I. Introduction
Philosophy has a gender problem. “The gender problem” is, however, a bit of a misnomer, for it is not a single problem. Rather, it is a multifaceted set of problems that relate to the general underrepresentation of women in philosophy: in the historical canon, in the professoriate class, at conferences (Feminist Philosophers 2009; Reference Paxton, Figdor and TiberiusPaxton, Figdor, and Tiberius 2012; Reference SchwitzgebelSchwitzgebel 2015; Reference JenningsJennings 2016), and in upper‐level undergraduate classrooms (Reference Paxton, Figdor and TiberiusPaxton, Figdor, and Tiberius 2012). Our article investigates one specific aspect of the gender problem that has received relatively little investigation: the underrepresentation of articles by women in top journals. We focus on journal publishing not because we think it is somehow the driving cause of women's underrepresentation in the philosophy professoriate—a problem that surely has many contributing causes, from chilly professional climates and implicit bias in hiring and assessment of research, to job demands that are disadvantageous to women with caregiving responsibilities. Rather, we focus on the issue of journal publishing because we think that if women are underrepresented in top philosophy journals, then this, in and of itself, is a significant aspect of the gender underrepresentation problem. Moreover, it is one that could be expected to have significant implications for women's professional success in the discipline: journals constitute an important currency of academic prestige, and are of the utmost importance for tenure and promotion assessments.
Some recent discussion among philosophers of women's representation in prestigious journals, especially prestigious ethics journals, suggests a gender discrepancy (Reference KrishnamurthyKrishnamurthy 2014; Reference HealyHealy 2015; Krishnamurthy Reference Krishnamurthyforthcoming; Schwitzgebel and Jennings Reference Schwitzgebel and Dicey Jenningsforthcoming). Eric Schwitzgebel and Carolyn Dicey Jennings report that women authored only 13% of articles (32 out of 249) in “top five” generalist journals in 2014–2015 (Schwitzgebel and Jennings Reference Schwitzgebel and Dicey Jenningsforthcoming). Kathryn Norlock found that between 2009–2014, women authors accounted for 17.5% of published papers in the Journal of Moral Philosophy, and for 20% of published papers in Ethics (Reference NorlockNorlock 2014). Similar numbers have been reported previously. In her study of seven leading philosophy journals, Sally Haslanger found that women represented 22% of authors of articles in Ethics, and a mere 13% in Philosophy & Public Affairs, in the period from 2002–2007 (Reference HaslangerHaslanger 2008). Thom Brooks, the editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy at the time, reported in the APA Newsletter that the average percentage of women‐authored papers in this journal between 2003–2009 was 22% (Reference BrooksBrooks 2010, 16). And Henry S. Richardson, the editor of Ethics, reported that in 2007–2008 women‐authored papers in Ethics were at 17% and in 2008–2009 were at 15% (Reference RichardsonRichardson 2010, 19).Footnote 2
Although this descriptive data suggest the existence of a gender discrepancy in prestigious ethics journals—our area of focus—they do not suffice to answer the question of whether women are underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals relative to their numbers in the discipline. To establish whether these percentages of women‐authored publications reflect a gendered discrepancy, we need to compare the data about women‐authored papers with the proportion of women philosophers specializing in ethics. Although previous discussions by Haslanger, Healy, Norlock, and Schwitzgebel and Jennings certainly suggest that women authors are underrepresented in prestigious ethics philosophy journals, only this comparative information can help us to establish conclusively whether there is a gender problem specific to journal publishing.
We are drawn to examine specifically whether a gender problem exists in relation to ethics journals because, as we discuss later, conventional wisdom has it that women are disproportionately likely to specialize in ethics (Reference HaslangerHaslanger 2009, 3; Schwitzgebel and Jennings forthcoming).Footnote 3 (We use ethics as an inclusive term for diverse subfields of moral, social, and political philosophy. Section II explains our operationalization of the term.) If it turns out that women authors are underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals, a field in which they tend to specialize, then the gender problem in philosophy publishing may be more widespread and pernicious than we thought.
