What to remember when supervising female PhD students? I have been supervising a female PhD student for a couple of months. She is the first female PhD student I am supervising and got the position on merit. 

My view is that her gender does not/should not change anything in how I supervise her or what I expect from her, the rationale being that doing so might ultimately hurt her in her post-PhD career. For this reason, I have not brought up her gender in any of our discussions. I briefly contemplated telling her that I will treat her the same way as her male peers, but did not do so because it seemed wrong (as in "of course, why is he telling me this?").

Lately I have been wondering, however, whether there are things I should do that I might not even be thinking of. Perhaps my own experience and the male-dominated environment blind me so that I do not perceive my own sexist/reverse-sexist attitudes and ultimately do not do things that I should be doing (and vice versa)? So I am interested in reading advice/views on supervising female PhD students (in male-dominated academic environments). 

A few notes to address anticipated follow-up questions: Yes, I am male. I did not specify where my institution is located because I am interested in a range of opinions/comments. The agency that finances her project offers a special stipend to attend workshops/meetings for female students; I have encouraged her to attend.
My view is that her gender does not/should not change anything in how I supervise her or what I expect from her, the rationale being that doing so might ultimately hurt her in her post-PhD career. For this reason, I have not brought up her gender in any of our discussions. I briefly contemplated telling her that I will treat her the same way as her male peers, but did not do so because it seemed wrong (as in "of course, why is he telling me this?").


That is exactly the advice I would give in this situation, so congrats, you've already figured it out.


  The agency that finances her project offers a special stipend to attend workshops/meetings for female students; I have encouraged her to attend.


Try not to overdo the encouragement. I get so much spam inviting me to assorted "women in engineering" events. 

On a related note, you might want to watch out for the possibility that you (or your department) might have a tendency to overuse the students who are "visible" minorities (race, gender) in publicity materials and outreach events.  Some people don't mind (some even appreciate this), but some dislike being used as "poster children" to show how diverse the department is. (There's a joke in this TV episode, where the African-American doctor calls out his college for overusing him in their brochure by photoshopping him into the same picture twice.) 

I'm sure people must have published studies about how female PhD students are statistically more likely to have families and be concerned about work-life balance issues, and how you have to be more supportive, etc.  But all that really just comes down to being communicative and supportive of your students, whatever their individual needs might be. For large numbers I'm sure there's a gender dimension there, but at the individual level it's just about being a good supervisor to an individual student.