Sacrifices and compromises: Life as a female vet

"I am a vet and working in a traditionally male-dominated industry is very difficult. I experience sexism on a day to day basis: When I turn up to assist in delivering a foal: 'Is there any chance you can call a male vet – I just don't think you will be able to do this as a girl.' I could stay here all day writing the various comments I have received."

                   - Anonymous, Everyday Sexism Project by Laura Bates.

The tables have turned in the once male dominated veterinary profession. Where once 99 per cent of veterinary medicine graduates were men, today 80 per cent are women - But look at the top jobs in the profession and you would not know it. Despite their numerical dominance at entry level, women are still failing to break through in numbers.

The entry published in Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism Project, an online campaign against gender discrimination is not a lone case, it is the real experience female vets face every day across the UK.

Women who have the same qualifications and experience as their male counterparts say they are being forced to shrug off discrimination in their workplace and have to go the ‘extra mile’ to avoid potential criticism - whether it is the off-hand comment “are you sure you’re strong enough?”, a flat out refusal to be allowed onto a horse yard because of your gender or being forced to leave your job because you now have children.

The traditional male vet hierarchy is showing little change. More than twice as many men than women are sole principals and more than four times as many men are directors or equity partners.

In this special feature, I follow four of the many women coming into the profession to find out what is holding them back. As I visit, chat and get to know them, they open up about their individual struggles and dilemmas faced as female vets in a traditionally male world.

Despite working in different areas of the profession, belonging to different practices and locations, Sharon, Adele, Livy and Mairi are not alone in the uphill battle for gender equality.

When you meet 27-year-old Sharon Wright, she doesn't strike you as the stereotypical outgoing, chatty and assertive vet. When I rang the doorbell of the modest house in Wickham, a village surrounded by countryside on the outskirts of Newcastle, I was greeted by a humble and unassuming woman. The only noise in the street was the grizzling of Sharon's eight month old daughter who was being held in her mother’s arms.

Sharon, who graduated from Glasgow University in 2011, has been juggling pet consultations and operations with family life since her son Timothy was born in January 2014.

"When I had Timothy I went back and did mixed practice until I had Hannah and looking back, I don’t know how I would have done it with two children; with the unsociable hours and added stress." she tells me.

When daughter Hannah was born last year, Sharon left the job she loved at a veterinary practice, where she had worked as a mixed animal vet for four years.

While breast-feeding her baby and with a cup of tea in hand she says: “I have gone part time now so I can have more time with my children. I don’t do any on call now either, that definitely would have been too much.

“At my previous practice they wouldn’t let me do that and that’s why I left. I asked them if I could do part time and no out of hours and they said no, so that’s what prompted the move to Moorview.

"Another vet moved to Moorview at the same time for the same reason. There's a vet still there who managed to get part time after her first child but she still does out of hours. She is quite heavily pregnant now though and I suspect that when she has her next baby she will try to stay out-of-hours."

Our conversation is interrupted by Hannah’s gurgling. It was clear that the baby was not impressed by being left out of the conversation and despite the sitting room being littered with toys to occupy her, she was determined not to be far away from our attention.

“I loved working where I was and I was really sad to leave my clients” Sharon continues.

“I said to my boss, look it’s up to you. She got back to me and said I still had to do the out-of-hours. Since then I’ve heard that she thinks she might have made the wrong decision to let two vets go. I think her impression was that the other vets working for the company would be upset by the fact that some vets didn’t do out-of-hours. I think if she had just asked the other vets, most of them wouldn’t have been too bothered by it.”

Compromises female vets are forced to make when starting a family are concerns that are highlighted by vocal vet and online blogger Cat Henstridge, also known as 'Cat the vet’.

In one article she recalls the first time she was forced to take her children to work because her childcare had fallen through. With a hint of shame she says: “I could have rung in and cancelled, leaving others to deal with the problem but that’s not fair on them. Neither is it particularly fair on my kids to be stuck in a surgery all morning but I had to make a choice; my job or my children and, not for the first time, I chose my job.

“These compromises pretty much define the life of a working parent, whatever your profession. However, for a vet I think there is more pressure than average to be at work. If we don’t turn up, there will still be a waiting room full of patients and a list of operations. In a small team the loss of a single vet causes great upheaval and burden on the rest of the staff.”

She adds bluntly: “Every vet mum, or dad, I know will move heaven and earth to be on the job, even if their family suffers as a consequence.”

