Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Why we shouldn’t blame women for gender disparity in academia: perspectives of women in zoology

ABSTRACT

The following letter, from a network of women zoologists, is a reply to the article of AlShebli et al. (2020), which suggests that female protégés reap more benefits when mentored by men and concludes that female mentors hinder the success of their female protégés and the quality of their impact. This contribution has two parts. First, we highlight the most relevant methodological flaws which, in our opinion, may have impacted the conclusions of AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
). Second, we discuss issues pertaining to women in science, bring a perspective of Women in Zoology and discuss how current diversity policies are positively changing our field.

KEY WORDS:
Academic settings; diversity; gender gap; gendered metrics; STEM; women in science

We are part of a patriarchal society, although scientists and academics often fail to recognize it. This patriarchal structure and its misconceptions are reflected in our scientific environment. The recently published study of AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) (now retracted by the authors) is one example of how scientific conclusions can have negative impacts to the academic environment when social data are analyzed apart from their underlying social context.

AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) investigated the role of mentorship in scientific collaborations on the successful outcome of protégés considering the gender of their mentors. Their conclusion was that female mentors hinder the success of their female protégés and the quality of their impact (measured by the number of citations and impact of protégés’ articles), suggesting that female protégés reap more benefits when mentored by males instead of their equally-impactful female counterparts. AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) recognize that the specific social mechanisms underlying their findings were not addressed in their study. Despite that, they proposed that their results indicate that diversity policies need to be reviewed, favoring an association between female protégés and male mentors. This suggestion goes against all current policies that aim for more diversity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), contributing to reinforce the patriarchal structure of the academic environment, which has historically constrained the career of many female researchers. Within the context of STEM, we point out some relevant issues that went unnoticed by the reviewers and editor of Nature Communications (or were dismissed during the reviewing process) and discuss why we believe that the findings of AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) should not be used for reviewing diversity policies in STEM. Other criticisms and comments on the same work are available in Deanna et al. (2020Deanna R, Baxter I, Chun KP, Merkle BG, Zuo R, Diele-Viegas LM, et al. (2020) It takes a village - overcoming gender-biased mentorship in academia. OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/25h7p
https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/25h7p...
) and Diele-Viegas et al. (2020aDiele-Viegas LM, Araújo OGS, Berneck BVM, Brasileiro CA, et al. (2020a) When misinterpretation leads to sexism: perspectives on gender disparity in Brazilian Herpetology. Herpetologia Brasileira 9(3): 86-99., 2020bDiele-Viegas LM, Almeida TS, Amati-Martins I, Bacon CD, et al. (2020b) Gender inequality and not female mentors hinder female scientists career outcomes. OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/s83zk
https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/s83zk...
). Lastly, we bring a perspective of Women in Zoology and how current diversity policies are bringing more gender equality to the field.

Below, we point out a few notable methodological flaws in the work of AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
). The first one pertains to how they established the mentor-protégé association: they only took into account the mentor-protégé pairs in the same discipline, and by doing so, they missed interdisciplinary hubs, which are more prevalent in gender and ethnically diverse groups (Adams 2013Adams J (2013) The fourth age of research. Nature 497(7451): 557-560. https://doi.org/10.1038/497557a
https://doi.org/10.1038/497557a...
, Uzzi et al. 2013Uzzi B, Mukherjee S, Stringer M, Jones B (2013) Atypical combinations and scientific impact. Science 342(6157): 468-472. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1240474
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1240474...
, Campbell et al. 2013Campbell LG, Mehtani S, Dozier ME, Rinehart J (2013) Gender-heterogeneous working groups produce higher quality science. PloS ONE 8(10): e79147. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079147
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.007...
, Franzoni et al. 2014Franzoni C, Scellato G, Stephan P (2014) The mover’s advantage: The superior performance of migrant scientists. Economics Letters 122(1): 89-93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.10.040
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.1...
, Freeman and Huang 2015Freeman RB, Huang W (2015) Collaborating with people like me: Ethnic coauthorship within the United States. Journal of Labor Economics 33(S1): S289-S318. https://doi.org/10.1086/678973
https://doi.org/10.1086/678973...
); furthermore, even though they endeavored to embrace a broader sense of mentorship when examining the publication networks by including other senior co-authors as mentors besides the thesis’ advisor, their criterion was not as broad as it could have been: by excluding the potential mentors that do not share the same affiliation as the protégé, AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) most likely ended up missing many diverse and multidisciplinary research groups in their analysis.

