Authorship gender representativeness in abstracts of Chondrichthyan Systematics in Brazil: Where are the women?

PETEAN, FLÁVIA F.; SOARES, KARLA D. A.

Simposio; II Virtual Meeting of Systematics, Biogeography, and Evolution; 2021

Scientific events such as conferences and symposia are relevant spaces for researchers to develop themselves, ideas, and networking. Aiming to evaluate the participation and representativeness of women and men in the authorship of abstracts in ichthyological scientific events in Brazil, we surveyed studies focused on ?Chondrichthyan Systematics? (ChonSyst). We analyzed events since 1995: the 12 most recent editions of the Brazilian Meeting of Ichthyology (EBI), all 10 meetings of the Brazilian Society for the Study of Elasmobranchs (SBEEL), including the international joint event Sharks International, in 2018, and the last edition of the International Symposium on Phylogeny and Classification of Neotropical Fishes (ISPCNF). In total, we analyzed 23 scientific events and 10.332 abstracts on fishes presented over the last 26 years. The abstracts were categorized according to the studied taxa (Chondrichthyes and Osteichthyes), area of knowledge (Evolution, Ecology, Physiology), and number and gender of authors. The average proportion of abstracts on Chondrichthyes in EBI and ISPCNF is 3.4%, contrasting the group diversity regarding the number of fish species (4.5% of more than 33.000 valid species) and evidencing the low proportion of studies with the group. Also, the average proportion of abstracts with Chondrichthyes within the area ?Evolution? in EBI and SBEEL is 37% and, of those, only 38.8% are first-authored by women. When specifying even more the abstracts, such as those that deal with ChonSyst (morphology, taxonomy, systematics, phylogeography, biogeography, and population genetics), they represent 21.6% of all Chondrichthyan abstracts. However, women are the first authors in only 8.9% of ChonSyst abstracts, considering all presentations in each event. Given the goal of analyzing the gender disparity in the study of ChonSyst in Brazil, the Our results showed a lower proportion of women presenting in scientific events, which could be associated with (1) most Chondrichthyan specimens being large and difficult to carry and send, demanding researchers to visit ichthyological collections, which is harder for women with family and children; (2) lack of women in leading roles within ChonSyst area, since only 5.7% of abstracts has women as last authors and only 2.8% as first and last authors, suggesting that women howing the non-permanence of women in these studies, who leave Academia before becoming principal investigators; (3) lack of support for women with children at scientific events., who are dissuaded to attend those because of family responsibilities. Women should be encouraged to remain researching regardless of their personal livesfamiliar situations by being supported not only by advisors and peers but also by event organizers who could provide adequate environments to give all attendants the same opportunities.