Working mothers like Sharon and ‘Cat the vet’ are not alone in their struggles to maintain work commitments while juggling family life.

A government commissioned survey of more than 3,000 mothers and 3,000 employers across a range of jobs found that more than a quarter of mothers felt pregnancy ‘put an unreasonable cost burden on the workplace’, in terms of issues over maternity cover and part time work. One in five mothers experienced harassment or negative comments related to pregnancy or flexible working from their employer or colleagues.

The report also revealed that three-quarters of mothers experience discrimination in the workplace and that 11 per cent of mothers returning to work subsequently felt forced to leave their job. This could amount to as many as 54,000 mothers a year in the UK.

Kat Holt, 30, a small animal vet living in Yorkshire dodged the dilemma of choosing between children and career. Kat became pregnant with her son Charlie during her first year of university.

"My vet friends haven't got time for dating, let alone the career break required to have children" she says.

“Having Charlie early definitely put me at an advantage as maternity time and pay is rubbish in most vet jobs, whereas I had a whole year off during university. I had no pay then but at least I didn't have a mortgage and as a student, I was used to being skint.

“I didn't have unsociable hours when Charlie was a baby either, which I would have now unless you go back part time and that can be difficult to negotiate in a small private practice.”

She continues: “However, it’s possible that by having children later in your career you may have more money and therefore able to work less hours afterwards thus creating a better work life balance.

“I do get frustrated that, at my work, the bosses are male and they have children but they also have wives who don't work to look after them and I often feel that the role of a full time working mum in a family where both parents work full time is poorly understood.”

Sexism and discrimination within the veterinary profession can be difficult to prove, particularly when it comes to promotion and pay.

Looking pensive while her daughter grabs at her long brown hair, Sharon says: "My husband Alan, who is also a vet has always been paid more than me. Even when we've had jobs that are really similar. Alan has had two jobs and I have had three and for each one he has always been paid more than me."

A recent Vet Futures survey found that more male vets in the up to eight years graduated age range were paid over £41,000, compared to female vets of the same age. The Society of Practising Veterinary Surgeons (SPVS) salary survey also showed a gender pay gap of 10% in favour of men.

Two instances of sexism stand out in Sharon’s memory which she experienced early in her veterinary career.

“Just after I graduated, I went out on a farm call and when I got there the farmer just said straight to my face, 'I’m not having a woman vet on my farm’ and said to me ‘you can’t do anything until you get a man’,” she recalls.

“I just stood in the corner until my boss arrived. My boss knew he was like that, he wasn’t bothered by it to be honest. It would have been better if my boss had told the farmer that I was capable and supported me more, but he was a good client so maybe that is why he didn’t. He just let me stand there awkwardly for two hours.”

She adds: “He didn’t even give me a chance. He saw that I was female and that was it, his decision was made. I thought it was awful because I didn’t even get the chance to prove what I could do or anything. I won’t forget that.”

The other time was an incident when Sharon was shadowing a female vet while she was a student in Scotland.

“I went out to trim a cow’s feet with a female vet and the entire time the farmer kept on asking her, ‘Are you strong enough to do that?’, ‘Do you know how to do this?’, ‘Do you need my help?’ and things like that.

“Even though she was completely qualified and experienced, I think if anything had gone wrong, he would have blamed it on the fact that she was a woman rather than a man.”

She continues: “It tends to be older farmers I think, whereas younger farmers have a different view. Both of those farmers were in the mind set that only male vets could do the job.

"I definitely think there is more sexism with the large animals. I think often when it is a large animal client you can see they're thinking, oh it’s a woman and maybe you have to prove yourself a bit more until they see you work and think you’re good enough for the job."

For Sharon, such discrimination was clear before she set foot into the workplace. While 80 per cent of vet graduates are female, she thinks that there is still a preference for male vets. According to Sharon, now men are few and far between, they tend to be prioritised over women.

She said: "I always had the view before university that if you were a man you were much more likely to be accepted than if you were a woman. Most of the boys at university for example, I know were accepted at more than one university whereas the girls in my year had a place at Glasgow and nowhere else.

“It would be interesting to see what ratio of men to women apply to university and what ratio are actually accepted. So if ten per cent of men applied, I'd suspect all of that ten per cent got a place."

Horse vet turned academic, Adele Williams has been smashing the glass ceiling of the veterinary profession since she graduated from Bristol University in 2003.