The second methodological flaw we identified is that AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) do not take into account that mentorship also happens outside of the context of co-authorship, and that co-authorship does not necessarily imply an established mentorship. Despite the existence of guidelines with criteria on what configures authorship (e.g. Brand et al. 2015Brand A, Allen L, Altman M, Hlava M, Scott J (2015) Beyond authorship: Attribution, contribution, collaboration, and credit. Learned Publishing 28(2): 151-155. https://doi.org/10.1087/20150211
https://doi.org/10.1087/20150211...
, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors 2019International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2019) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (December, 2019). Available at: http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf
http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendatio...
), defining authorship is a complex process that frequently relies on informal agreements (Brand et al. 2015, Albarracín et al. 2020Albarracín MLG, Castro CM, Chaparro PE (2020) Importance, definition and conflicts of authorship in scientific publications. Revista Bioética 28(1): 10-16. https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-80422020281361
https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-80422020281...
). According to these authors, although activities such as procuring funding or institutional infrastructure do not justify authorship, senior researchers are often included as authors because of those activities. Furthermore, it is possible that behind the success of a protégé there are also mentors who never effectively co-authored with the student (but are mentioned at the Acknowledgements section instead).

According to Estrada et al. (2018Estrada M, Hernandez PR, Schultz PW (2018) A longitudinal study of how quality mentorship and research experience integrate underrepresented minorities into STEM careers. CBE - Life Sciences Education 17(1): ar9. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-04-0066
https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-04-0066...
), there are three main components in mentorship: instrumental support (including the provision of resources and opportunities for the protégé to attain their research goals), psychosocial support (increasing the protégé’s self-confidence and professional effectiveness), and quality of the relationship established between mentor and protégé. AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) analyzed only part of the instrumental support as a proxy of mentorship quality. The authors focused only on the publication impact and the collaboration network of the protégés when following their solo career, ignoring the remaining factors, despite their importance to the protégés’ performance, motivation, career outcomes, and health.

Based on the methodological flaws discussed above, the conclusions provided by AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) fail to properly recognize the social component into which epistemic science research fields are constructed and, therefore, end up suggesting that policy makers should not promote female-female mentorships.

All scientists are part of a sexist society and ruled by social conduct (Arruza et al. 2018Arruza C, Bhattacharya T, Fraser N (2018) Notes for a feminist manifesto. New Left Review, 114 (november-december). Available at: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii114/articles/nancy-fraser-tithi-bhattacharya-cinzia-arruzza-notes-for-a-feminist-manifesto
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii114/a...
). Being as such, women scientists attempt to thrive despite all setbacks provided by structural sexism (both explicit and implicit). Such a systemic paradigm results in numerous obstacles during their careers, which lead to a leaky pipeline in academia (Pell 1996Pell AN (1996) Fixing the Leaky Pipeline: Women Scientists in Academia. Journal of Animal Sciences 74: 2843-2848. https://doi.org/10.2527/1996.74112843x
https://doi.org/10.2527/1996.74112843x...
, Knobloch-Westerwick et al. 2013Knobloch-Westerwick S, Glynn CJ, Huge M (2013) The Matilda effect in science communication: an experiment on gender bias in publication quality perceptions and collaboration interest. Science Communication 35(5): 603-625. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012472684
https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012472684...
, Reuben et al. 2014Reuben E, Sapienza P, Zingales L (2014) How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(12): 4403-4408. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1314788111
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1314788111...
), hindering their long-term retention, especially in STEM (Hughes 2018Hughes BE (2018) Coming out in STEM: Factors affecting retention of sexual minority STEM students. Science Advances 4(3): eaao6373. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao6373
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao6373...
). The Matilda effect (Rossiter 1993Rossiter M (1993) The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science. Social Studies of Science 23(2): 325-341. https://doi.org/10.1177/030631293023002004
https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312930230020...
), defined by a systematic underrecognition of female scientists throughout history, is well-perceived as a major force impairing the progress of women in science (Knobloch-Westerwick et al. 2013Knobloch-Westerwick S, Glynn CJ, Huge M (2013) The Matilda effect in science communication: an experiment on gender bias in publication quality perceptions and collaboration interest. Science Communication 35(5): 603-625. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012472684
https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012472684...
). Women are usually disproportionately burdened with household chores including bearing babies and taking care of both children and elderly relations (Goulden et al. 2011Goulden M, Mason MA, Frasch K (2011) Keeping women in the science pipeline. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 638(1): 141-162. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716211416925
https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716211416925...
), particularly during the current COVID-19 pandemic (Hipólito et al. 2020Hipólito J, Diele-Viegas LM, Cordeiro TE, Sales LP, Medeiros A, Deegan KR, Leite L (2020) Unwrapping the long-term impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Brazilian academic mothers: the urgency of short, medium, and long-term measures. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências 92(4): e20201292. https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765202020201292
https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-37652020202...
, Staniscuaski et al. 2020Staniscuaski F, Reichert F, Werneck FP, de Oliveira L, Mello-Carpes PB, Soletti RC, et al. (2020) Impact of COVID-19 on academic mothers. Science 368(6492): 724-724. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc2740
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc2740...
). They are much more frequently affected by harassment (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2018National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018) Sexual harassment of women: climate, culture, and consequences in academic sciences, engineering, and medicine. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.17226/24994
https://doi.org/10.17226/24994...
), both because of their gender or sexual orientation (Hughes 2018Hughes BE (2018) Coming out in STEM: Factors affecting retention of sexual minority STEM students. Science Advances 4(3): eaao6373. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao6373
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao6373...
). Women are also systematically less cited (Larivière et al. 2013Larivière V, Ni C, Gingras Y, Cronin B, Sugimoto CR (2013) Bibliometrics: Global gender disparities in science. Nature News 504(7479): 211. https://doi.org/10.1038/504211a
https://doi.org/10.1038/504211a...
, Bendels et al. 2018Bendels MH, Müller R, Brueggmann D, Groneberg DA (2018) Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals. PloS ONE 13(1): e0189136. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189136
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.018...
) or less credited for their work (Handley et al. 2015Handley IM, Brown ER, Moss-Racusin CA, Smith JL (2015) Quality of evidence revealing subtle gender biases in science is in the eye of the beholder. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112(43): 13201-13206. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1510649112
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1510649112...
), and the division of labor in scientific work (and subsequent publications) usually undermine the contribution of women and other minorities (Larivière et al. 2020Larivière V, Pontille D, Sugimoto CR (2020) Investigating the division of scientific labor using the Contributor Roles Taxo nomy (CRediT). Quantitative Science Studies. Advance publication. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00097
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00097...
). All the beforementioned result in a lower inclusion of women in collaboration networks, especially those led by men (Araújo et al. 2017Araújo EB, Araújo NAM, Moreira AA, Hermann HJ, Andrade JS Jr (2017) Gender differences in scientific collaborations: Women are more egalitarian than men. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0176791. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176791
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.017...
). All these biases should be addressed when discussing the results presented by AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
).