The main goal of this study is, therefore, to determine whether women are underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals relative to their representation in the field of ethics. Our study proceeds in three steps. Step one: we estimate the percentage of women who specialize in ethics. Step two: we estimate the percentage of articles in prestigious ethics journals that are authored by women. Step three: we examine whether there is any difference between the percentage of women who specialize in ethics and the percentage of articles in prestigious ethics journals that are authored by women. We conclude that, overall, female authors are underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals relative to the proportion of women academics in the field of ethics.
II. Step One: Estimating the Percentage of Women Who Specialize in Ethics
We used the faculty lists compiled for the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR) for the top 50 departments in the period of 2004–2014 to estimate the percentage of women who specialized in ethics. In part, this sampling choice was pragmatic: instead of having to go to many different department websites, the PGR faculty list already has the information in one place. In part, this sampling choice also reflects our sociological recognition that, unfortunately, the philosophical profession is prone to prestige bias: people who work in “top” departments are more likely to publish in “prestigious” journals. This being the case, if we still found women at these departments to be underrepresented in prestigious journals, that would further strengthen our belief in the existence of underrepresentation more broadly. That is, if women in the most highly ranked departments are not publishing in the most prestigious journals at a proportionate rate, it seems likely that women outside of this enclave are also not doing so.
We coded for gender on the basis of individuals' first names. Where first names were gender ambiguous, we coded for gender on the basis of information found on the individual's departmental webpages and CVs. We looked for photographs and pronouns used by the individuals to describe themselves.
We coded for area of specialization (AOS) in ethics in a sense that includes diverse subfields of moral, social, and political philosophy. We counted people as specializing in ethics when they listed any of the following as an AOS or a research interest or when they published mostly in any of the following areas: ethics; normative ethics; social philosophy; political philosophy; metaethics; moral psychology; feminist ethics; bioethics; environmental ethics; naturalistic ethics; applied ethics; ethical theory; academic ethics; ethics of technology; business ethics; nineteenth‐century ethics; medical ethics; history of ethics; foundations of ethics; philosophy of law; moral philosophy; ancient ethics; Kantian ethics; history of political philosophy; Aristotelian ethics.
We determined AOS by searching individuals' departmental and/or personal webpages. AOS was interpreted broadly to include not only what was explicitly listed as “area of specialization” but also what was sometimes listed as “research interests,” when no AOS was listed. In rare cases where no area of specialization or no research interests were listed, we deduced whether or not to count individuals as having an AOS of ethics based on the publications listed on their CVs online. The results are summarized in Table 1. In section IV, we use this information on gender and specializations to investigate whether women are underrepresented in ethics journals.
Women in philosophy, 2004–2014
| All Specializations | Ethics Specializations | |
| 2004–2005 | (181/947) 19.1% | (86/354) 24.3% |
| 2006–2008 | (190/982) 19.3% | (95/366) 26.0% |
| 2009–2010 | (222/1001) 22.2% | (108/380) 28.4% |
| 2011–2012 | (225/994) 22.6% | (108/377) 28.6% |
| 2013–2014 | (237/992) 23.9% | (106/363) 29.2% |
Moreover, this information is valuable in itself as a snapshot of the profession, even when we acknowledge its limitation as a sample from only the “PGR Top 50” departments. For example, it enables us to assess the conventional wisdom that, within philosophy, women tend to specialize in ethics more than in other areas. On one disambiguation of this conventional wisdom, this means that the gender proportion of philosophers who specialize in ethics is not the same as that for philosophers who do not specialize in ethics. We can then use the data to assess whether the conventional wisdom, at least on this disambiguation, is true or not.
On a weighted average over the period surveyed, in a given year there are roughly 100 women and 266 men who specialize in ethics.Footnote 4 By contrast, on a weighted average over the period surveyed, in a given year there are roughly 109 women and 508 men who do not specialize in ethics. There is a significant difference in the gender proportion of philosophers who specialize in ethics versus philosophers who do not specialize in ethics: X 2(1) = 12.795, p < 0.001, effect size Cramer's V = 0.114.
