Introducción

Gender issues have long and consistently interested behavior analysts (e.g., Iwata & Lent, 1984; Laties, 1987; Li, et al., 2019; McGee, et al., 2004; Myers, 1993; Neef, 1993; Simon, et al., 2007). The first published discussion of the topic appears to be an article by Poling et al. (1983). They reported the relative number of authors who were women and men for articles published in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior .JEAB) and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis .JABA) from their inceptions through 1981, a period spanning 24 and 14 years, respectively. Men appeared as authors far more frequently than women in both journals, although the difference was larger for JEAB than for JABA. Across years, there was an upward trend in the proportion of JEAB first and total authors who were women. In JABA, however, the upward trend in proportion of women was only apparent for first author publications.

Publishing is a meaningful index of participation in the scholarly activities of a discipline, and subsequent research updated and extended the analysis begun by Poling et al. (1983). McSweeney and Swindell (1998) examined the relative number of first and total authors of JEAB articles published from 1978 to 1997 and found that the participation of women increased over time. For example, the percentage of first-authored publications by women increased from 10.2 (1978–1982) to 14.9 (1993–1997), while the percentage of authorship, as a whole, increased from 12.6 (1978–1982) to 20.9 (1993–1997). Nonetheless, women’s participation in JEAB was consistently less than their participation in three similar journals that were not exclusively behavior analytic (Animal Learning & Behavior, Journal of Experimental Psychology, and Learning and Motivation).

McSweeney, et al., (2000) used similar methods to examine women’s contribution to JABA, relative to their contribution to three similar journals that were not exclusively behavior analytic (Behavior Modification, Behaviour Research and Therapy, and Behavior Therapy) from 1978 to 1997. They found that “[f]or all journals, the percentage of articles with at least one female author, the percentage of authors who are female, and the percentage of articles with a female first author increased from 1978 to 1997” (McSweeney et al., p. 267). The percentage, on average, of authors who were women increased from 27 (1978 –1982), to 36 (1983–1987), to 37 (1988–1992), to 42 (1993–1997) for all authors, while the percentage for first-authored publications increased from 24 (1978–1982), to 31 (1983–1987), to 30 (1988–1992), to 35 (1993-1997). Men’s participation consistently exceeded that of women’s. Moreover, women’s participation was inversely related to the selectivity of activities. That is, their participation as any author exceeded their participation as first authors, which exceeded their participation as members of editorial boards (McSweeney et al.). The percentage of women on the JABA editorial board decreased from 30 (1978–1982), 29 (1983–1987), 27 (1988–1992), to 28 (1993–1997). In view of these findings, coupled with those of McSweeney and Swindell (1998), McSweeney et al. proposed that a “glass ceiling” reduced the participation of women at the highest levels (i.e., editorial boards) of behavior analysis. Like Poling et al. (1983), they made several suggestions for increasing women’s participation, which will be discussed subsequently.

It is not clear whether these suggestions played a role, but women’s participation as authors and editors in behavior-analytic journals have increased substantially in recent years (Li, et al., 2018). Li et al. examined authorship—for first authors and all authors—by women and men for articles published from 2014 through mid-2017 in JABA, JEAB, The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB), Behavior Analysis in Practice, Behavior Analysis: Research and Practice, The Behavior Analyst (TBA), and The Psychological Record (TPR). Comparing obtained data to findings from prior years (McSweeney et al., 2000; McSweeney & Swindell, 1998; Poling et al., 1983) shows that women have made important contributions to behavior analysis as authors of journal articles, and their authorship has increased substantially over time (see Li et al.). For the period Li et al. examined, there were more JABA and TAVB articles with women as first authors than articles with men as first authors.

An interesting, but unfortunate, aspect of all of the studies that have examined women’s participation in behavior-analytic journals is that international journals were not considered. Although behavior analysis had its beginning in the United States of America, the discipline is truly international, and there are important journals published outside the United States. One of them is the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis (MJBA), which is published by the Mexican Society of Behavior Analysis. According to the journal’s website, for more than 40 years it has published:

Original basic or applied research reports relevant to the behavior of nonhuman animals and humans. Review or theoretical articles, and technical notes are also considered for publication. The MJBA is a bilingual journal, publishing papers in either Spanish or English. Abstracts in both languages are also included for each article (http://rmacmx.org/mjba/).

The MJBA has an extensive history, publishes articles in both Spanish and English, and is headquartered outside the United States. For these reasons, it seems worthwhile to trace the relative contributions of women and men to the journal. An excellent review of many aspects of the journal’s contents, but not of authors’ gender, has recently appeared (Mateos, et al., 2017), and we hope that our data furthers their analysis.