What defines success in the academic field?

A list of the 100,000 most prominent scientists was recently published (Ioannidis et al. 2020Ioannidis JP, Boyack KW, Baas J (2020) Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators. Plos Biology 18(10): e3000918. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.300...
), based exclusively on citations. It prompted us to question: what defines “success” in academia? Despite publications being a major factor driving the influence a scientist has on the scientific community, there are other ways to measure it and which may be more appropriate for different fields of knowledge (see Bradshaw et al. 2020Bradshaw CJA, Chalker JM, Crabtree SA, Eijkelkamp BA, Long JA, Smith JR, Trinajstic K, Weisbecker V (2020) A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data (Preprint). Authorea Preprints. https://doi.org/10.22541/au.160373218.83526843/v1
https://doi.org/10.22541/au.160373218.83...
, Oliveira et al. 2020Oliveira L, Reichert F, Zandona E, Soletti RC, Staniscuaski F (2020) The 100,000 most influential scientists rank: the underrepresentation of Brazilian women in academia. bioRxiv Preprints. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.22.423872
https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.22.42387...
). The training of future scientists is also an important metric and such training is given by scientists that occupy positions of power as members of university faculties (Catalyst 2005Catalyst Inc, General Motors Corporation (2005) Women “Take Care,” Men “Take Charge:” stereotyping of us business leaders exposed. Catalyst. Available online at: https://www.catalyst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Women_Take_Care_Men_Take_Charge_Stereotyping_of_U.S._Business_Leaders_Exposed.pdf
https://www.catalyst.org/wp-content/uplo...
, Clauset et al. 2015Clauset A, Arbesman S, Larremore DB (2015) Systematic inequality and hierarchy in faculty hiring networks. Science Advances 1(1): e1400005. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400005
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400005...
).