III. Step Two: Estimating the Percentage of Women‐Authored Articles in Ethics Journals
To estimate the representation of women in prestigious ethics journals, we examined the table of contents of four prominent ethics journals—Ethics, Philosophy & Public Affairs (PPA), Journal of Political Philosophy (JPP), and Journal of Moral Philosophy (JMP)—for the period 2004–2014. We counted all articles, review essays, discussions, debates, survey articles, and introductions as “publications.” We also coded publications for gender on the basis of the author's first name. When first names were gender‐ambiguous, we coded for gender on the basis of information found on individuals' departmental webpages and CVs. We looked at photographs and pronouns used by the individuals to describe themselves. We counted all articles as woman‐authored articles if they had at least one woman author. (We recognize that this likely overestimates the number of women authors in ethics journals, and we discuss its implication in section V.) The results are summarized in Table 2. In section IV, we use this information on gender and publications to investigate whether women are underrepresented in ethics journals.
Women‐authored articles in prestigious ethics journals, 2004–2014
| Ethics | PPA | JPP | JMP | |
| 2004 | (2/25) 8.0% | (2/14) 14.3% | (8/22) 36.4% | (6/18) 33.3% |
| 2005 | (6/22) 27.3% | (2/16) 12.5% | (6/23) 26.1% | (7/18) 38.9% |
| 2006 | (4/22) 18.2% | (3/16) 18.8% | (6/27) 22.2% | (3/19) 15.8% |
| 2007 | (7/23) 30.4% | (1/15) 6.7% | (6/24) 25.0% | (5/26) 19.2% |
| 2008 | (4/25) 16.0% | (6/16) 37.5% | (4/24) 16.7% | (4/19) 21.1% |
| 2009 | (4/22) 18.2% | (4/13) 30.8% | (8/24) 33.3% | (3/27) 11.1% |
| 2010 | (6/25) 24.0% | (3/12) 25.0% | (6/24) 25.0% | (5/25) 20.0% |
| 2011 | (4/21) 19.0% | (4/12) 33.3% | (4/23) 17.4% | (7/28) 25.0% |
| 2012 | (3/23) 13.0% | (1/10) 10.0% | (9/23) 39.1% | (3/24) 12.5% |
| 2013 | (5/24) 20.8% | (4/12) 33.3% | (7/23) 30.4% | (10/40) 25.0% |
| 2014 | (4/31) 12.9% | (1/11) 9.1% | (10/23) 43.5% | (7/29) 24.1% |
| Total | (49/263) 18.6% | (31/147) 21.1% | (74/260) 28.5% | (60/273) 22.0% |
IV. Step Three: Examining Underrepresentation of Women Ethicists in Ethics Journals
We used the data from sections II and III to compare the percentage of articles that are authored by women with the percentage of women who specialize in ethics. For all statistical analyses in this section, we treated each year as a data point for comparisons.Footnote 5 In our analysis, we used paired‐sample t‐tests (reported as t statistics) primarily, and Wilcoxon signed‐rank tests (reported as T statistics) as a secondary robustness check.Footnote 6
Side‐by‐side view of percentages of women in philosophy and percentages of women‐authored articles in prestigious ethics journals. Highlighted in gray is the key comparison, between the percentages of women specializing in ethics and the percentages of women‐authored articles in prestigious ethics journals
| % of women in philosophy | % of women‐authored articles in prestigious ethics journals | ||||||
| All | In Ethics | Aggregated | Ethics | PPA | JPP | JMP | |
| 2004 | 19.1% | 24.3% | 22.8% | 8.0% | 14.3% | 36.4% | 33.3% |
| 2005 | 19.1% | 24.3% | 26.6% | 27.3% | 12.5% | 26.1% | 38.9% |
| 2006 | 19.3% | 26.0% | 19.0% | 18.2% | 18.8% | 22.2% | 15.8% |
| 2007 | 19.3% | 26.0% | 21.6% | 30.4% | 6.7% | 25.0% | 19.2% |
| 2008 | 19.3% | 26.0% | 21.4% | 16.0% | 37.5% | 16.7% | 21.1% |
| 2009 | 22.2% | 28.4% | 22.1% | 18.2% | 30.8% | 33.3% | 11.1% |
| 2010 | 22.2% | 28.4% | 23.3% | 24.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 20.0% |
