Gabriele Vaccaro and Manjola Bega
Gender discrimination in scientific literature that occurred during the pandemic may appear to be a microscopic “adverse event” compared to the enormous dimensions of the catastrophe produced by Covid-19. While female academics took on the household burdens, especially if they had small children, when schools and kindergartens closed, male teachers published more and moved forward in their careers, taking advantage of an unequal situation as clear as it was unfair.
In the pandemic context, the irreparable damage in terms of human lives relegates other consequences to the background, such as gender discrimination in scientific literature, of a more “mild” scope. Slight yes, but only in proportion…
About three years after the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the time has come to evaluate the entire constellation of ‘adverse events’ on a wide-ranging basis, among which an unsuspected relief for the most recently emerged: the gender discrimination operated by the scholarly publishing in the period in question. It is Jocalyn Clark who collects a large amount of data and shows, in the recent article “How pandemic publishing struck a blow to the visibility of women’s expertise (Just as publishing has dealt a serious blow to the visibility of women’s skills during the pandemic)”(1), how sensitive and warned the issue is. Among the many attestations reported in the article, that of Vincent-Lamarre in Nature stands out, underlining how, while women took charge of the domestic burden, especially if they had small children, when schools and kindergartens closed, male teachers had four times more likely than women to have a partner who cared for the house full-time (2).
Data in hand, it is difficult to deny this statement. In the second half of 2020, in fact, out of the approximately three million contributions relating to CoViD-19 received by the main scientific journals, only 36% bear the name of a woman. This is the result of a wide-ranging statistic, which involved both health and purely medical journals, both research and theoretical studies, both high and low impact studies. The British Medical Journalconducting its cross-sectional study Female authorship of covid-19 research in manuscripts submitted to 11 biomedical journals (3), points out that, in the period January-May 2020, only 22.9% of the articles received had a woman as the author, compared to an average of 38.9% in pre-pandemic times. The data is merciless on several fronts: of the 45 most prolific academic authors on the subject – those who, to be clear, have produced more than 60 articles on CoViD-19 in the first eighteen months of the pandemic -, only five are women. And this proportion applies not only to the production of scientific articles, but also to interventions and interviews in radio and television broadcasts and editorials in generalist newspapers.
Clare Wenham, of the London School of Economicsunderlines how difficult it is to empathize with the stress and frustration that academic women had to endure during that period, as they were not only overwhelmed by domestic tasks, but moreover they watched helplessly as their male colleagues were making career advances, taking advantage of a disparity of situation as evident as it is unjust (4).
They would seem situations that can be remedied, with good remedial intentions and due measures, but in reality the initial disadvantage accumulated is permanent for women, especially for recent graduates. Vincent Larivière, of the University of Montreal, in addition to emphasizing this unavoidable consequence, underlines another decidedly relevant aspect of this gender discrimination of pandemic publishing: the collapse of the diversity and quality of science itself, when it is taken away from it, in however extremely incorrect, the female gaze and thought (5). In short, in this area, we have witnessed an irremediable re-emergence of old prejudices, favored by a situation of extreme emergency. Even if the scientific production of academic women has now returned to pre-pandemic levels (already statistically low in itself), certain ideas and certain research directions have been irreparably lost. In order for this to be avoided in the future, a big step must be taken in the culture of research, as well as, of course, in the family logic of the couple and in the economic frameworks of the universities, which should reward the domestic work of academic women with appropriate budget provisions. Moreover, “recognizing and valuing care and unpaid domestic work, providing a public service … and promoting shared responsibilities within families” is also objective 5.4 of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (6 ), which is added to an already extensive amount of EU documents that look in this direction. Such as for example the art. 2 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU which aims at “a society characterized (…) by equality between women and men” (7) or the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament A Union of Equality: The Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 who, in the paragraph “Bridging the gender gap in family care” underlines how “fulfilment at work while simultaneously managing family care responsibilities is a challenge, especially for women”.
Women often tailor their decision to work, and the chosen way of working, to their caring responsibilities and, where appropriate, how they share those tasks with a partner. This is a particularly difficult challenge for single parents, mostly women, and for people who, living in remote rural areas, often lack support services. Women bear a disproportionate burden of unpaid work, which constitutes a significant share of economic activity. A fair sharing of care responsibilities in the home is essential” (8). And if the ethical solicitations alone should not be sufficiently persuasive, the economic ones must also be added, if it is true that “gender equality goes hand in hand with macroeconomic and financial stability” and, as theEuropean Institute for Gender Equality: Economic Benefits of Gender Inequality in the European Union2017: “By 2050, improving gender equality should lead to an increase in EU GDP per capita of between 6.1 and 9.6%, corresponding to an increase from €1.95 trillion to 3.15 trillion euros” (9).
The EU, expressing its desire to make gender equality a transversal priority of all its activities, blatantly recognizes that only on this basis can a better world be built for women and men, girls and boys. All that remains is to work together to move from declarations of intent to their concrete realization.
Gabriele Vaccaro and Manjola Bega. School of Specialization in Hygiene and Preventive Medicine. University of Florence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clark J. How pandemic publishing struck a blow to the visibility of women’s expertise, BMJ 2023; 381:p788 doi:10.1136/bmj.p788Vincent-Lamarre P, Sugimoto CR, Larivière V. The decline of women’s research production during the coronavirus pandemic. Nature2020 (published online 19 MayGayet-Ageron A, Ben Messaoud K, Richards M, Schroter S.Female authorship of covid-19 research in manuscripts submitted to 11 biomedical journals: cross sectional study. 2021;375:n2288. doi:10.1136/bmj.n2288 pmid:34615650 Abstract/FREE Full TextGoogle ScholarWenham C, Smith J, Morgan R, Gender and COVID-19 Working Group. COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreak. 2020;395:846-8.doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30526-2.Kozlowski D, Larivière V, Sugimoto CR , Monroe-White T. Intersectional inequalities in science. 2022;119:e2113067119. doi:10.1073/pnas.2113067119. pmid:34983876UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 25 September 2015.Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, Document 02016ME/TXT-20200301Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic Committee Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: A Union of equality: the strategy for gender equality 2020-2025, 5 March 2020.European Institute for Gender Equality: Economic Benefits of Gender Inequality in the European Union, 2017.