Still, women are under-represented as professors and researchers, and are more concentrated in universities that are not research-intensive (Chubb and Derrick 2020Chubb J, Derrick GE (2020) The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation. Palgrave Communications 6(1): 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-z
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-...
). Moreover, while teaching quality is reportedly female-dominated, the research realm is more male-dominated (Morley 2003Morley L (2003) Quality and power in higher education. McGraw-Hill Education, UK.). This results in a larger proportion of women being responsible for student-focused services (in “institutional housekeeping” roles, Bird et al. 2004Bird S, Litt J, Wang Y (2004) Creating status of women reports: Institutional housekeeping as” Women’s Work”. NWSA Journal: 194-206. doi: 10.1353/nwsa.2004.0027
https://doi.org/10.1353/nwsa.2004.0027...
), which are undervalued, while men are the ones being praised because they have greater publication numbers and their publications have more impact (Chubb and Derrick 2020Chubb J, Derrick GE (2020) The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation. Palgrave Communications 6(1): 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-z
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-...
). That being the case, the most commonly used academic performance metrics benefits men over women. Additionally, when the behavior of a professional contrasts with the established gender roles, it influences how the competence of the professional is judged (Chubb and Derrick 2020Chubb J, Derrick GE (2020) The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation. Palgrave Communications 6(1): 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-z
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-...
). For example, when a woman has strong research success, she is usually undervalued by her peers regarding a particular factor (e.g., time lag of publications, agency, competitiveness, and even private life matters, such as marital status) whereas a man will be overvalued for the same thing (Juraqulova et al. 2015Juraqulova Z, Byington T, Kmec JA (2015) The impacts of marriage on perceived academic career success: Differences by gender and discipline. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology 7(3): 369-392. http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php/genderandset/article/view/389
http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php...
, Eaton et al. 2020Eaton AA, Saunders JF, Jacobson RK, West K (2020) How gender and race stereotypes impact the advancement of scholars in STEM: Professors’ biased evaluations of physics and biology post-doctoral candidates. Sex Roles 82(3-4): 127-141. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01052-w
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01052...
, Severin et al. 2020Severin A, Martins J, Heyard R, Delavy F, Jorstad A, Egger M (2020) Gender and other potential biases in peer review: cross-sectional analysis of 38 250 external peer review reports. BMJ open 10(8): e035058. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035058
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035...
).

Women in STEM: examples coming from the Brazilian Zoological networks and professional advancement

As extensively discussed in the literature, the disadvantage faced by women in STEM fields is usually related to gender stereotypes (Schiebinger 2001Schiebinger L (2001) O feminismo mudou a ciência? EDUSC, Bauru, 382 pp., Reuben et al. 2014Reuben E, Sapienza P, Zingales L (2014) How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(12): 4403-4408. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1314788111
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1314788111...
, Bendels et al. 2018Bendels MH, Müller R, Brueggmann D, Groneberg DA (2018) Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals. PloS ONE 13(1): e0189136. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189136
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.018...
, Eaton et al. 2020Eaton AA, Saunders JF, Jacobson RK, West K (2020) How gender and race stereotypes impact the advancement of scholars in STEM: Professors’ biased evaluations of physics and biology post-doctoral candidates. Sex Roles 82(3-4): 127-141. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01052-w
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01052...
). The so-called Matilda Effect affects women since they are young girls and negatively influences their desire to pursue a career in science (Hill et al. 2010Hill C, Corbett C, St Rose A (2010) Why so few? Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. American Association of University Women. Washington, DC., Leite and Diele-Viegas 2020Leite L, Diele-Viegas LM (2020) Too intelligent for the life sciences in Brazil: how two female researchers fought back. Nature 587: 163-164. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02978-y
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02978...
). In Brazil, despite the fact that women author roughly 70% of all the articles published (Crotti et al. 2020Crotti R, Geiger T, Ratcheva V, Zahidi S (2020) Global Gender Gap Report 2020. In: World Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_20...
), there is a global trend in which the articles that have women as first or last co-author (usually recognized as the ‘main authors’) are less cited than articles that have men as main authors (Larivière et al. 2013Larivière V, Ni C, Gingras Y, Cronin B, Sugimoto CR (2013) Bibliometrics: Global gender disparities in science. Nature News 504(7479): 211. https://doi.org/10.1038/504211a
https://doi.org/10.1038/504211a...
). Furthermore, despite the larger proportion of women enrolled in both secondary (83% women vs. 80% men) and tertiary (59% women vs. 43% men) education in Brazil compared to men, women are more present in fields associated with culture and “care” and less represented in STEM (Crotti et al. 2020Crotti R, Geiger T, Ratcheva V, Zahidi S (2020) Global Gender Gap Report 2020. In: World Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_20...
).

Only recently, have more women been taking part in positions of power in Zoological Societies in Brazil. For example, the Brazilian Society of Zoology (SBZ) never had female presidents until 2012, when its first female president was elected after 34 years. The 2018-2020 SBZ directorship (with a female president) supported for the first time a symposium “For more women in Zoology” held in the XXXIII Brazilian Congress of Zoology promoting networks among Women in STEM and zoological subjects. Furthermore, in 2019, an all-female directorship was elected for the Brazilian Society of Ichthyology (SBI) being the third all-female directorship among the 19 elected in the history of that society. This all-female board, together with a deliberative council composed mostly by men, has started to discuss gender inequality in ichthyology and best practices to decrease it. Another example is the board of the Brazilian Society of Herpetology (SBH), also mostly composed of women (three women in five positions), while the deliberative council is mainly composed of men (six men in nine positions), reflecting the sharp gender disparity still seen in the field. After the discussion table “Women in Herpetology yesterday, today... and now? Discussing gender for effective inclusion” at the Brazilian Congress of Herpetology in 2019, a list of actions was proposed to reduce gender inequalities in herpetology (see Werneck et al. 2019Werneck FDP, Pereira JA, Pinto RR, Costa-Rodrigues APV, Pereira EG, Mangia S, et al. (2019) Diagnóstico e propostas para ampliar a representatividade de pesquisadoras em Herpetologia no Brasil. Herpetologia Brasileira 8: 36-43.).

