Rien d'étonnant quand nous prenons connaissance d'un article de JAMA Network Open de juillet 2018 intitulé "Assessment of Women Physicians Among Authors of Perspective-Type Articles Published in High-Impact Pediatric Journals". 
Aux USA, les femmes représentent '61.9% of pediatricians and 53.0% of full-time physician pediatric faculty'. Les auteurs ont sélectionné 435 articles qualifiés d'articles de type perspective ou opinion (pas de recherches originales), de 2013 à 2017, dans 4 revues américaines : Academic Pediatrics, JAMA Pediatrics, The Journal of Pediatrics, and Pediatrics (les quatre rédacteurs en chef étaient des hommes). Voici le résultat principal : "Women were underrepresented among physician first authors of known gender (140 of 336 [41.7%]), particularly among physician first authors of article categories described as scholarly (range, 15.4%-44.1%) vs categories described as narrative (range, 52.9%-65.6%) in nature. Women were also underrepresented among last authors and coauthors of articles attributed to both men and women physician first authors, although the underrepresentation of women among last authors and coauthors was more pronounced if a man physician was the first author." Il y a de grandes variations entre les revues et les types d'articles… à voir en détail dans cet article.
Est-ce que ces observations sont généralisables à d'autres spécialités ? Il existe quelques études sur ce sujet, dont une analyse de 3758 articles de 6 revues générales prestigieuses de 1994 à 2014 : 34 % des premiers auteurs étaient des femmes.
Un éditorial, écrit par une femme, accompagne cet article. Elle compare cette situation avec des données du festival de Cannes.. où c'est pire.. Elle invoque 3 raisons pour expliquer cela :
- First, the writing of a perspective-type article is more likely to happen outside of the physician’s normal workday. Women have fewer hours outside of their paid workday in which to undertake writing activities because they are doing more unpaid work than men.
- A second possible factor is that all 4 high-impact pediatric journals studied had male editors in chief. Male physicians may be more likely to invite and favorably review perspective-type articles from other male colleagues (the “old boys club” effect).
- A third possible contributor might be the gender composition of the editorial boards of the 4 selected journals. The editorial boards are, with one exception, composed of more men than women.
Elle conclut par un exemple français : In France a movement called 5050 pour 2020 (5050 by 2020) has emerged to try to establish gender equality in France’s film industry by 2020.
