Abstract
Introduction
Over the past 50 years the proportion of women entering medical school has vastly increased, however there still exists a gender gap in top leadership positions, including within academic medicine. It is important to investigate the influence of women in this area, and assess change over time. The aim of the study was to assess the number of women who have acted as editors-in-chief of prominent dermatology journals over the 20th and 21st centuries.
Methods
A list of 25 journals was collated based on their impact factors and prominence. Information regarding previous and current editors was obtained, compiled and analysed.
Results
Overall there have been 26 female editors and at least 128 male editors in the 25 dermatology journals, which means that less than 19% of editors-in-chief have been female. 45.8% of journals have not yet had a female editor. The percentage of female editors ranged from 0% to 100%, with only one journal having had all female editors (International Journal of Women’s Dermatology). On average, the journals had female editorship for 27.2% of the total number of years in publication. Of the 13 journals that have had a female editor, 61.5% had their first female editor after the year 2000.
Discussion and Conclusion
There are various factors that influence these numbers including age of the journals and length of each editorship. It is clear that over time there has been an increase in the number of women holding these prestigious positions however gender equity has not yet been reached.
Introduction
As the 21st century continues to move through its second decade, we consider it the norm for women to be prominent within the medical profession. It is easy to forget that only 50 years ago, very few women even attended medical school. For example, in the United States in 1965, only 6.9% of medical students who graduated were women. This number had increased to 47.5% in 2014 (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2016).
With a more proportionate number of female students who graduate, one would expect a similar increase over time in the number of women in leadership positions within the profession. However, in academic medicine, there still exists a gender gap at the top level and currently only 21% of full-time medical professors and 16% of medical school deans in the United States are women (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2016). In addition to being an academic faculty member, there are alternative ways for women to contribute to academic medicine. It is important to investigate these options to gain a full picture of the influence and prevalence of women in the academic field.
One marker to measure influence is the membership of a journal editorial board or professional medical society board. A study in 2004 investigated 28 different specialties and compared the numbers of men and women on boards with the proportion of men and women who work within those specialties. In seven specialties, including dermatology, women were found to be significantly underrepresented on the boards (Morton and Sonnad, 2007). Other studies also confirmed that there has been an underrepresentation of women on the editorial boards of prominent medical journals (Amrein et al., 2011, Kennedy et al., 2001).
Another measure of influence is authorship of papers. Studies have shown that the number of female authors who are listed first and identified as senior in high impact dermatology journals has increased significantly over time (Feramisco et al., 2009, Zhang et al., 2016).
A further marker of academic prowess is editorship of a scientific journal. The number of women who have held editor-in-chief positions with dermatology journals has not yet been studied. We chose to investigate this key area to build on the current knowledge base and further establish the role that women have so far played in the field of academic dermatology.
Aims
The aim of this study was to investigate the number of women who serve or have served as editors-in-chief for prominent international dermatology journals during the 20th and 21st centuries. A secondary aim was to assess whether there had been a change over time with regard to the number of female editors-in-chief.
Methods
We conducted a study of the gender distribution of editors-in-chief of 25 international dermatology journals. A list of 25 journals was collated on the basis of their impact factors and prominence. Each journal was contacted directly to obtain a list of past editors-in-chief and the years of their editorships. If no response was received, the data was extracted from the journal website. The information was then compiled and analyzed.
Results
Information was obtained for all 25 dermatology journals (Fig. 1). Three journals (JAMA Dermatology, Journal of Drugs in Dermatology, and Dermatology Online Journal) did not respond to direct communication but had sufficient information on their websites to be included in the study.
Fig. 1.
Table to show the gender distribution of current and former editors-in-chief of dermatology journals.
For the 25 journals studied, there have been 26 female editors-in-chief overall and at least 128 male editors-in-chief (ratio, 1:4.9). The number of male editors-in-chief stated is lower than the true number because three journals directly confirmed that they had not had a female editor-in-chief but were unable to supply a full list of male editors-in-chief. Therefore, the true percentage of female editors-in-chief overall is lower than 19%.
Thirteen journals currently have or have previously had a female editor-in-chief, which means that 45.8% of the journals that were investigated have had only male editors-in-chief. The percentage of female editors-in-chief at each journal ranged from 0 to 100 %. The only journal with 100% female editorship was the International Journal of Women’s Dermatology. The journals with the next highest percentages of female editors-in-chief were Acta Dermatovenerologica Croatica (67%) and the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology (57%).
Alternatively, when analyzing the total number of female editors-in-chief at each journal, two journals have had four female editors-in-chief. The Journal of Drugs in Dermatology has had four female editors-in-chief over 14 years and Experimental Dermatology has had the same number over 24 years. The Journal of Investigative Dermatology has had three female editors-in-chief over its 78 years of publication. There are also five journals that have had two female editors-in-chief. Across the 25 journals, the average percentage of years under female editorship was 27% with a range of 0 to 100%.
Of the 13 journals that have had female editors-in-chief, 61.5% had their first female editor-in-chief after the year 2000. Fifteen percent put their first female at the helm in the 1990s and another 15% in the 1980s. The only journal with a female editor-in-chief prior to the 1980s was the Journal of Investigative Dermatology with Dr. Naomi Kanof as editor as early as 1949.
Discussion
We examined each journal by analyzing both numbers and percentages of female editors-in-chief. It is important to consider both because the percentage of female editors-in-chief will be dependent on the age of the journal and the total number of editors-in-chief. For example, Acta Dermatovenerologica Croatica has had 67% female editors-in-chief overall with two female and one male editor-in-chief but the Journal of Drugs in Dermatology had a lower percentage overall (57%) with four female and three male editors-in-chief.
