Gender and ecology: Women’s representation in the Brazilian ecology congresses

Julia Ghion; Elenir A. Queiroz; Paula Meli; Débora C. Rother

doi:10.25260/EA.25.35.2.1.2602

Authors

Julia Ghion Centro de Ciências da Natureza, Laboratory of Conservation and Ecological Restoration, Federal University of São Carlos, Buri. São Paulo, Brazil
Elenir A. Queiroz Centro de Ciências da Natureza, Laboratory of Conservation and Ecological Restoration, Federal University of São Carlos, Buri. São Paulo, Brazil
Paula Meli Laboratorio de Estudios del Antropoceno, Universidad de Concepción. Chile. Natura y Ecosistemas Mexicanos, A.C. Ciudad de México, México. Fundación Internacional para la Restauración de Ecosistemas, Argentina. Colón, Argentina
Débora Cristina Rother Centro de Ciências da Natureza, Laboratory of Conservation and Ecological Restoration, Federal University of São Carlos, Buri. São Paulo, Brazil https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3670-8372

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25260/EA.25.35.2.1.2602

Keywords:

collaboration, gender equality, inequality, leaked pipeline, women leadership

Abstract

Despite the social and legal advances of recent decades, gender inequality persists, imposing distinct professional barriers on men and women in their scientific careers. This study analyzes gender representativeness in papers presented at the Brazilian congresses of ecology in the years 2000, 2009 and 2019. We assessed the gender of the total number of authors attending each congress (representativeness). Furthermore, for each paper, we evaluated the gender of the first author (leadership), and the percentage of women in the total number of papers, separately in papers led by women and by men (collaboration). We compared these values using chi-square tests. Gender identification was based on the first name of each author, following Portuguese language conventions. Out of a total of 2169 papers presented across the three congresses, in 435 it was not possible to identify the gender of the authors due to the absence of a first name. Of the total identified authorships, 60% were women. The representativeness of women varied between 40% and 45% and, while it did not show significant variation over time, a potential decreasing trend in recent years should be assessed. When considering the gender of the first author, female leadership (number of papers with a female first author) was significantly higher; however, this was not the case when papers with unidentified gender were excluded. The proportion of women in teams led by women was twice as high as the proportion in teams led by men, suggesting greater collaboration among women. We conclude that further investigation of this information is still necessary, and we emphasize the importance of advancing towards gender equity in the academic sphere, promoting greater visibility and equal opportunities for women in science.

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