Participation of women in human biology, 1975-2001.
This study examines trends in women's participation in human biology as indicated by women's membership in the Human Biology Council/Association, first authorship of articles in the Human Biology Council/Association journal, and the extent to which women have been the subjects of research published in the organization's journal. Gender of members was determined from seven membership lists published in the organization's journal from 1977 to 1998, and the gender of the first authors was determined for 1616 articles published in Human Biology or the American Journal of Human Biology from 1975 to 2001. Each journal article was also coded as to the first author's country and whether the subjects of the research were only females, only males, or both males and females. From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, the percent of women members of the Human Biology Council/Association increased from under 25% to over 40%. Women were the first authors of fewer than 20% of articles in the organization's journal in the late 1970s; by the late 1990s over 30% of articles had a female first author. The clearest increase in female authorship through time is seen for articles with a first author from the U.S. Even when women were not well represented as human biologists, a substantial proportion of human biology research published in the organization's journal dealt with females, and over the last 15 years there have been more research articles having only females as research subjects than articles having only males as research subjects.
Stinson
Sara
S
Department of Anthropology, Queens College and Graduate Center, City University of New York, Flushing, New York 11367, USA. sara_stinson@qc.edu
D001319:Authorship; D015706:Bibliometrics; D001695:Biology / Q000266:history*; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000266:history; D005260:Female; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D010506:Periodicals as Topic / Q000266:history; D012958:Societies, Scientific / Q000266:history*; D014930:Women / Q000266:history*