of “Visibility of Innovative Women” on November 28, 2024. As a team, the workshop not only gave us the opportunity to present our work and progress, but also to actively exchange ideas with the participants and discuss different perspectives.

Visibility challenge
At the beginning, we explained the reasons for the lack of visibility of female scientists. A key point was that women are often underrepresented in the media and are portrayed differently from men - whether by focusing on their appearance or the lack of presence in expert roles. These findings were supported by studies and examples that showed how powerful stereotypical representations can be.

Presentation of the Gender Equality Tech Tool (GETT)
A highlight of the workshop was the presentation of the Gender Equality Tech Tool (GETT). The tool was developed to measure and analyze women's visibility in the media. GETT uses AI and NLP to search reports and determine, for example, how often women are mentioned or quoted in specific departments. It was exciting for many participants to see how visual representations such as time series analyses and distribution diagrams can make the problem tangible. We also explained how we work with the data obtained to provide media companies with practical recommendations and to make their reporting more diverse.

Practical Approaches for Better Visibility
An important part of the workshop was the discussion of possible solutions. For example, it was shown how targeted cooperation between science and media can increase the visibility of women scientists. Another topic was target agreements with organizations that have an interest in anchoring equality in their reporting.
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Visibility challenges and opportunities
Finally, we talked about the effects of visibility — both the positive effects, such as more recognition and role models, as well as the challenges that women must face in public. In doing so, it was important for us to also hear critical questions and to enter into dialogue.

The workshop was a successful step to further promote the topic of visibility of innovative women. It was motivating to see how well the content was received and how many participants were able to identify with the approaches presented. For us as a team, it was confirmation that our work with GETT and the W:Science community is on the right track to initiate sustainable change.

04.03.24 Personal conference: Focus on top positions
‍On March 4, 2024, the first personal conference for our SESiWI project took place in Munich from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Under the Motto “Focus on top positions: women from science and business in the media” scientists, media professionals, managers and other interested people met to exchange ideas about equality in the media, learn more about the current state of research and practical examples of gender-equitable reporting.

Prof. Dr. Isabell Welpe offered an insight into the current state of research and Friederike Sittler (Association of Women Journalists) presented the project “Bildermächtig”, which aims to promote contemporary and gender-appropriate visual language in the media. Barbara Junge (taz), Kati Degenhardt (photo) and Kristin Haug (SPIEGEL) also shared what their media companies are already doing to promote women's visibility. Prof. Dr. Carola Jungwrith and Sabine Eckhardt, among others, spoke about their personal experiences with their own media presentation. The daily financial statements were made by Vertr. -Prof. Dr. Tanja Maier with her keynote speech on an insight into gender politics.

29.11.2023 First virtual W:Science conference
The kick-off event for our SESiWI project took place on November 29 from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The event was titled “W:Science” and addressed the question of how visible innovative women are in the media and how they are portrayed.

At our virtual conference, speakers presented existing opportunities and initiatives to measure women's visibility in the media. For example, Lea Eberle presented EqualVoice, an initiative of the Swiss media group Ringier, Miranda Holt talked about the BBC's 50:50 Equality Project and Maite Taboada presented the gender gap tracker, which measures the visibility of women in Canadian media. Christoph May from the Institute for Critical Men's Research gave us a brief digression of how men are also portrayed clichéd in the media. It was then about the question of how innovative women can become more visible. Kristin Küter spoke about women in science communication and the challenges they face, Kathrin Werner presented ProQuote media. Iris Bohnet, Frank Dobbin and Oliver Hauser also provided insights into their research on diversity, bias and stereotypes. The last component of our kick-off event was the presentation of our research project SESiW and the “Gender Equality Tech Tool” (GETT), about which you here be able to find out more.