Women's Performance in Conferences and Their Publications: A Critical Analysis

 

 Permissions and Reprints

Abstract

Introduction Gender inequality occurs in all spheres of society, which is no different in the medical field. Abstract presentations in congress are the vanguard of scientific knowledge, an integral part of topic discussion, and, ideally, culminate in the publication of these works as complete manuscripts.

Objective The objective of this study is to evaluate the role played by women in the presentation of scientific works at the Brazilian Society of Coloproctology congress and in the works published from these presentations.

Methods The bibliometric evaluation of the presented abstracts in the editions from 2015 to 2018 of the Brazilian Congress of Coloproctology was used, along with the works later published from these presentations. Gender identification data was extracted from the authors of the abstracts through their names and research for conference on the Lattes and Google Scholar platforms. The collected data was on the number of female participants and their order of authorship of abstracts and publications, evaluating possible changes when publication occurs.

Results A total of 1,336 abstracts were analyzed, with 91.6% of female authors. When publication occurs, women's presence dropped to 75.2% and suffered a change of order in the position of authorship to one of lesser relevance in 38.1%.

Conclusion Women's participation occurs in most abstracts. However, this proportion undergoes unfavorable changes when these works are published, either by changing the order of authorship, when women leave main positions and become coauthors, or are removed from the complete manuscript's publication.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: HSJ, GBG

Data curation: HSJ, GBG, LRM, LIS, and NGL

Formal analysis: HSJ, JLBdeA, and ETM

Funding acquisition: HSJ, JLBdeA, and ETM

Investigation: HSJ, GBG

Methodology: HSJ, GBG

Project administration: HSJ, GBG

Visualization: HSJ, GBG, JLBdeA, and ETM

Writing–original draft: HSJ and GBG

Writing–review & editing: HSJ, JLBdeA, and ETM

All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Publication History

Received: 03 September 2023

Accepted: 10 January 2024

Article published online:
23 February 2024

© 2024. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Thieme Revinter Publicações Ltda.
Rua do Matoso 170, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, CEP 20270-135, Brazil

• References

• 1 Weinacker A, Stapleton RD. Still a man's world, but why?. Crit Care 2013; 17 (01) 113 DOI: 10.1186/cc11915.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 2 West JD, Jacquet J, King MM. et al. The role of gender in scholarly authorship. PLoS One 2013; 8 (07) e66212 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066212.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 3 Davids JS, Lyu HG, Hoang CM. et al. Female Representation and Implicit Gender Bias at the 2017 American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons' Annual Scientific and Tripartite Meeting. Dis Colon Rectum 2019; 62 (03) 357-362 DOI: 10.1097/DCR.0000000000001274.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 4 Padmanaban V, DaCosta A, Tran A. et al. Closing the Gender Gap in Global Surgery: Trends at the Academic Surgical Congress. J Surg Res 2021; 257: 389-393 DOI: 10.1016/j.jss.2020.08.027.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 5 Zaza N, Ofshteyn A, Martinez-Quinones P. et al. Gender Equity at Surgical Conferences: Quantity and Quality. J Surg Res 2021; 258: 100-104 DOI: 10.1016/j.jss.2020.08.036.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 6 Bernardi K, Lyons NB, Huang L. et al. Gender Disparity Among Surgical Peer-Reviewed Literature. J Surg Res 2020; 248: 117-122 DOI: 10.1016/j.jss.2019.11.007.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 7 Denadai R, Pinho AS, Samartine H. et al. Conversion of Plastic Surgery meeting abstract presentations to full manuscripts: a brazilian perspective. Rev Col Bras Cir 2017; 44 (01) 17-26 DOI: 10.1590/0100-69912017001008.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 8 Nascimento S, Rahal RMS, Soares LR. et al. Publication rate of scientific papers presented at the largest event on breast cancer research in Latin America. Ecancermedicalscience 2021; 15: 1259 DOI: 10.3332/ecancer.2021.1259.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 9 Martins APV. Women, male doctors, and female historians: a historiographic essay on the history of women, medicine, and gender. Hist cienc saude-Manguinhos. . 27 (01) 241-264 DOI: 10.1590/S0104-59702020000100014.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 10 Scheffer M. et al. Demografia Médica no Brasil. FMUSP: CFM. 2020 . ISBN: 978–65–00–12370–8
  PubMedGoogle Scholar
• 11 Camargo JRFd. Hayashi MCPI. Coautoria e participação feminina em periódicos brasileiros da área de cirurgia: estudo bibliométrico. RDBCI: Revista Digital de Biblioteconomia e Ciência da Informação. 2017; 15 (01) DOI: 10.20396/rdbci.v15i1.8646289.
  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
• 12 Jagsi R, Guancial EA, Worobey CC. et al. The “gender gap” in authorship of academic medical literature–a 35-year perspective. N Engl J Med 2006; 355 (03) 21-287 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa053910.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 13 Jonasson O. Leaders in American surgery: where are the women?. Surgery 2002; 131 (06) 672-675 DOI: 10.1067/msy.2002.124880.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 14 Martins Mda C, Carneiro MG, Utzig JB. et al. Scientific output of Brazilian dermatologists during the last 25 years in the five highest impact factor journals in dermatology. An Bras Dermatol. 2012; 87 (05) 714 –6. DOI: DOI: 10.1590/s0365-05962012000500007.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 15 Morton MJ, Sonnad SS. Women on professional society and journal editorial boards. J Natl Med Assoc 2007; 99 (07) 764-771
  PubMedGoogle Scholar
• 16 Amrein K, Langmann A, Fahrleitner-Pammer A. et al. Women underrepresented on editorial boards of 60 major medical journals. Gend Med 2011; 8 (06) 378-387 DOI: 10.1016/j.genm.2011.10.007.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 17 Valsangkar N, Fecher AM, Rozycki GS. et al. Understanding the Barriers to Hiring and Promoting Women in Surgical Subspecialties. J Am Coll Surg 2016; 223 (02) 387-398.e2 DOI: 10.1016/j.jamcollsurg.2016.03.042.
  CrossrefPubMedGoogle Scholar
• 18 Hilário CM, Cabrini Grácio MC, Martínez-Ávila D, Wolfram D. ¿Existe una justificación para el orden de los autores en la mención de autoría? Un estudio de caso de la investigación en informetría. Rev Esp Doc Cient 2022; 45 (03) e335 DOI: 10.3989/redc.2022.3.1890.
  CrossrefGoogle Scholar
• 19 Petroianu A. Criteria for authorship and evaluation of a scientific paper. Arch Clin Psychiatry (São Paulo). 37 (01) 1-5 DOI: 10.1590/S0101-60832010000100001.
  CrossrefGoogle Scholar