When neuroscientist Rogier Kievit was invited to join a journal’s editorial board earlier this month, he took a look at the skewed gender ratio of its current members—21 men and 3 women—and said no thanks.
Kievit, a junior faculty member at the University of Cambridge in the UK, is among a community of activists turning down professional opportunities due to a lack of female representation. This practice has become more common in recent years, as scientists on Twitter and other social media platforms have increasingly voiced their displeasure with the gender imbalance in conference panels (dubbed “manels” when they lack women speakers), editorial boards, and other academic roles. Websites such “Bias Watch Neuro” and “All Male Panels” have helped boost the visibility of this problem, and hundreds of professionals across various disciplines have signed pledges to refuse to serve on “manels.”
Casper Albers, a statistician at the University of Groningen ...