Adele, 36, looks young for her age. In photos her long blonde hair is tied up in a messy ponytail and she greets her online readers with a welcoming smile.

Adele is a diplomat of the European College of Equine Internal Medicine, chair of the British Veterinary Association Overseas Group and has worked across the world ranging from Eastern Europe to West Africa. She completed her PhD in 2013 and is now a senior veterinary lecturer at the University of Surrey teaching Equine Medicine.

Despite being a specialist in her field, Adele says she continues to face sexism on a regular basis.

"Several times I have had a male student with me and the client has mistakenly assumed them to be the vet. On one occasion they still canvassed the male student's opinion even though I'd identified myself as the qualified one. There have also been plenty of occasions when a male colleague has been specifically requested" she said.

“I’ve known female colleagues over the years to face similar sexism issues” she adds.

Adele raised her concerns and frustrations in a blog post titled 'Sexism straight from the horse’s mouth: Life as a female vet’ two years ago. She says actor and UN Goodwill Ambassador, Emma Watson’s UN ‘He for She’ speech which addressed gender equality inspired her to reflect on the sexism she faced during her professional life.

Adele begins her article by quoting one female client: "I specifically requested one of the male vets, but it is just a vaccination so I do hope you'll be able to do that …"

“Was I shocked to hear this kind of seemingly sexist attitude?” Adele continues, “Only slightly. My experiences of negative treatment due to my gender have most often been from clients rather than the profession itself.”

Unlike Sharon who recalls gender discrimination solely from male clients, Adele is keen to point out the opposite. “Interestingly, those attitudes have largely been directed from female clients” she says.

During her second tour of the UK two years ago, journalist and gender equality campaigner Laura Bates gave a public talk at the University of Sheffield. Matter-of-factly she said: “Women are the worst sexists” to the crowded room. While the double standards might strike some people as surprising, they are simply regarded as another hurdle for Adele.

Adele’s response to this confusing and conflicting issue was a casual shrug. “I think probably old fashioned perceptions about the image of an ideal vet and what their physical appearance should be are the reasons why” she said.

Unsurprisingly, her article stirred up a mixed response among her colleagues.

“My article sparked quite a bit of debate. Comments ranged from shock and surprise, there was the odd denial, but largely support and the desire to stamp sexism out. One particularly memorable and supportive comment from a male member of staff was that he had daughters and did not want them growing up and being faced with inequality.”

For Adele, her article was an outlet to voice frustration and raise awareness. “To be honest there isn't much you can do. Sexism is often difficult to prove.

“I’m a specialist in my field and yet on several occasions I've not got a job I've applied for, and then a man with less qualifications or experience has got the job. This has happened multiple times.”

She adds: “However it would be very difficult to prove this was sexism, there's always other reasons an employer might choose a different employee.”

Adele is not alone in her concerns over the unequal male to female ratio in the upper tiers of the veterinary world.

According to Vet Futures, the number of female Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) fellows has only marginally increased from eight per cent in 1994 to ten per cent in 2014.

In her article, 'Veterinary business leadership: An unsuitable job for a woman?', Professor Colette Henry, head of the department of Business Studies and Director of the Centre for Entrepreneurship Research at Dundalk Institute of Technology says that in the UK "there are more than twice as many male as female sole principals, and more than four times as many male directors or equity partners" consequently “female vets are disillusioned with their future career trajectory.”

Henry claims “women in the UK are half as likely as men to start a new business” because “women tend to have less belief in their business and leadership abilities than men.” She continues: “Women are simply less prepared to come forward to take on business leadership roles.”

This is echoed by ‘Cat the vet’. In her article ‘Do female vets have a confidence problem?’ she says: “While half of women in management positions in the UK have some self-doubt about their performance and careers, less than a third of men feel the same. Also, men renegotiate their salaries four times as often as women do and ask for around 30% more in like-for-like roles.”

She adds: “Perfectionism, expecting excellence in all tasks, avoiding challenges and questions unless we are confident of being able to complete them or being correct and obsessing over fine detail, is also far more common in women than men.”

Such stereotypes of women being timid perfectionists means that there is a sense of frustration among female vets to ‘go the extra mile’ to avoid potential criticism and prove themselves to be on par with their male counterparts.

