The world is yours

“Let me know when you publish in The Lancet!” This is my father's standard reply when I produce scientific publications. His paper in said journal from 19831 is from a time when gender differences received limited attention in science. In 2018, however, things are different. When two white men published a list of 100 important articles for ecologists,2 I thought “what a nice summary”. 14 female scientists and two male scientists instead evidently thought “wait a minute” and commented3, 4, 5 on the gendered problems of highlighting 97 articles first authored by white men, and the non-random, structurally biased method for selecting them. Such protest was unlikely in 1983, or even 2 years ago.