However, gender inequality is still prominent in other Brazilian scientific societies, such as the Brazilian Society of Palaeontology (SBP), which in the last 62 years, of the 29 elected boards, only two had female presidents, and four had the participation of women in the vice-presidency (Kotzian and Ribeiro 2009Kotzian CB, Ribeiro AM (2009) Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia 50 anos - uma homenagem aos seus fundadores. Paleontologia em Destaque - Boletim Informativo da Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia, Edição Especial, 112 pp.). It is important to highlight that 45% of the 713 members of this society are women. However, despite having significant participation within the society, the representation of women in Brazilian Palaeontology appears to be significantly less expressive than that of men along its entire existence (Kotzian and Ribeiro 2009Kotzian CB, Ribeiro AM (2009) Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia 50 anos - uma homenagem aos seus fundadores. Paleontologia em Destaque - Boletim Informativo da Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia, Edição Especial, 112 pp.).

Similar to what is seen in the SBP, the Brazilian Ornithological Society (SBO) has a relatively balanced proportion, with 44% female members. However, these proportions have not been reflected in the number of publications in the society’s main journal. Of the articles published in the last five years in the Brazilian Journal of Ornithology, only 22% had females as first authors (S.A. Sousa, unpublished data). The relatively equal proportion of society members compared to the lack of articles published by women indicates that female ornithologists might face opportunity bottlenecks in academic careers. Usually, being the leading author in a scientific publication requires long term commitment to academia and leadership in laboratory and field experiments.

Although individual efforts have their merits, we believe that research and educational centers need to provide the necessary means to recognize and undermine biases in the availability of opportunities for women scientists. Networks of women in science are gaining strength in Brazil, discussing issues related to gender inequality and giving voice to women in several fields. The initiative “Mulheres na Ciência BR” (Women in Science Brazil), founded by a group of zoologists, started as a social network community of women scientists in 2016 and has since grown to establish an actively-curated digital magazine (http://www.mulheresnaciencia.com.br), where women of all fields and backgrounds showcase their voices and discuss science and gender perspectives in academia. The “Kunhã Asé” network of women in science was founded in 2019 by four women biologists aiming to provide academic and emotional support to female Brazilian scientists at different career stages and encourage young women and girls in science (Leite and Diele-Viegas 2020Leite L, Diele-Viegas LM (2020) Too intelligent for the life sciences in Brazil: how two female researchers fought back. Nature 587: 163-164. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02978-y
https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02978...
). The “Parent in Science” group (https://www.parentinscience.com) is an initiative of researchers who are parents, demanding equal access of men and women to funding for academic research in Brazil. The project aims to understand the impact of motherhood and recognize that female scientists often have a double journey, combining academic careers with childcare (Lunetas 2018Lunetas (2018) Maternidade no currículo: conheça a mulher que começou essa luta. https://lunetas.com.br/maternidade-no-curriculo [Accessed: 24/11/2020]
https://lunetas.com.br/maternidade-no-cu...
). Currently, the group proposes symposia to discuss solutions to problems of motherhood and fatherhood in the academy, in addition to increasing awareness of proper authorities to the demands that parenthood adds to academic careers.

Specific disciplines in zoology are also creating their own networks. The “Ictiomulheres” (Ichthywomen) was created in 2017 and researches the gender issues in Brazilian Ichthyology, including promoting women in ichthyological studies and their participation in the field. The network also recently organized the event “Elasmulheres”, with prominent women in elasmobranchs research fields. The group “Herpetologia segundo as Herpetólogas” (Herpetology according to women herpetologists) was created in 2018 aiming to disseminate the science made by women in the field of herpetology, including contributions to the conservation of reptiles and amphibians through environmental education, and promoting greater participation of women in Brazilian herpetology. The group “Mulheres na Entomologia” (Women in Entomology) appeared in 2019 with the aim of publishing and disseminating biographies of past and present women entomologists while encouraging young scientists to follow the examples of female researchers in the development of their own careers. Regarding questions of inequality in Brazilian Paleontology, a group of female paleontologists, “Mulheres na Paleontologia” (Women in Paleontology), aims to identify the main gender biases through the project “The gender profile in Brazilian Palaeontology”, which has already been approved in the Plataforma Brasil, a national database of research records involving humans. All the above-mentioned initiatives demonstrate some of the projects that begun in recent years to bring awareness to gender inequality and discuss solutions in order to achieve a more diverse and inclusive zoology. These initiatives are possible because of the increase in the number of women participating in some Brazilian Zoological societies and because these women are becoming more conscious of the role of gender bias in their careers. It reinforces the importance of women actively working as part of the scientific community.

