Is oecologia australis promoting gender equality in its review process?

Abstract

Following recent evidence on gender bias at the publishing process in sciences, we present here a view on Oecologia Australis section editors, reviewers, and authors gender ratios to understand the patterns in this journal, improving the data assessment and discussions on this topic. We found that women section editors tended to accept more women than men first-authored manuscripts. There was also a slight tendency of men editors to invite proportionally more men as reviewers. There was no difference in the gender of the first author on the submitted manuscripts, although there is a tendency of male co-authorship in men first-authored papers. Despite gender bias in the scientific academy being a global tendency, our data as a medium impact journal represents an important counter point and provides more information to support gender balance studies to foment better equalitarian policies.