Open AccessPublications about Women, Science, and Engineering: Use of Sex and Gender in Titles over a Forty-six-year Period
Author(s) -
Mary Frank Fox,
Diana Roldan Rueda,
Gerhard Sonnert,
Amanda Nabors,
Sarah Bartel
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
science, technology and human values/science, technology, and human values
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.094
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1552-8251
pISSN - 0162-2439
DOI - 10.1177/01622439211027648
Subject(s) - masculinity , femininity , period (music) , gender gap , citation , gender studies , set (abstract data type) , subject (documents) , gender mainstreaming , gender inequality , psychology , social science , sociology , inequality , gender equality , library science , computer science , mathematics , mathematical analysis , physics , acoustics , economics , demographic economics , programming language
This article focuses on key features of the use of sex and gender in titles of articles about women, science, and engineering over an important forty-six-year period (1965–2010). The focus is theoretically and empirically consequential. Theoretically, the paper addresses science as a critical case that connects femininity/masculinity to social stratification; and the use of sex and gender as an enduring, analytical issue that reveals perspectives on hierarchies of femininity/masculinity. Empirically, this article identifies the emergence, development, and stabilization of published articles about women, science, and engineering that use sex and gender in their titles. The distinctive method involves search, retrieval, and review of 23,430 articles, using intercoder reliabilities for inclusion/exclusion. This results in a uniquely specified and comprehensive set of articles on our subject and the identification of titles with sex and gender. Findings point to (1) the growth of gender titles, (2) their increase in every field, (3) differing concentrations of sex and gender titles in journals, (4) a span of telling topic areas, and (5) higher citation rates of gender, compared to sex, titles. Broader implications appear in reasons for the growth of gender titles, meanings of topic areas that occur, insights into social inequalities and science policies, and emerging complexities of nonbinary categories of sex/gender.