Concluding remarks

The academic system is oriented by a particular cultural frame (Geertz 1983Geertz C (1983) Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, Basic Books, New York, USA.), including gendered associations implicit in the academic reward system, which must be addressed and overcome. So, if (and it is a big if) female mentors cannot provide the same outcomes as male mentors to their female protégés, it is not due to some inherent female problem, but to the existing gender-biased system that still confers privilege on male researchers, with or without children. Thus, partnering with male mentors will not solve gender inequality in science and should not be the option given to women to raise their academic status. We expect that discussions and replies like this are no longer necessary someday. But it will only be possible when we have a truly diverse and inclusive science.

The takeaway message we highlight here is an invitation to the scientific community for a broader discussion about the criteria defining success in academia, considering that women play fundamental role in constructing a more inclusive environment for early-career researchers. It is not enough to make science attractive for diverse junior researchers. It is fundamental to create a scientific environment that maximizes the carrots and minimizes the sticks over these people’s careers (Galinsky et al. 2015Galinsky AD, Todd AR, Homan AC, Phillips KW, Apfelbaum EP, Sasaki SJ, et al. (2015) Maximizing the gains and minimizing the pains of diversity: A policy perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science 10(6): 742-748. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615598513
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615598513...
). The only way to do that is by stimulating the construction of diverse research environments and networks (Bendels et al. 2018Bendels MH, Müller R, Brueggmann D, Groneberg DA (2018) Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals. PloS ONE 13(1): e0189136. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189136
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.018...
), the opposite of what was proposed by AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
). Finally, we refuse to accept a superficial analysis that does not consider the oppression faced by women. The solutions proposed by AlShebli et al. (2020AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723...
) do not solve women’s problems in STEM, but only reinforce stereotypes and emphasize the sexual division of work and intellectual merit.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank to 561 signatories (see Supplementary Material List S1) which support this paper and women in zoology. TBG thanks the Universidade Estadual do Maranhão for the Senior Researcher fellowship. ABD thanks Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico for financial support (CNPq, process 433630/2018-3 and process 440831/2019-9).

