A new study of nearly 50 journals in the British Medical Journals Publishing Group found that women accounted for less than one in three peer reviewers — scholars who are experts in their field and are critical to vetting new research before it’s published in academic journals. The proportion of female peer reviewers grew by only 2.9 percentage points between 2009 and 2020.

A 2018 global reviewer survey showed similar gaps in other fields; 22 percent of reviewers were female compared to 45 percent male (33 percent were unknown). That’s despite the fact that women make up the majority of non-tenure track instructors at American institutions, and nearly half of tenure-track faculty according to the American Association of University Women.