Without an accurate number of male editors-in-chief at each journal, an alternative objective way to assess the overall contribution of women was to consider the percentage of total years of publication with a female editor-in-chief for each journal. Two journals had achieved 100% of years with a female editor-in-chief but also had male editors-in-chief (Skin Appendage Disorders and Pediatric Dermatology) because they simultaneously had female and male editors-in-chief for some period of publication time.
Another important factor to note is the number of years that each editor-in-chief held office. On average, women spent 6.4 years as editor-in-chief. The longest running female editor-in-chief in our study was Dr. Nancy Esterly of Pediatric Dermatology who served for 23 years until 2006.
In the United States in 2010, 41.3% of active dermatologists were female (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2012). The number of journals that have not yet had a female editor-in-chief (45.8%) and the overall percentage of female editors-in-chief (< 19%) show that there is a disparity between the proportion of women who work within the specialty and those who reach the top leadership position at journals. However, the fact that 10 journals have had their first female editor-in-chief since 1992 shows that change has occurred over the past 20 years and that more women are now appointed to these prestigious positions.
One limitation of this study is that it did not investigate all dermatology journals in publication. However, a sample of 25 journals is likely to give adequate data to draw conclusions. Furthermore, it is important to note that many of the journals that were investigated have had women on the editorial boards, independent of whether they have had a woman in the position of editor-in-chief. To assess the total number of women on journal editorial boards was beyond the scope of this study.
This study reinforces the results of previous studies that investigated the role of women in academic leadership positions within the fields of dermatology and academic medicine in general and shows that there has been movement toward gender parity. However, equity has not been reached yet. The reasons for this are complex and yet to be fully established.
Various methods have been suggested to encourage this trend of increasing the number of women in academic leadership positions including ensuring that women are consistently considered when commissioning invited articles in journals (Rochon et al., 2016) or more substantively, the Athena Swan Program in the United Kingdom. This program encourages and incentivizes institutions including universities and research facilities to promote the advancement of women who working in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine subjects (Athena Swan Charter, 2016).
Conclusion
Despite the limitations of this study, it does indicate that the number of women in editor-in-chief positions for dermatology journals is increasing over time. Other studies that investigated the number of women in medical academic leadership positions support this conclusion and show similar trends. Further studies are needed to determine the factors and influences that help to promote women to top leadership positions. A greater understanding of this would allow for more focused support to help women achieve equality in this area.
Acknowledgment by Dédée Murrell
I came to know Jane Grant-Kels as a fellow board member of the Women’s Dermatology Society and an editorial board member of the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. When I suggested to the Women’s Dermatology Society that we establish our own journal, some were skeptical about the proposal but Jane immediately saw the potential to further the academic reputation of the society. We later discovered while collaborating as co-editors that one of Jane’s family members had attended the same school, Loomis Chaffee in Windsor, Connecticut, as I had, which I had been fortunate to attend on an English-speaking union scholarship for a year. Connecticut is a second home to me and I returned to work there for two summers while I was an undergraduate at Cambridge University, England, so I can understand exactly where she is coming from, her hard work ethic, dedication, and directness. It has been and is a great pleasure to work with Jane establishing the International Journal of Women’s Dermatology.
Footnotes
Conflicts of interest: Prof. Dedee Murrell is founding co-editor of the Intl J Women's Dermatology, an honorary position.
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijwd.2017.03.001.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary material
References
- Amrein K., Langmann A., Fahrleitner-Pammer A., Pieber T.R., Zollner-Schwetz I. Women underrepresented on editorial boards of 60 major medical journals. Gend Med. 2011;8:378–387. doi: 10.1016/j.genm.2011.10.007. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Association of American Medical Colleges Centre for Workforce Studies. Physician Specialty Data Book [Internet] 2012. https://www.aamc.org/download/313228/data/2012physicianspecialtydatabook.pdf 2012 [cited 2016 October 30]. Available from:
- Association of American Medical Colleges The State of Women in Academic Medicine: The Pipeline and Pathways to Leadership, 2013-2014 [Internet] 2016. https://www.aamc.org/members/gwims/statistics/ 2016 [cited 2016 September 15]. Available from:
- Athena Swan Charter Equality Challenge Unit [Internet] 2016. http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/ 2016 [cited 2016 September 17]. Available from:
- Feramisco J.D., Leitenberger J.J., Redfern S.I., Bian A., Xie X.J., Resneck J.S., Jr. A gender gap in the dermatology literature? Cross-sectional analysis of manuscript authorship trends in dermatology journals during 3 decades. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2009;60:63–69. doi: 10.1016/j.jaad.2008.06.044. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Kennedy B.L., Lin Y., Dickstein L.J. Women on the editorial boards of major journals. Acad Med. 2001;76:849–851. doi: 10.1097/00001888-200108000-00021. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Morton M.J., Sonnad S.S. Women on professional society and journal editorial boards. J Natl Med Assoc. 2007;99:764–771. [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Rochon P.A., Davidoff F., Levinson W. Women in academic medicine leadership: Has anything changed in 25 Years? Acad Med. 2016;19:1053–1056. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000001281. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Zhang S., Kim H.Y., Hill R.E., Veledar E., Chen S.C. A ten-year comparison of women authorship in U.S. dermatology literature, 1999 vs. 2009. Int J Women Dermatol. 2016;2:1–4. doi: 10.1016/j.ijwd.2015.10.003. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
Associated Data
This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.
Supplementary Materials
Supplementary material