Despite increased awareness of the lack of gender equity in academia and a growing number of initiatives to address issues of diversity, change is slow and inequalities remain. Gender bias in academia is not a single problem but manifests as a collection of distinct issues that negatively affect every aspect of women researchers’ lives: careers, work-life balance, and mental health. Together with 43 authors across 10 countries, we disentangled these facets and propose concrete suggestions that can be adopted by individuals, academic institutions, and society to mitigate the pervasive effect of gender bias.