Method

Articles published in the MJBA from 1975 to 2018 were examined to determine the gender of authors. The data were compiled from the online database of available publications on the MJBA website. The website, however, did not include all issues. A total of 24 issues, across 16 years, did not appear on the website. The missing issues were located and included in the analysis.

The coding occurred in two phases. In the first phase, one of the authors examined each publication and coded the gender of each author. As in previous studies (e.g., Li et al., 2018), the coding author determined the gender of each author based on their name. If an author’s name did not suggest gender, the coding author conducted internet searches on professional platforms (e.g., university websites, Association for Behavior Analysis International). The coding author could not determine the name of 44 authors for one of two reasons: (a) the gender could not be identified despite internet searches, or (b) the name was listed using the author’s initials (e.g., Cepeda). In the second phase, a former MJBA editor—the third author—and the current MJBAeditor identified the full names and/or gender for 41 of the 44 authors. Three authors were not identified. The gender counts were coded per article, not per author; therefore, recurring authors were counted as new entries (cf., McGee et al., 2004).

Interobserver agreement (IOA) was conducted for 193 randomly selected articles (25% of the total). The IOA data collector coded the gender of the first author, total number of women, and total number of men, per article. Percentage IOA was calculated as the number of agreements divided by the number of agreements and disagreements, then multiplied by 100. IOA was 95%.

For each year, the percentage of first authors who were women and the percentage of total authors who were men was determined. The yearly percentage of articles with at least one woman author and the percentage with at least one man author was calculated from 1975 to 2018 and 2014 to 2017 to analyze comparisons to those of Li et al. (2018).

Results

The percentage of authors, women and men, per year from 1975 to 2018 are shown in Figure 1. The figure shows a convergence in the percentages of publications for women and men over time. There were pronounced differences in the first 10 years of its publication. The percentage of authors who were women approached 50 in 1987, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2018, with values of 46, 49, 49, 45, 45, 46, and 48, respectively. Despite the lower percentages of authorship by women than by men, the data reflects increased authorship by women over time. Women accounted for 33% of total authorship, and men accounted for 67% over the entire sampling period. When the data are analyzed across decades (i.e., 1975–1979, 1980–1989, 1990–1999, 2000–2009, 2010–2018), authorship by women gradually increased, with percentage values of 22, 22, 27, 33, and 39, respectively.

Figure 1
Percentage of women and men as authors per year

The percentage of articles first-authored by women and the percentage first-authored by men are shown in Figure 2. Men first-authored more articles across all years, accounting for 80% of first-authored publications across all years. When the data are analyzed per decade, first-authorship by women increased from 12% (1975–1979), to 13% (1980–1989), to 16% (1990–1999), to 25% (2000–2009), to 35% (2010–2018).

Figure 2
Percentage of women and men as first authors per year

The percentages of publications with at least one woman and those with at least one man are shown in Figure 3. From 1975 to 2018, women appeared on 43% of articles, on average, with a range of 7% to 91%. Men appeared on 94% of articles, on average, with a range of 76% to 100%. The data was also analyzed for the 2014–2017 period to compare with Li et al. (2018) findings. The percentage of articles with at least one woman as an author across these years was 68, 50, 41, and 70, respectively. The percentage of articles with at least one man as an author, for the same years, was 89, 96, 94, and 95. Women—or at least one woman—appeared as authors on 57% of publications, while men—or at least one man—appeared as authors on 94% of publications, on average.

The aforementioned data are presented as percentages per year. This is because the number of publications per year were not fixed. The average number of yearly publications was 18, with a range of eight to 26 publications.

Figure 3
Percentage of articles with at least one woman and percentage of articles with at least one man as an author

Discussion

The MJBA was examined from 1975 to 2018 to determine the proportion of authorship by women and men. Participation by women increased over time, both with respect to total authorship and firstauthored publications. The increasing percentages are encouraging. The data, however, depict robust disparities at some points in time between women and men. To place the present data within the context of other behavior-analytic journals, we compared the percentage of authorship, first-authored publications, publications with at least one woman, and publications with at least one man.

The general increase across time in women’s participation as MJBA authors is consistent with patterns observed in other behavioranalytic journals, although the percentages differ substantially across journals. As evidence of this variability, Li et al. (2018) reported the percentage of articles with women as first authors and found that the value for the years 2014 to mid-2017 ranged from 27% to 57% across seven behavior-analytic journals, with a mean of 42%. When our data are combined across 2014 to 2017, women accounted for 33% of firstauthored publications. This value is close to the values Li et al. obtained for JEAB and TBA.

