Women are underrepresented on the editorial boards of journals in environmental biology and natural resource management

Alyssa Cho; Shelly A Johnson; Carrie Schuman; Jennifer Adler; Oscar Gonzalez; Sarah J Graves; Jana Huebner; D Blaine Marchant; Sami Rifai; Irina Skinner; Emilio M Bruna

doi:10.7287/peerj.preprints.369v2

Women are underrepresented on the editorial boards of journals in environmental biology and natural resource management

Alyssa Cho¹, Shelly A Johnson², Carrie Schuman³, Jennifer Adler³, Oscar Gonzalez³, Sarah J Graves², Jana Huebner³, D Blaine Marchant⁴, Sami Rifai², Irina Skinner⁵, Emilio M Bruna ^5,6

1 Agronomy Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

2 School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

3 School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

4 Biology Department, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA

5 Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

6 Center for Latin American Studies, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA

DOI: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.369v2

Published: 2014-05-21
Accepted: 2014-05-21

Subject Areas: Science Policy
Keywords: Gender, Editorial Boards, Bias, Associate Editors, Subject Editors, Editor-in-Chief

Licence: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Cite this article: Cho A, Johnson SA, Schuman C, Adler J, Gonzalez O, Graves SJ, Huebner J, Marchant DB, Rifai S, Skinner I, Bruna EM. 2014. Women are underrepresented on the editorial boards of journals in environmental biology and natural resource management. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e369v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.369v2

Abstract

Despite women earning similar numbers of graduate degrees as men in STEM disciplines, they are underrepresented in upper level positions in both academia and industry. Editorial board memberships are an important example of such positions; membership is both a professional honor in recognition of achievement and an opportunity for professional advancement. We surveyed 10 highly regarded journals in environmental biology, natural resource management, and plant sciences to quantify the number of women on their editorial boards and in positions of editorial leadership from 1985-2013. We found that during this time period, only 16% of editorial board members were women, with more pronounced disparities in positions of editorial leadership (i.e., Associate Editors, Editors-in-Chief). Although the trend was towards improvement over time, there was surprising variation between journals. We argue editorial boards should strive for gender parity to increase the number of women afforded the opportunities and benefits that accompany membership, as well as increase the number of role models and mentors for early-career scientists and students.

Author Comment

This is version two of this manuscript; the methods have now been integrated into the body of the manuscript.