Will the Gender Gap Ever be a Priority in Scholarly Publishing?

Since the end of the last century, gender studies have been rapidly emerging as a branch of the social sciences. Few studies can be cited on the gender gap in Indian academic publishing; however, some popular journalistic writings and blogs on the topic have gained noticeable visibility.

In India, because of the lack of opportunities and access to tertiary education centres, female professionals are forced to the periphery of Social Science and Humanities research. Most qualified professionals hesitate to climb the career ladder despite available opportunities. Nevertheless, the number of female researchers who have qualified with master’s degrees has considerably increased over the past few years.

It is imperative to note that the inclusion of the global south should be a commitment of mainstream academia, yet a distant dream for those working at the peripheries of dominant systems of knowledge production. The epistemic alienation of the global south and the neo-colonial exploitation of the open science movement prompted the southern scholars to emphasize the significance of subaltern publishing practices.1 Unfortunately, the marginalization of southern scholarly publishing by patronizing emerging low-quality publishers as predators, despite the conspicuous presence of predators in the north, seems to be a threat to subaltern publishing practices.

In addition, linguistic injustice in terms of the predominance of the English language is also a problem, as it prevents southern scholars from actively and effectively participating in knowledge creation. Even though the increased global cry for open access has reduced the paywall system, access to the scientific literature has been denied for scholars outside the limited elite academic institutions until the last decade. Paper piracy, therefore, has been claimed owing to the guerrilla-warfare attempt to pirate all papers out of the paywall. A few efforts are being made to address these unethical practices in scholarly publishing, but a comprehensive solution is unlikely to occur until all scientific literature is made open-access. Given the reality that numerous serious issues ought to be addressed immediately, gender representation has to be one of the top priorities of scholarly publishing in the global south.

South Asia has been a major source of labour since ancient times, and scientific publishing has become an absolute necessity in academia to gain prestige and accreditation for scholars and universities alike. Considering this, India would become one of the world’s major suppliers of the scientific workforce if more female researchers were to be trained and equipped with editorial and scientific publishing skills. The development of informal educational institutions in academic publishing is one of many ways to address this issue.  Besides that, the recommendation for curriculum development in UG studies with increased stress on scientific writing is also mandatory.

Effective workforce utilisation is still an agony for policymakers. This write-up attempts to draw SSH academia’s attention to the heavily underutilised female workforce in Indian scientific writing. A deeper study is highly warranted to identify the gender imbalance in scholarly publishing practices in India.