| 2011 | 22.6% | 28.6% | 22.6% | 19.0% | 33.3% | 17.4% | 25.0% |
| 2012 | 22.6% | 28.6% | 20.0% | 13.0% | 10.0% | 39.1% | 12.5% |
| 2013 | 23.9% | 29.2% | 26.3% | 20.8% | 33.3% | 30.4% | 25.0% |
| 2014 | 23.9% | 29.2% | 23.4% | 12.9% | 9.1% | 43.5% | 24.1% |
The main goal of this study is to determine whether women are underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals relative to their representation in the field of ethics. The key analysis thus compares the mean proportion of women specializing in ethics in the 2004–2014 period, 27.1% (SD = 2.0%), with the mean proportion of women‐authored articles in prestigious ethics journals in the 2004–2014 period, 22.6% (SD = 2.3%). We found a statistically significant difference between the proportion of women‐authored articles in prestigious ethics journals and the proportion of women specializing in ethics: t(10) = −5.067, p < 0.001; T = 2, p = 0.003. Women who specialize in ethics are indeed underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals.
Just for context, we also compared the mean proportion of women in philosophy with all specializations in the 2004–2014 period, 21.2% (SD = 1.9%), with the mean proportion of women‐authored articles in prestigious ethics journals in the 2004–2014 period. We did not find a statistically significant difference: t(10) = 1.739, p = 0.113; T = 19, p = 0.240.
To explore the dataset further, we examined each of the four journals separately.Footnote 7
First, we looked at Ethics. The mean proportion of women‐authored articles in Ethics in the 2004–2014 period is 18.9% (SD = 6.6%).Footnote 8 We found a statistically significant difference between the proportion of women‐authored articles in Ethics and the proportion of women specializing in ethics: t(10) = −3.903, p < 0.001; T = 4, p = 0.007.
Second, we looked at Philosophy & Public Affairs. The mean proportion of women‐ authored articles in PPA in the 2004–2014 period is 21.0% (SD = 11.3%). We did not find a statistically significant difference between the proportion of women‐authored articles in PPA and the proportion of women specializing in ethics: t(10) = −1.875, p = 0.090; T = 15, p = 0.123.
Third, we looked at Journal of Political Philosophy. The mean proportion of women‐ authored articles in JPP in the 2004–2014 period is 28.7% (SD = 8.7%). We did not find a statistically significant difference between the proportion of women‐authored articles in JPP and the proportion of women specializing in ethics: t(10) = 0.579, p = 0.575; T = 26, p = 0.577.
Fourth, we looked at Journal of Moral Philosophy. The mean proportion of women‐ authored articles in JMP in the 2004–2014 period is 22.4% (SD = 8.3%). We did not find a statistically significant difference between the proportion of women‐authored articles in JMP and the proportion of women specializing in ethics: t(10) = −1.683, p = 0.123; T = 16, p = 0.147.
V. General Discussion
The Underrepresentation of Women in Prestigious Ethics Journals
Our study began with the question of whether women are underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals relative to their representation in the field of ethics. Our central finding is that, yes, overall, women are underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals.
We also explored whether underrepresentation appeared in any particular prestigious ethics journal. We did find that underrepresentation occurred in Ethics, which is perhaps the most prestigious of the journals we surveyed. But we did not find that underrepresentation occurred in Philosophy & Public Affairs, Journal of Political Philosophy, or Journal of Moral Philosophy.
