PONE-D-21-36534Female researchers do not publish less despite an academic structure that deepens sex gapPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hipólito,

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PLOS ONE

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Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The paper presents very interesting work about the gap between men and women in academic positions and is worthy of publication. Additionally, in terms of writing, it is fluid and clear.

However, some changes can be made to improve the manuscript. First, when the researchers in ABC and in Entomology in general are presented (Table 1 and 2), it would be interesting to establish a plot that would relate them. The same is valid for when the first/last authors per year, dividing men and women (Figure 5), are presented. Additionally, in Figure 5, it would be interesting to clarify if the relative number of articles is defined by the ratio between articles written by women and women+men, for each year or between the number of articles written by women that year and the total number of articles written by women.

Finally, a smaller and concise conclusion section would enrich the text.

Some additional comments can be found in the appended pdf file.

Reviewer #2: Paper

Female researchers do not publish less despite an academic structure that deepens sex gap

Comments

Interesting and current topic applied to a specific area of investigation. It can inspire other researchers from other areas to carry out similar studies to verify if the conclusions obtained are similar in other areas of knowledge.

Very careful description of Materials and Methods.

Extensive list of bibliographic references and recent publications.

Very good results discussion.

Minor fixes:

1. Check the entire text “Brazilian Academy of Science” or ”Sciences”.

2. Any explanation for the peak of publications to be between the years 2003 to 2012 and remain more stable from there?

3. Table 2 - absolute values sum 30 and not 31 as indicated in the text.

4. Conclusions are missing. some sentences from the discussion should be included in a new “Conclusions” section.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-36534_reviewer.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments Paper Female_PLOS ONE.pdf

PONE-D-21-36534R1Female researchers do not publish less despite an academic structure that deepens sex gapPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hipólito,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 22 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

António M. Lopes, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

********** 

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

********** 

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

********** 

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

********** 

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors made the necessary changes to the paper and it is now suitable for publication. As a final remark, the reviewer suggests using gender instead of sex in the title, since the social term "gender" is more suitable than the biological "sex", to the reviewer's best knowledge.

Reviewer #3: The paper “Female researchers do not publish less despite an academic structure that deepens sex gap” describes gender inequality in Brazilian science in terms of the presentation of women in key / authoritative positions despite the fact of equal productivity from a bibliometrics viewpoint. The results are based on a solid ground formed from three sources: (a) the structure of the Brazilian Academy of Science; (b) the composition of editorial boards of the Brazilian journals; and (c) the positions of males/females in the bylines of papers published by Brazilian researchers. The sample is limited by Entomology subject area; bibliometric analyses were carried out using the Dimensions database. Applied approaches are thoroughly detailed, as well as the samples used.

The paper is believed to contribute to our knowledge on gender distribution and productivity not only because it concerns poorly studied region and one more subject area, but also due to substantive discussion of what should be made to increase inclusivity, diversity, and equality. The authors proposed several steps including raise of awareness of the problem, introducing some normalized values considering motherhood, the age of children, other family responsibilities, etc. to increase reasonable recognition of male/female contribution in science. I think the revised version of the manuscript is worth publishing after addressing several minor issues.

Comments.

1. Title. Now the title lacks both mentioning entomology subject area and Brazilian science. I think they should be included in the title to make it more precise.

2. Pp. 14-15, Brazilian journals description. It will be useful to add some more information on Brazilian entomological journals, like their ISSNs, websites, indexing systems, the language of the articles, etc., to make readers’ perceptions more informed. As I understand, some Brazilian journals may be international ones, include international members, and thus may represent not only Brazilian, but also international models of gender distribution in entomology. Thus, a more detailed explanation of the compound of editorial boards in Brazilian journals is needed. The other interesting point is to compare male/female distribution in Brazilian journals and, e.g., top-10 international entomological journals. For instance, in 10.3103/S0147688218040123 it was found that women were underrepresented in a set of analyzed national journals on Earth Sciences while international ones followed other models. Is there Brazilian specific in this aspect?

3. P. 22: “if we, as a community, do not admit that hegemony of any kind does not make better science.” – However, sometimes the causes of inequality are reasonable and should not be solved by a simple establishment of proportions. See, e.g., 10.1016/S0140-6736(03)12528-7.

4. P. 9: “Embrapa Arroz e Feijão, Santo Antônio de Goiás, GO, Brazil.” – remove dot character in the end of the line.

5. P. 10: “degree stages in STEM” – please, explain the abbreviation on first mention.

6. P. 14: The reference to the Dimensions Website is indicated twice in this page. I believe the second mention can be removed.

Reviewer #4: The topic is interesting and the new version is understandable and easy to read. All the changes requested by the reviewers were made.

********** 

7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

**********

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Brazilian female researchers do not publish less despite an academic structure that deepens sex gap

PONE-D-21-36534R2

Dear Dr. Hipólito,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

António M. Lopes, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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