However, outspoken and opinionated Adele bluntly disagrees. “No, I don’t agree with this.” she says. “It is about personality. Vets in general are pretty driven, hardworking and ambitious people. You have to be in such a profession.”

For Adele, relying on old fashioned “tough skin” has seen her through difficult times during her career.

“When I’m out there on my own I just have to learn to have tough skin and shake things off, whether that be a comment from a client, colleague or whoever” she says.

On maternity leave with her first child, Adele is entering what is considered shaky ground for successful career women. However, driven and determined, Adele will not let statistics and conventions hold her back from continuing to climb the professional ladder.

“I'm loving my maternity leave with my little boy” she says. “But I have worked hard to get to where I am in my career and I'm passionate about what I do professionally so it's not something I want to just give up.

“If I was still working as a full time equine vet however, I would be concerned. The nature of the job means you will have to give up something, whether it be time with your children or going part-time.”

Almost ten years Adele's junior, Livy Cartmell, 27, graduated from Liverpool University in 2012, likes heavy metal music, tattoos and skiing. She also works in an all female farm veterinary practice in rural Lancashire.

Looking back even a decade ago, an all-female vet practice was far away from the imagination of aspiring women hoping to make their mark in the veterinary profession.

However this did not phase Emily Gilpin and Harriet Bertenshaw, the female partners of Livy’s farm practice, Beacon Farm Vets. After graduating in 2002, the two who are local to the area opened the surgery in 2008.

Although the practice has not always been all female, Emily and Harriet were keen to employ women.

"I didn't choose the practice because it was all female, in fact I was replacing a male vet. However they were keen to employ a female vet because they thought we might have better communication skills" Livy says.

“In terms of communication, I do find that working with women is easier, as we tend to have the same rationale and approach situations similarly. It is nice to be in an environment where we all get along. We support each other and we don’t mind covering for each other but I wouldn’t want to say that isn’t the same in a practice with male vets.”

While Livy’s all-female farm practice symbolises the progress women have made in the veterinary world, some people including journalist, Caroline Davies are concerned that the increase in the number of female vets is leading to the extinction of 'the traditional farm vet’.

According to the Association of Veterinary Students one in ten graduates pursue a career as a farm vet compared with one in every two a decade ago.

Writing for The Guardian, Davies attributes one cause of this to “the rapid rise over the past 10 years in the number of young women joining the profession, many of whom prefer the more family-friendly hours of city practices.”

She continues: ‘Up to 80 per cent of the intake at Britain's veterinary schools is now women, often drawn to the profession by its caring image as well as TV docu-soaps and dramas such as Animal Hospital and Vet School.

“It is sometimes referred to as the 'Trude Mostue' effect, named after the Norwegian star of the former hit show Vets in Practice. Many women vets are put off country work by the unsociable night and weekend rotas to tend farm animals.”

However, Livy disagrees. She says: “There are still plenty of farm vets, it’s just that according to some people, the ‘traditional country vet’ is a man. The increase in female vets, in my opinion is not responsible for a decrease in farm vets because of unsociable hours and so on, there are other factors.

“If anything, the decline in farm vets only reflects the fact that there is simply more demand for small animal vets now compared to in the past. Also the farming industry has reduced let’s say, in the last 50 years or so.”

Despite misconceptions that the increase in women entering the profession has caused the decline in farm vets, Livy thinks the tide is already beginning to turn and is hopeful that there is more to come. She thinks as more women become vets, over time all-female vet practices will become less of an anomaly.

She says: “I don’t think it is particularly unusual to have all female practices anymore, although I know in general, there tend to be more men in the higher positions still but I think that’s mainly down to the fact that women have only started entering the profession fairly recently; 30 years ago there were a lot more male vets.”

Optimistically she adds: “I imagine in ten years it will probably be the opposite.”

While her boss and mother of two, Emma successfully juggles family life with running the practice and working part-time, such compromises have not come without criticism.

Livy recalls: “One example which sticks out in my mind was when one of our farmers had a disease outbreak whilst Emma, my boss, was on maternity leave. Although I dealt with things in her absence and she came down a couple of times to help deal with things, he asked me if I could recommend another vet practice.

“His reason being was that my boss now had a family and he thought she should give up work and focus on her family. I had to bite my tongue at that point.”

Livy and her partner Sam, who is also a vet have been together for four years and despite her boss proving sceptics wrong, the prospect of sacrificing work for family duties is daunting for Livy.

