The Gender Gap in Scholarly Publishing: Are Women Equally Represented?

Gender imbalance is changing, but in terms of academic publishing, men still dominate. This means that women’s careers and research itself may be under the consequences of inequality. But is the reason behind the uneven ratio between male and female contributors really due to inequality, or is it because simply more men are providing more research than women and the statistic is unavoidable? Are women being discredited, or is the content by one person or the other just more valuable and has nothing to do with gender?

In the current age academics face an extra demand: to make their work more visible and accessible. But it becomes questionable as to what’s in it for the scientists under pressure from time and expectations. Furthermore, what’s in it for women wanting to be equally represented? Focusing on the amount of women working in the fields of science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM) jobs worldwide — the amount is less than 30%. This figure in itself is an indicator for the need to change.

Within the fields of science, men take up the majority of the workplace. Similarly, in the publishing industry, despite the majority of the workforce consisting of female employers — higher rated roles at senior level are mostly male. When we look among the progress of the work place environment, the gender gap is smaller today than it was in the past. This may give the impression that there will soon be equal numbers of men and women researchers. But it’s debatable as to whether or not that current initiatives to recruit and retain more women are working adequately.

Looking at the efforts for change, the promotion of the participation of women in STEM is active. For example, a prominent gender advancement project is in the works by UNESCO. This caused a rise in the number of women choosing to study in these fields. We can see that women would be more willing to participate if they are more encouraged. The domination of men in the workforce may have been the reason behind women avoiding the scientific platform. The uneven ratio may not be down to the fact that men simply have higher output than women when it comes to scholarly research. It may be down to the fact that women are daunted by the idea of entering a male dominated environment and the anxiety towards gender inequality. Despite the advances, the occupation of subordinate positions in the realm of scientific publishing is still the highest place of employment for women.

The gender gap in publishing is shown through its predominantly female-driven field. Based on the gender pay gap, men in the industry are often paid more. They are also promoted faster than women, and further, receive higher senior bonuses. The Bookseller news team described the ‘fetishisation’ of men in publishing; this is driven by the ideal that since there are more women in book publishing, men are paid comparatively more to draw them into the industry.

The gender equality issue being identified means we are getting closer to a positive solution. It may be thought that the industry is male dominated naturally, but looking at the bigger picture this is not the case. The industry needs to become more approachable so women can enter the field without anxiety towards gender discrimination. In order to fuel more progress, further mentoring, support and promotion for women at universities and research institutions is in need.

Holman, L., Stuart-Fox, D. and E. Hauser, C. (2018). The gender gap in science: How long until women are equally represented?. [online] PLOS Biology. Available at: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2004956 [Accessed 22 Oct. 2019].

LaHaie, Z. (2018). Mind the Gender Gap: Inequality in the Publishing Industry — Ooligan Press. [online] Ooligan Press. Available at: https://ooligan.pdx.edu/publishing-gender-gap/ [Accessed 22 Oct. 2019].

Makunga, N. (2017). Women scientists lag in academic publishing, and it matters. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/women-scientists-lag-in-academic-publishing-and-it-matters-82521 [Accessed 24 Oct. 2019].

Martin, L. (2019). Gender pay gap: discrimination found to be most significant contributor to inequality. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/22/gender-pay-gap-discrimination-found-to-be-most-significant-contributor-to-inequality [Accessed 22 Oct. 2019].

Mertkan, S., Arsan, N., Cavlan, G. and Aliusta, G. (2016). Diversity and equality in academic publishing: the case of educational leadership. [online] Taylor & Francis Online. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057925.2015.1136924 [Accessed 23 Oct. 2019].

Striking-women.org. (2019). Gender pay gap and the struggle for equal pay. [online] Available at: https://www.striking-women.org/module/workplace-issues-past-and-present/gender-pay-gap-and-struggle-equal-pay [Accessed 22 Oct. 2019].