Participation of women as authors and editors in journals concerned with mental retardation and related topics

The present survey determined women's participation in eight journals concerned with mental retardation and related topics. The number of female authors was recorded for all articles published in these journals from 1991 through 2000. The number of women on the editorial board each year, for each journal, also was tabulated. For all years and all journals, women were first authors of 41% of articles published. Women wrote 34% of single-author articles. Overall, 45% of all authors were women. Women constituted 34% of the editorial board members for the eight journals combined. In sum, these data suggest that women's contribution to the mental retardation literature decreases with the prestige of the activity.