The under-representation of female individuals as research participants and manuscript authors is a longstanding issue in science in general and in the discipline of applied and exercise physiology. Over my ~50 years as an investigator, mentor, author, manuscript reviewer, and journal editor, my decisions obviously impacted these trends. To determine whether I was part of the problem or the solution, I audited my entire publication history and compared the results to a 50% aspirational census-based goal and to the composite across the histories of three leading exercise/applied physiology journals. 10,706 individuals were included in my 203 human studies - 49.8% were female individuals versus 42.5% female research participants for the other three journals. 40% of my studies had female research participants, which is above the composite 35% for the other journals. Of my single sex studies 23% included female participants, which is above the 15% for the three journals. The authors on my manuscripts are 16% female individuals which is below the composite 23% for the other journals. Thus, except for the inclusion of female research participants in my studies, I have contributed to the ongoing problem and not the solution to the under-representation of female individuals in the discipline of exercise/applied physiology. It remains for each of us to do some introspective thinking relative to this on-going issue because the decisions to rectify this situation have to come from individuals who choose to address this issue directly in their research programs.
James M. Hagberg (Mon,) studied this question.