Visible & Valued: (In)Citing Feminist Scholarship

As well as the erasure of other-than-European contributions within research, I am concerned about the (in)visibility and (de)valuing of female scholarship.

My current research into how bicycles feature in West African girls’ access to education has a strong gender theme – and I read a lot.

Who is writing about West African female experiences is revealing. It is difficult to find literature on this topic written by African scholars – and even less so, work by female African scholars and knowledge holders.

Overwhelmingly, work in this area is by white, European males.

But this dynamic is not exclusive to my field of interest.

Female authorship has always been under-represented – in all fields.

There is historical and current systematic bias in scientific information production and recognition for male scholar-authors, (Mathew Effect), while in comparison, female scholarship is still often ignored, denied credit or goes largely unrecognised (Matilda Effect).

The fact that female scholarly impact is under-appreciated is not new.

And this dynamic impacts men as well as women. Feminist scholars have been writing about this issue for decades. There are many reasons for why this is, including some lesser known implications – such as the fact that male academic authors self-cite 70% more than female authors and that when some women researchers adopt birth name AS middle name or birth name-married name variations professionally, this practice has been shown to have a detrimental impact on the dissemination, publication and citation of their work.

And this is not only an academic issue. There are many international movements working to redress the erasure of women’s current and historical contributions – take Women’s History Month or the WikProject Women as examples.

I was recently invited to join a feminist Reading with Reciprocity project.

The Reading with Reciprocity invite was the perfect opportunity to put into action more publicly, some In(Citing) experiments I’ve been working-with exploring how I might better support, promote and recognise female scholarship in my work.

Two approaches to (In)Citing Feminist Scholarship

In my book response (forthcoming – I will link here when made public), I used two approaches to make academic female contributions more visible.

1. Including first and surnames for in-text citations

First, I included the first and surname for all female (and other) scholars cited.

Historically, the academic writing-citing convention is to only cite surnames. It looks like this:

Dunne (2018) ………

or

..………….(Dunne, 2018).

However this is problematic from a feminist POV given that surnames are patrilineal – bestowed either at birth (automatically deferring to the father’s surname) or through marriage (assuming the husband’s surname).

With no first name to distinguish otherwise, absolute supremacy of male linage and masculine privilege is reinscribed and unchallenged. So, I include the first name of female authors to destablise this conventional and draw attention to, identify and validate – female author within the male (sur)name convention.

This works best for author-prominent citations.

So my citations then looked more like this:

Glenda Dunne (2018) …..

or

……… (Glenda Dunne, 2018).

2. Include the academic position of female author-scholars

I also included the current academic position of the female scholars cited, not just the honorific “Dr.” as is convention.

Female scholars are far less likely to be called ‘Dr’ or have ‘Dr’ attributed to their name, or they are not taken seriously or even mocked when they do, whereas it is unquestionably applied for males in a similar situation.

“Dr.” is an educational qualification for people conferred with a PhD or doctorate, whereas Assistant Professor or Professor is an academic position grade within the academy – it denotes authority, seniority and status.

Far too often, women are note recognised in attaining the academic standing they have.

So, to counter this, instead of:

In this book, Dunne (2018) explores…

or

In this book , Dr Dunne (2018) explores..

My work started to integrate something more like this:

In this book, Prof. Dunne (2018) explores..

So now, I try to use more author-prominent in-text citations so I can apply first AND surname (see above) AS WELL AS deliberately insert the academic position of the author.

So now my citations look like this:

In this book, Prof. Glenda Dunne (2018) explores ...

This is definitely an unconventional move.

Academic positions can change if the person assumes a new roles or moves universities. ‘Dr.’ always stay the same (if given at all) no matter where you go, so that is the conventional default honorific.

This meant I had to do a little more research.

I had to look up the scholar and double check each female scholar’s current position for accuracy.

This additional ‘work’ helped keep me accountable to the feminist imperative of going the extra mile to learn more about the women scholars I was investigating and is a good reminder to be accurate and ethical in my representation of them.

I include the author’s academic titles as a deliberate push to draw attention to the advanced positions the female academics cited/referred to have achieved through expertise, knowledge and research. The title of Dr is not adequately meritous for such positions.

This is something I have been doing for a while in my academic work (like publications), but I am usually told to revert back to Dr or remove all honorifics.

(Note: I was asked by the editors of the feminist project I was writing for to add a (foot)note explaining to readers the reasoning for using these approaches as part of my final book response release.)

Else where in my workshops, Teaching and Learning sessions, and on this blog I have progressively been using this approach as my default – see for example: A/P Chelsea Bond BAM! on World Bicycle Day post.

And I will I continue to apply these (In)Citing techniques where ever possible.

My execution of these two approaches maybe a little clunky at times, but that is also because we (are all) so (un)used to a particular type of (In)Citing!

This experiment is also a long-term commitment… and a process – one that will no doubt change, morph, stumble, be updated and tuned up as my feminist engagement, ideas and experience flexes and fades, and expands and contracts.

For me, it is the engaging-experimenting-doing of feminist imperatives differently (such as greater reciprocity and visibility for female scholarship) that is most interesting in this endeavour.

Read well and cite well, friends!