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© 2022 The Authors. Société Internationale d'Urologie Journal, published by the Société Internationale d'Urologie, Canada.

195SIUJ.ORG SIUJ  •  Volume 3, Number 4  •  July 2022

EDITORIAL

Gender Disparity on Editorial Boards
Peter C. Black, Editor-in-Chief

Soc Int Urol J.2021;3(4):195–196

DOI: 10.48083/TKCX3667

We are seeing concerted efforts across the field of urology to address substantial racial and gender disparities. While 
racial biases vary according to region of the world, gender disparities are more or less universal in global urology. The 
SIU is able to capture racial diversity better than some other organizations simply by ensuring that all the regions of 
the world that it represents are included in its activities. On the other hand, this same global representation makes 
it particularly challenging to address gender disparities within the SIU. Most countries still have very few female 
urologists, so that broad geographic inclusion may counteract our objective of gender equity. The editorial board of 
our journal, the SIUJ, is a microcosm of the parent organization.

Nguyen et al. recently reported on gender diversity in editorial boards of four of the five urology journals with the 
highest impact factors and how this changed from 2015 to 2020. The four journals were European Urology, Journal 
of Urology, European Urology Focus, and British Journal of Urology International. The proportion of women on these 
editorial boards was approximately consistent with the proportion of women in urology in the United States (although 
only one of the journals was from the United States), and there was a noticeable increase in the proportion of women 
on the editorial boards over the five years from 7.5% to 11.9%. Does this proportionality and growth over time suggest 
that we should be satisfied with the gender representation, or do we need to strive for better inclusion of women in 
urology on these editorial boards? Certainly, these numbers need to increase as the number of women in urology 
also needs to increase. However, we cannot wait for the number of women in our specialty to increase before seeking 
greater equity in our editorial boards. Providing positive role models of women on the editorial boards of major 
urologic journals is an important step to attract women into our field.

At some point we would like to arrive at the point where we do not need to think about gender equity because we 
have natural balance at all levels of organized urology. Although we are a long way from that target, I was involved in 
two recent committees that demonstrated the progress we would like to see. In the one committee we were reviewing 
nominations for leadership of the committee and only women were nominated. In the other setting, the top scoring 
applicant for an award was a female urologist from an underrepresented minority. In both cases an environment had 
been created where the best and brightest rose to the top, and these stars or rising stars just happened to be a ringing 
endorsement for equity and diversity.

Nguyen et al. focused on the academic productivity of male and female editors, highlighting that female editors 
had a median of 96 publications (“research documents”) and an H-index of 25 while men had 217 publications and 
an H-index of 39.5. Women were also less likely to have attained the rank of Professor. The authors discuss some 
of the factors that could impact the differential research productivity of men and women, but perhaps this is also a 
measure of women being promoted into these editorial board positions at earlier stages in their careers in an effort to 
overcome the gender gap. The age of the editorial board members is unfortunately not known. This is not to say that 
the underlying issues of the “leaky pipeline” discussed in the paper are not highly relevant, but we should nonetheless 
embrace the promotion of early career women into these roles, and we should recognize that this will impact the type 
of metrics measured by Nguyen et al.

The one finding of the study by Nguyen et al. that is particularly pertinent to the SIUJ is the fact that all but one 
of the female editors were affiliated with institutions from high-income countries. The gender disparity, at least 
in academic urology, would appear to be greater in middle- and lower-income countries than in high-income 
countries[1]. This is of particular interest to the SIUJ because the SIU membership spans all income categories, and 
we pride ourselves in serving the entire membership. Our editorial board reflects this mission with similarly broad 

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196 SIUJ  •  Volume 3, Number 4  •  July 2022 SIUJ.ORG

EDITORIAL

geographic representation, but ultimately with a large gender gap. One of our key challenges is to identify women 
from many of our member countries who would be interested in the editorial activities of the SIUJ.

How can we overcome the gender disparity on our editorial board? Two of the other urology journals have made 
noteworthy recent additions to their editorial boards that are likely to have future impact on diversity and equity. 
The Journal of Urology has introduced Early Career Editors[2] and Urology has added a monthly feature under the 
direction of a dedicated Associate Editor[3] on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Both moves demonstrate the 
creativity required to take on these important issues in our field.

In this vein, we at the SIU Journal would like to create an environment where the best and brightest from all over 
the world can rise to the top in our editorial board. We would love to hear from contributors around the globe who 
would be interested in serving the Journal by performing peer review and contributing to the editorial process at the 
Journal. We really need a grass-roots effort to increase gender equity and racial diversity on our editorial board. We 
would love to hear your thoughts on how we can improve gender representation in the SIUJ.

References

1. Statista. Least gender equal countries in the world in 2020. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1221085/least-gender-equal-
countries-in-the-world/. Accessed June 23, 2022.

2. Javier-DesLoges J, Siemens DR. Early career editors: a new initiative for The Journal of Urology®. J Urol.2022;207(6):1176–1177. doi: 10.1097/
JU.0000000000002689. Epub 2022 Apr 1.

3. @EricKleinMD. Based on the success of the April & May issues of UROLOGY devoted to DEI I am pleased to announce a new regular monthly 
section of @urogoldjournal devoted to these topics to be led by @yawnyame, who joins our Editorial Board as Associate Editor. Please send us 
your manuscripts! June 15, 2022. https://mobile.twitter.com/EricKleinMD/status/1537223428662386689. Accessed June 23, 2022.

http://SIUJ.org
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1221085/least-gender-equal-countries-in-the-world/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1221085/least-gender-equal-countries-in-the-world/
https://mobile.twitter.com/EricKleinMD/status/1537223428662386689



