Gender and authorship in The Indexer, 1958-2007 Page: 165

                                
Sassen: Gender and authorship in The Indexer

Table I Gender distribution of all authors
1958-67         1968-77          1978-87          1988-97          1998-2007
No     %        No      %        No     %         No     %         No     %
Female         30     10.53     71    20.70    255     40.61    326     48.73    383     67.91
Male          243     85.26    269    78.43    360     57.32    339     50.67     179    31.74
Unknown        12      4.21      3     0.87     13      2.07      4      0.60      2      0.35
285    100.00    343    100.00   628    100.00    669     100.00   564    100.00
450                                                 The distribution of authors of editorials is illustrated in
400                                               Table 2a and Figure 2. The number of authors is not the
3s0                                               same in each time period for several reasons. Some journal
S300                                               issues did not contain any editorials, and others contained
250                                      Female   more than one editorial. Table 2b lists all the journal's
1                                      / -  Female
200                /                                editors and their dates of service.
U           Male
E  I50
,-  - Unknown
100/
z  0            --Letters to the editor
50       -"
0     . * -  A     - - -    -A                  Male authors had more letters published in The Indexer than
58-67  68-77  78-87  88-97  98-07            female authors during each of the five decades under inves-
Years                           tigation. The disparity of participation was most pronounced
during the period 1958-67, when female authors were
Figure I Gender distribution of all authors         responsible for only 7.69 percent of the letters published.
The participation of women authors increased over time,
Editorials                                           and they wrote 45.45 percent of all letters published in
1998-2007. The distribution of authors of letters appearing
From  1958 to 1977, all editorials in The Indexer were  in The Indexer is summarized in Table 3 and Figure 3.
written by male authors. However, female authors wrote
the majority of editorials in each of the following three
decades. To a great extent, this pattern reflects the gender  Reviews
distribution of the journal's editors. All the editors serving  Male review authors outnumbered female review authors in
from 1958 to 1978 were male. Since that time, women have  the first four decades of the history of The Indexer. Female
served as editors. However, women have not written all the  authors were responsible for only 4.44 percent of the reviews
editorials published since 1978 because some were authored  in 1958-67. Their contributions grew to 75.53 percent in
by male guest editors.
Table 2a Gender distribution of authors of editorials
1958-67         1968-77          1978-87          1988-97          1998-2007
No     %        No      %        No     %         No     %         No     %
Female          0      0.00      0     0.00     10     66.67     16     69.57     26     86.67
Male           13    100.00      4    100.00     5     33.33      7     30.43      4     13.33
13    100.00     4     100.00    15    100.00     23    100.00     30    100.00
30
s  20
Table 2b Editors of The Indexer                       o20

Editor                      Dates
Harold Smith                1958-9
John Thornton               1959-63
Monty Harrod                1964-78
Hazel K. Bell               1978-95
Janet Shuter and Nancy Mulvany 1996-9
Christine Shuttleworth      1999-2004
Maureen MacGlashan          2004-present

The Indexer Vol. 27 No. 4 December 2009

46 Is
/                                               -- - Female
E  10
58-67   68-77   78-87   88-97   98-07
Years
Figure 2 Gender distribution of authors of editorials
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