Gender Bias Distorts Peer Review Across FieldsMarch 22, 2017 |
In many scientific fields, women publish fewer papers than men, are less likely to be listed as first authors1 and are less likely to receive glowing letters of recommendation from their advisers2. These disparities have decreased over time, but they persist. Now, a study finds that some journal editors might be inadvertently taking gender into account when selecting reviewers for papers.
They found that, on average, male editors were much more likely to pick male reviewers, whereas female editors were more likely to pick other women. This bias was stronger for men, the researchers report in a study3 published on 21 March in eLife.
Previous papers have looked at gender bias in peer review, but most of them have focused on one field. But this latest study analysed 142 journals in the Frontiers family of publications across science, health, engineering and social sciences.
Image: By Mind_the_gap1.jpg: London Student Feministsderivative work: User:AnonMoos (earlier version: Pro Femina (talk)) – This file was derived fromMind the gap1.jpg:, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18526095
Tags: academy, bias, bioethics, gender, journal, publication, science