“I do have concerns when it comes to starting a family. It is definitely something I've been thinking about. For me, the biggest issue is that me and my boyfriend both have on-call rotas which would have to be aligned.

“Of course this may not be possible and the thought of moving jobs because I want to have children does seem unfair and to be honest, it’s quite stressful to think about.”

Boiler suit on, steel-capped wellies in hand and her brown hair scraped back into a bun, Mairi Sinclair is ready for another day at work as an equine vet on the outskirts of Aberdeen.

It might not be the most glamorous of jobs but despite her 6am start, the 27-year-old is fresh faced and raring to go.

"You get use to it after a while. My tip is to have a really big breakfast to keep you going" she says. “I'm not always guaranteed a lunch break. In fact, it’s pretty unusual for me to get a proper lunch break.

“You’ve got to eat enough on this job because it’s so physically demanding and you’re constantly on the go, never mind the late nights and early starts.

“Are you kitted up?” she turns and asks in a thick but friendly Aberdeenshire accent.

It is a windy day and it is starting to rain. As we trudge through the thick mud to her four-by-four Mairi tells me about the horse owner we were about to visit.

“She’s called Tanya and lives about 40 minutes away. Not everyone is like her though.

“I have had difficult clients who, though I can’t really prove it, have treated me differently because I am a woman. Unfortunately some people struggle to accept that we’re not living in the olden days anymore” she says with her eyebrows raised.

While we drive along the bumpy countryside roads and admire the scenery through gaps of dreary fog, Mairi tells me of her rural upbringing in the village of Rothienorman in the north east of Scotland.

With some nostalgia, she says: “There wasn’t much to do where I lived and because it was so rural, most kids got into horses to keep themselves entertained in their spare time. Quite a few of my friends from Rothienorman keep horses now but I’m the only one who is an equine vet.

“My parents were also pretty horsey so I rode and jumped competitively at quite a young age. I always wanted to be a horse vet but going into the profession, sexism never really occurred to me until I got a job.”

She adds: "We have a lot of high profile clients and quite a few of them are known for only letting male vets treat their horses, which of course is pretty outrageous when you think about it but we just get on with it" she says.

“There was one time I was booked in to see a female high profile client and she asked in advance who was coming to visit her. When she found out that it was me and that I was a woman she cancelled the appointment.

“Unfortunately most sexism towards women comes from women. I think for the high profile clients, they think men can do a better job and for the standard middle aged female horse owner it's because they just like the male attention” she says matter-of-factly.

“In my experience, despite a few comments over strength, most male clients don’t seem to mind female vets. But I’m pretty strong for my size so it doesn’t take long for them to be proven wrong!”

We arrive at the horse yard to our first patient of the day, a speckled grey pony called Millie.

"It's a routine vaccine of tetanus and influenza" Mairi explains as we walk across the yard to a field where a middle aged woman with short brown hair is standing. Top to toe in washed out and aged horse gear, she laughs: “I’ve got to warn you, she’s a bit of a moody mare!”

While Mairi prepares the vaccine and battles in a short stand off before catching the naughty 14 hands pony, Tanya explained that Millie is an Arab, a breed particularly suited for outside endurance riding.

“Although she’s a tinker, she is great to hack outside and she is no problem with the grand-children” she says.

Once captured, reluctantly and with her ears pinned back, Millie trots to join us where Mairi injected her with the clear gloopy liquid. "There we go, that wasn't so bad was it?" she says patting Millie’s back.

Mid conversation with Tanya, Mairi’s phone rang and looking over she tells me she had been called back to the practice to help wake a horse up from sedation which had just undergone colic surgery.

“Colic is when the gut twists and distends with gas” she tells me on the journey back, “surgery takes around two and half hours but waking the horse up is the time when the horse is most likely to die, so we have to monitor it carefully.”

Back at the hospital Mairi rushes off to 'scrub up’ and while pointing to a shabby barn-like building, she tells me to “wait in there” for her.

Through a little wooden ‘window’ I watch Mairi and two female nurses crowd around the large brown horse and inject a sedative. “It’s so he doesn't get up too quickly and injure himself" Mairi calls back to me over her shoulder.

"Now I'm removing the tube which was helping him to breath" she explains, “then we will put him on a drip for the next five days and keep a close watch.”

I rejoin Mairi in the small staff room which although cosy, had the lingering smell of horse mixed with bleach.