LITERATURE CITED

  • Adams J (2013) The fourth age of research. Nature 497(7451): 557-560. https://doi.org/10.1038/497557a
    » https://doi.org/10.1038/497557a
  • Albarracín MLG, Castro CM, Chaparro PE (2020) Importance, definition and conflicts of authorship in scientific publications. Revista Bioética 28(1): 10-16. https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-80422020281361
    » https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-80422020281361
  • AlShebli B, Makovi K, Rahwan T (2020) The association between early career informal mentorship in academic collaborations and junior author performance. Nature Communications 11(1): 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
    » https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19723-8
  • Araújo EB, Araújo NAM, Moreira AA, Hermann HJ, Andrade JS Jr (2017) Gender differences in scientific collaborations: Women are more egalitarian than men. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0176791. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176791
    » https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0176791
  • Arruza C, Bhattacharya T, Fraser N (2018) Notes for a feminist manifesto. New Left Review, 114 (november-december). Available at: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii114/articles/nancy-fraser-tithi-bhattacharya-cinzia-arruzza-notes-for-a-feminist-manifesto
    » https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii114/articles/nancy-fraser-tithi-bhattacharya-cinzia-arruzza-notes-for-a-feminist-manifesto
  • Bendels MH, Müller R, Brueggmann D, Groneberg DA (2018) Gender disparities in high-quality research revealed by Nature Index journals. PloS ONE 13(1): e0189136. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189136
    » https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189136
  • Bird S, Litt J, Wang Y (2004) Creating status of women reports: Institutional housekeeping as” Women’s Work”. NWSA Journal: 194-206. doi: 10.1353/nwsa.2004.0027
    » https://doi.org/10.1353/nwsa.2004.0027
  • Bradshaw CJA, Chalker JM, Crabtree SA, Eijkelkamp BA, Long JA, Smith JR, Trinajstic K, Weisbecker V (2020) A fairer way to compare researchers at any career stage and in any discipline using open-access citation data (Preprint). Authorea Preprints. https://doi.org/10.22541/au.160373218.83526843/v1
    » https://doi.org/10.22541/au.160373218.83526843/v1
  • Brand A, Allen L, Altman M, Hlava M, Scott J (2015) Beyond authorship: Attribution, contribution, collaboration, and credit. Learned Publishing 28(2): 151-155. https://doi.org/10.1087/20150211
    » https://doi.org/10.1087/20150211
  • Campbell LG, Mehtani S, Dozier ME, Rinehart J (2013) Gender-heterogeneous working groups produce higher quality science. PloS ONE 8(10): e79147. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079147
    » https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0079147
  • Catalyst Inc, General Motors Corporation (2005) Women “Take Care,” Men “Take Charge:” stereotyping of us business leaders exposed. Catalyst. Available online at: https://www.catalyst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Women_Take_Care_Men_Take_Charge_Stereotyping_of_U.S._Business_Leaders_Exposed.pdf
    » https://www.catalyst.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Women_Take_Care_Men_Take_Charge_Stereotyping_of_U.S._Business_Leaders_Exposed.pdf
  • Chubb J, Derrick GE (2020) The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation. Palgrave Communications 6(1): 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-z
    » https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-z
  • Clauset A, Arbesman S, Larremore DB (2015) Systematic inequality and hierarchy in faculty hiring networks. Science Advances 1(1): e1400005. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400005
    » https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1400005
  • Crotti R, Geiger T, Ratcheva V, Zahidi S (2020) Global Gender Gap Report 2020. In: World Economic Forum. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf
    » http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf
  • Deanna R, Baxter I, Chun KP, Merkle BG, Zuo R, Diele-Viegas LM, et al. (2020) It takes a village - overcoming gender-biased mentorship in academia. OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/25h7p
    » https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/25h7p
  • Diele-Viegas LM, Araújo OGS, Berneck BVM, Brasileiro CA, et al. (2020a) When misinterpretation leads to sexism: perspectives on gender disparity in Brazilian Herpetology. Herpetologia Brasileira 9(3): 86-99.
  • Diele-Viegas LM, Almeida TS, Amati-Martins I, Bacon CD, et al. (2020b) Gender inequality and not female mentors hinder female scientists career outcomes. OSF Preprints. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/s83zk
    » https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/s83zk
  • Eaton AA, Saunders JF, Jacobson RK, West K (2020) How gender and race stereotypes impact the advancement of scholars in STEM: Professors’ biased evaluations of physics and biology post-doctoral candidates. Sex Roles 82(3-4): 127-141. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01052-w
    » https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-019-01052-w
  • Estrada M, Hernandez PR, Schultz PW (2018) A longitudinal study of how quality mentorship and research experience integrate underrepresented minorities into STEM careers. CBE - Life Sciences Education 17(1): ar9. https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-04-0066
    » https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.17-04-0066
  • Franzoni C, Scellato G, Stephan P (2014) The mover’s advantage: The superior performance of migrant scientists. Economics Letters 122(1): 89-93. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.10.040
    » https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2013.10.040
  • Freeman RB, Huang W (2015) Collaborating with people like me: Ethnic coauthorship within the United States. Journal of Labor Economics 33(S1): S289-S318. https://doi.org/10.1086/678973
    » https://doi.org/10.1086/678973
  • Galinsky AD, Todd AR, Homan AC, Phillips KW, Apfelbaum EP, Sasaki SJ, et al. (2015) Maximizing the gains and minimizing the pains of diversity: A policy perspective. Perspectives on Psychological Science 10(6): 742-748. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615598513
    » https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615598513
  • Geertz C (1983) Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, Basic Books, New York, USA.
  • Goulden M, Mason MA, Frasch K (2011) Keeping women in the science pipeline. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 638(1): 141-162. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716211416925
    » https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716211416925
  • Handley IM, Brown ER, Moss-Racusin CA, Smith JL (2015) Quality of evidence revealing subtle gender biases in science is in the eye of the beholder. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112(43): 13201-13206. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1510649112
    » https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1510649112
  • Hill C, Corbett C, St Rose A (2010) Why so few? Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. American Association of University Women. Washington, DC.
  • Hipólito J, Diele-Viegas LM, Cordeiro TE, Sales LP, Medeiros A, Deegan KR, Leite L (2020) Unwrapping the long-term impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on Brazilian academic mothers: the urgency of short, medium, and long-term measures. Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências 92(4): e20201292. https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765202020201292
    » https://doi.org/10.1590/0001-3765202020201292
  • Hughes BE (2018) Coming out in STEM: Factors affecting retention of sexual minority STEM students. Science Advances 4(3): eaao6373. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao6373
    » https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aao6373
  • International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (2019) Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (December, 2019). Available at: http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf
    » http://www.icmje.org/icmje-recommendations.pdf
  • Ioannidis JP, Boyack KW, Baas J (2020) Updated science-wide author databases of standardized citation indicators. Plos Biology 18(10): e3000918. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918
    » https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000918
  • Juraqulova Z, Byington T, Kmec JA (2015) The impacts of marriage on perceived academic career success: Differences by gender and discipline. International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology 7(3): 369-392. http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php/genderandset/article/view/389
    » http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php/genderandset/article/view/389
  • Knobloch-Westerwick S, Glynn CJ, Huge M (2013) The Matilda effect in science communication: an experiment on gender bias in publication quality perceptions and collaboration interest. Science Communication 35(5): 603-625. https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012472684
    » https://doi.org/10.1177/1075547012472684
  • Kotzian CB, Ribeiro AM (2009) Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia 50 anos - uma homenagem aos seus fundadores. Paleontologia em Destaque - Boletim Informativo da Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia, Edição Especial, 112 pp.
  • Larivière V, Ni C, Gingras Y, Cronin B, Sugimoto CR (2013) Bibliometrics: Global gender disparities in science. Nature News 504(7479): 211. https://doi.org/10.1038/504211a
    » https://doi.org/10.1038/504211a
  • Larivière V, Pontille D, Sugimoto CR (2020) Investigating the division of scientific labor using the Contributor Roles Taxo nomy (CRediT). Quantitative Science Studies. Advance publication. https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00097
    » https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00097
  • Leite L, Diele-Viegas LM (2020) Too intelligent for the life sciences in Brazil: how two female researchers fought back. Nature 587: 163-164. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02978-y
    » https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02978-y
  • Lunetas (2018) Maternidade no currículo: conheça a mulher que começou essa luta. https://lunetas.com.br/maternidade-no-curriculo [Accessed: 24/11/2020]
    » https://lunetas.com.br/maternidade-no-curriculo
  • Morley L (2003) Quality and power in higher education. McGraw-Hill Education, UK.
  • National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018) Sexual harassment of women: climate, culture, and consequences in academic sciences, engineering, and medicine. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.17226/24994
    » https://doi.org/10.17226/24994
  • Oliveira L, Reichert F, Zandona E, Soletti RC, Staniscuaski F (2020) The 100,000 most influential scientists rank: the underrepresentation of Brazilian women in academia. bioRxiv Preprints. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.22.423872
    » https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.22.423872
  • Pell AN (1996) Fixing the Leaky Pipeline: Women Scientists in Academia. Journal of Animal Sciences 74: 2843-2848. https://doi.org/10.2527/1996.74112843x
    » https://doi.org/10.2527/1996.74112843x
  • Reuben E, Sapienza P, Zingales L (2014) How stereotypes impair women’s careers in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111(12): 4403-4408. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1314788111
    » https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1314788111
  • Rossiter M (1993) The Matthew Matilda Effect in Science. Social Studies of Science 23(2): 325-341. https://doi.org/10.1177/030631293023002004
    » https://doi.org/10.1177/030631293023002004
  • Schiebinger L (2001) O feminismo mudou a ciência? EDUSC, Bauru, 382 pp.
  • Severin A, Martins J, Heyard R, Delavy F, Jorstad A, Egger M (2020) Gender and other potential biases in peer review: cross-sectional analysis of 38 250 external peer review reports. BMJ open 10(8): e035058. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035058
    » https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035058
  • Staniscuaski F, Reichert F, Werneck FP, de Oliveira L, Mello-Carpes PB, Soletti RC, et al. (2020) Impact of COVID-19 on academic mothers. Science 368(6492): 724-724. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc2740
    » https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc2740
  • Uzzi B, Mukherjee S, Stringer M, Jones B (2013) Atypical combinations and scientific impact. Science 342(6157): 468-472. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1240474
    » https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1240474
  • Werneck FDP, Pereira JA, Pinto RR, Costa-Rodrigues APV, Pereira EG, Mangia S, et al. (2019) Diagnóstico e propostas para ampliar a representatividade de pesquisadoras em Herpetologia no Brasil. Herpetologia Brasileira 8: 36-43.