Two familiar adages about statistical inference are worth emphasizing in this context. First, a statistically nonsignificant result is not itself evidence for the null hypothesis (Reference Hoenig and HeiseyHoenig and Heisey 2001). So, in this context, one should not interpret the nonsignificant results as indicating appropriate gender representation in Philosophy & Public Affairs, Journal of Political Philosophy, or Journal of Moral Philosophy. Second, the difference between statistically significant and nonsignificant may not be statistically significant: in comparing various results, it is a mistake to do so via their statistical significance versus nonsignificance as if there were a sharp difference between the two (Reference Gelman and SternGelman and Stern 2006). So, in this context, though the underrepresentation was statistically significant for Ethics but not for Philosophy & Public Affairs and Journal of Moral Philosophy, there is no statistical difference among the three journals. However, there is a statistically significant difference between the proportions of women‐authored articles in Ethics and in Journal of Political Philosophy.
We wanted to present these exploratory analyses to acknowledge the complexity of this phenomenon. Honest examinations of real‐world phenomena rarely offer a cut‐and‐dried picture, especially given standard concerns about variation and sampling. Given how few articles each journal publishes per year, it is to be expected that there is considerable variation from year to year within any given journal. It is, for this reason, more difficult to draw any firm conclusions on the basis of the disaggregated data about particular journals. Nevertheless, we do want to emphasize the central finding: women are undoubtedly underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals as a whole.
In establishing the central finding, it is also worth emphasizing our overall conservative approach in this investigation. For example, in estimating the percentage of women‐authored publications, we counted publications as woman‐authored as long as there was one woman author. This no doubt overestimated the proportion of women authors in prestigious ethics journals. Thus, women are likely to be even more underrepresented than our findings suggest. For another example, our use of the PGR faculty list sample in estimating the percentage of women who specialize in ethics is also conservative. Over the periods investigated, we found percentages that range from 24.3% to 29.2%. For comparison, Schwitzgebel and Jennings estimated the percentage of women specializing in value theory to be 34% (Schwitzgebel and Jennings forthcoming). Furthermore, given the existence of prestige bias, women faculty in the top 50 departments are even more likely than those outside of them to publish in prestigious journals. This again makes it the case that women authors are perhaps even more underrepresented across the field than our findings suggest.
Potential Explanations and Questions for Future Research
Our goal was to establish the existence of a phenomenon, namely, that of women's underrepresentation in prestigious ethics journals. That leaves open the question of what causes this phenomenon. We now outline some questions that we hope will be addressed in future studies on this topic.
First, might some of the gendered discrepancy be caused by certain prestigious journals in Anglo American analytic philosophy defining ethics too narrowly? By comparison, we used a very broad definition of what counts as ethics in our study; insofar as the editors of some prestigious journals do not share our broad criteria, they may consider scholarship by women we are counting as ethics faculty/researchers as ineligible for publication in their journals. This is certainly concerning. Of particular concern is that prestigious ethics journals may view feminist social criticism and feminist political philosophy, which is largely authored by women, as falling outside the scope of their publications. This would not be surprising, as feminist scholarship in other fields in philosophy, such as epistemology, has notably been sidelined from the leading journals (see, for example, Reference Rooney and GrasswickRooney 2010). If this is also the case for feminist ethics and feminist social/political philosophy, then this could contribute to the underrepresentation of women authors in prestigious ethics journals, such as Ethics.