It was nearly two hours past what in a normal job, would be considered 'lunch time’ and Mairi is finally sitting down after a total of four call outs.

“I think that there is a misconception that men are better equine vets and that they are better at dealing with horses then women” she says.

“All you can do to overcome any issues is to carry on. I make the effort to strive to go the extra mile for any clients that I sense are a bit sexist or a bit unsure of me.”

While Mairi strikes me as a person who, ‘just gets on with it’, not all female vets share that mentality. ‘Cat the vet’ strikes again in the blogging sphere and in one article addresses the struggles female vets face in overcoming what may seem on the surface, minor hurdles.

She says: “Although veterinary women don’t strike me as a bunch of wallflowers, I have had far more conversations about a lack of confidence or perceived inadequacies from my female colleagues than my male ones. This may be that women are more likely to discuss their concerns and feelings.”

Towards the end of her article she concludes: “As individuals, women need to recognise their skills, worth and be confident to stand up and display these. We also need to realise that we cannot and do not need to be perfect, and that this career is one where we are constantly learning and improving and making mistake is part of that. We need to be more definite in our career goals and demand equal pay (which we still don’t have according to the last SPVS survey), for equal roles.”

Looking at her watch Mairi says “I’ve got another visit in half an hour.”

While on route to another yard, this time to ‘rasp’ two horses’ teeth, our conversation turns to the topic of starting a family.

“I would be concerned about telling my boss I was pregnant, but then I have seen the knock-on effects of a vet being trained up to the level of being competent with most things, only to leave and have a baby and be off for a year, and then be replaced with a new graduate or early-stage vet, putting all the strain back onto the other vets remaining.” Mairi’s concerns echo those of Adele who is determined not to “just give it all up”.

“It’s a very tricky thing facing the whole profession to be honest” Mairi continues. “I think it is made worse in equine practice by the reduced number of equine vets who are experienced to the required level, and also free to cover maternity leave etc.”

These ‘knock-on-effects’ help explain figures revealing that men are as four times as likely to hold higher positions in the veterinary hierarchy, including practice partners. As well as the fact that there are simply more older men who are in the position to have such jobs.

“I think it’s because women are more likely to be competitive earlier in their career but take a step back and put work aside to have families and to settle into being a more kind of GP sort of vet.”

She adds: “Of course women will continue to try and improve within their job but not so much in the hierarchy of the practice because they turn their priorities to other things.”

As we pull into the yard, Mairi tells me about a fellow equine vet who was forced to leave work because she was pregnant.

“She became pregnant and as you’re meant to, she told her bosses. They told her clients and colleagues, despite her specifically saying not to, because she was only three months then.

“They then just started phasing her out by not giving her as many calls so she had less work to do, so she asked them for a meeting to talk about it and they told her that since she’d become pregnant she wasn’t working as hard and not doing as many visits. Then even though she had called the meeting they documented it as a verbal warning which brought them one step closer to being able to legally dismiss her.

“Work became awkward and un-enjoyable and she was forced to quit before they could fire her. It was really stressful and upsetting for her” Mairi adds as she picks up an enormous syringe, tooth rasp and mouth gag from her car boot.

In recent years, the calls for support by frustrated female vets who are forced to make compromises and sacrifices are beginning to be heard. Top veterinary organisations have recognised the struggles female vets are facing in the UK and steps are being taken to raise awareness of the issue.

'Women in Leadership' was the topic of Vet Futures’ first online debate. The project was set up by the British Veterinary Association (BVA) and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS) in order to identify problems within the veterinary profession and to initiate debate and discussion. In 2015, the project completed its first survey investigating the profession’s gender pay gap.

In the attempt to raise awareness, articles including ‘Are male vets worth more than female vets?’ which addresses the gender pay gap in the veterinary profession and compromises ‘vet mums’ are forced to make are featured on the BVA website.

The organisation also offers a downloadable maternity and paternity leave guide for employers and employees which includes explanations as to when and how to approach employers with the news, lists of entitled rights and obligations and health and safety risks.

BVA media officer, Felicity Quick is keen to emphasise the difficulty of tackling the issue head on. She said: "As we don’t have many official records or statistics, it’s difficult to directly address and unfortunately it is a slow process."

While the lack of direct action provides little comfort for the those experiencing gender discrimination on a daily basis, such efforts suggest that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for the UK’s female vets.