Publication Notes

  • Available online:

    February 26, 2021
  • Zoobank Register:

    http://zoobank.org/6014C97B-1AF1-423C-B4A7-BBE047BF055A
  • Publisher:

    © 2021 Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia. Published by Pensoft Publishers at https://zoologia.pensoft.net

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL

Supplementary material 1

List S1. List of signatories supporting this article.

Authors: Veronica Slobodian, Karla D.A. Soares, Rafaela L. Falaschi, Laura R. Prado, Priscila Camelier, et al.

Data type: support signatures.

Copyright notice: This dataset is made available under the Open Database License (http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/). The Open Database License (ODbL) is a license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use this Dataset while maintaining this same freedom for others, provided that the original source and author(s) are credited.

Link: https://doi.org/10.3897/zoologia.38.e61968.suppl1

Edited by

Editorial responsibility:

Luciane Marinoni

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    12 Mar 2021
  • Date of issue
    2021

History

  • Received
    12 Dec 2020
  • Accepted
    27 Jan 2021
  • Published
    26 Feb 2021
Sociedade Brasileira de Zoologia Caixa Postal 19020, 81531-980 Curitiba PR Brasil, Tel./Fax: (55 41) 3266-6823 - Curitiba - PR - Brazil
E-mail: sbz@sbzoologia.org.br