Second, what role might professional status play in women's underrepresentation? Women's success with publishing in prestigious ethics journals may depend in part on their professional status: women in continuing positions may be more likely to publish in prestigious ethics journals to a degree proportionate to their numbers in their field. This is something that future studies should delve more deeply into, in order to get a clearer sense of whether very junior members of our profession possibly face structural barriers to publishing in prestigious journals. Our study did not differentiate among assistant, associate, and full professors in determining the relative success of women in journal publishing, but counted only those in tenure/tenure‐track positions. Yet this could potentially be significant, since there is substantial evidence that women philosophers are clustered in the assistant and associate professor ranks, and are dramatically underrepresented among full professors (Schwitzgebel and Jennings forthcoming). A possible confounding factor here is the status or standing of (tenured and tenure‐track) women authors' home departments, since women are less likely to become full professors in the most prestigious philosophy programs.Footnote 9
The prospect that professional status and the standing of one's department may affect one's success in publishing in prestigious ethics journals may strike some readers as surprising or even scandalous, given that the four journals we studied have anonymous review processes in place. However, as editors and reviewers of journal articles are well aware, there are numerous ways in which the identity and institution of authors may be revealed in the review process. It seems possible that such identification (for example, by an associate or assigning editor) could work against women authors: in Haslanger's study, for example, 84.5% of men versus only 72.5% of women reported that their most influential publication was published through submission to a peer‐reviewed journal.Footnote 10 It is possible that informal identification of authors could also disadvantage philosophers from less prestigious institutions—including those from non‐English speaking universities that are not well known outside their own countries. Of possible significance here is the fact that at least some of the journals we studied have a system of desk‐rejection in place. Where the author's name and institution is known by the editor(s) vetting articles for review or else desk‐rejection, implicit bias and favoritism can come into play. For example, it has been claimed that Philosophy & Public Affairs publishes a preponderance of articles by philosophers at Oxford, Harvard, and Princeton (Reference LeiterLeiter 2015), potentially reflecting the academic links of its editorial members.
Third, what role might article type play in causing underrepresentation? Our study is not fine‐grained enough to tell us whether women might be represented differently in relation to different types of journal publications. It does not control for different types of journal publications, nor for invited versus noninvited articles. The common view is that women tend to publish more in invited venues than other venues. It is held that women are better at maintaining relationships and have a tendency to work through informal networks, which in turn leads to a greater number of invited publications. This may be the commonly held view, but it has not been thoroughly investigated.
Fourth, what role might negative experiences with the review process itself, actual or anticipated, play in the underrepresentation of women? Are women philosophers simply opting not to send their work to the most prestigious journals (see also Reference HaslangerHaslanger 2008, 215)? Do they opt out more often than men? If so, why? Liam Kofi Bright suggests that, at least in the field of science and perhaps more generally, women do opt out—or publish less than men—because “women concentrate on producing high quality papers in response to an expectation that their work will receive greater scrutiny. Whether or not this expectation is accurate, producing such work is time consuming, so women then produce fewer papers overall” (Reference BrightBright forthcoming). There is evidence supporting this hypothesis in the field of economics: a recent study found that among the top four economics journals, women‐authored papers consistently received more critical reviews, resulting in significantly protracted review processes, delayed publication, and thus “lower research outputs” at a critical time in their careers (Reference HengelHengel 2016).Footnote 11 Determining whether women opt out of submitting to top ethics journals for fear of excessively negative reviews, desk‐rejection, or a protracted resubmission process is, however, difficult. This is chiefly because the journals that we surveyed do not collect submission data.Footnote 12 So, an authors' survey or questionnaire might have to be used to more fully determine whether women have the tendency to opt out of prestigious ethics journals. Among other things, this question of “opting out” would presumably need to be considered in tandem with the question (discussed above) of whether the editors and reviewers of top ethics journals view feminist ethics and feminist social and political philosophy as unfitting subject matter for these journals, and also whether reviewers chosen take a similarly dim view of these topics. There is certainly evidence that mainstream prestigious ethics journals do not publish much feminist work: Haslanger's study of leading philosophy journals between 2002–2007 found that Philosophy & Public Affairs published only four feminist philosophy articles (out of 78), and Ethics published a mere three (out of 105 articles) (Reference HaslangerHaslanger 2008, 220). We need to know whether this is because of editorial decisions, or feminist philosophers opting not to submit their work, or both.
The goal of this study was to determine whether women were underrepresented in prestigious ethics journals, as a whole. We have shown that they were. This finding raises many questions, some of which are about what leads to this underrepresentation. We hope that this preliminary work will stimulate a broader discussion of women's underrepresentation in prestigious ethics journals, and how it relates to other aspects of the gender problem in philosophy.