Li et al. (2018) also reported the percentage of articles with at least one woman as an author and the percentage with at least one man as an author. The percentage of articles with at least one woman ranged from 39% to 86% across journals, with a mean of 67%. For articles with at least one man, the percentages ranged from 80% to 96%, with a mean of 85%. Our data for 2014 to 2017 indicate that 57% of the articles had at least one woman as author and 94% had at least one man as an author. These values fall within the range of values reported by Li. et al. The percentage of MJBA articles with at least one woman as an author was similar to the value reported for JEAB. The percentage of MJBA articles with at least one man as an author was similar to the value reported for JEAB and TPR. It is interesting, and heartening, that the increase in women’s participation as authors that is evident in English-language behavior-analytic journals housed in the United States is also evident in a bilingual, behavior-analytic journal housed in Mexico. Of course, some people publish in many of these journals, and it would be interesting to determine if the women (and men) who recently published in MJBA were the same people who published in other journals.

Although some improvement is evident over time, Li et al. (2018) reported the relative extent of women’s involvement in scholarly activities in behavior analysis continues to be inversely related to the selectivity of activities. Li et al. reported that editorial board participation of women ranged from 10% to 58%, with an overall value of 37%. Women comprise 19% of the present editorial board of MJBA. Although this is the case, a more comprehensive analysis is warranted in order to analyze and compare historical trends.

The “glass ceiling” that McSweeney et al. (2000) described is cracked but not broken away. The “glass ceiling,” of course, is only a metaphor coined to refer to an invisible barrier that prevents women from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy. The barrier may be invisible to a casual observer, but to a behavior analyst it involves contingencies and rules that can, at least in principle, be isolated and altered in ways that allow women to advance. Some relevant work has appeared. For example, McSweeney and her colleagues (McSweeney et al., 2000; McSweeney & Swindell, 1998) considered several variables (e.g., differences in training, skill, and interest) that may have contributed to the gender differences in various professional activities (i.e., participation as authors, first authors, and editors). They concluded that these variables were not responsible for the differences they observed and, thus, suggested that discrimination against women was probably involved.

McSweeney and her colleagues (McSweeney et al., 2000; McSweeney & Swindell, 1998) also made several suggestions for increasing women’s participation in behavior analysis, such as requiring blind reviews of journal articles, formalizing the appointment of journal editors, keeping and reacting to statistics on the participation of women in various activities, and encouraging women undergraduates to carefully select the institution where they apply for graduate training. Other authors also have offered suggestions for increasing women’s participation in behavior analysis. For example, Poling et al. (1983) proposed that groups for supporting women in behavior analysis should be developed and supported. Li et al. (2019) recommended that the Association for Behavior Analysis International require evidence of nondiscrimination as part of program accreditation. All of these suggestions strike us as sound. Some have been followed (e.g., the Women in Behavior Analysis conference and some behavior-analytic journals use blind reviews), which may have contributed to the substantial increase in women’s participation in behavior analysis over time.

Be that as it may, as Neef (1993) pointed out, gender differences in participation are not in and of themselves evidence of discrimination, or of a problem. Our data show that women’s participation as authors of articles published in the MJBA has increased over time, which we view as a good thing, but this is not prima facie evidence that women were discriminated against. They also show that relatively few women currently serve as editors of that journal, but the reason why, and whether this finding is a reason for concern, are unclear.

Our data should be interpreted in light of some limitations. First, although precedented, determining gender based on the name of authors, and drawing a simple male-female distinction on that basis, has obvious limitations and is a crude index. Surveying all authors regarding self-identified gender would provide better information, but unfortunately is not practical. Second, we did not analyze women’s participation as editorial board members for MJBA. Future research may consider accessing and assessing editorial trends for women and men from 1975 to the present. Despite these limitations, our data appear to be adequate to support some meaningful conclusions.

In closing, behavior analysis is growing rapidly and is a truly international discipline. Given this, an obvious yet significant suggestion for further research is to conduct similar analyses with articles published in other behavior-analytic journals housed outside the United States, namely the European Journal of Behavior Analysis, Brazilian Journal of Behavior Analysis, and Japanese Journal of Behavior Analysis. Data from these journals would help to provide an even fuller understanding of women’s participation in our field, and how it has changed over time.

References

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