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This paper was originaly published on tandfonline.com
While Marie Curie’s unique presence among 29 male scientists at the 1927 Solvay Conference underscores the historical gender gap in science, the persistent underrepresentation of women in authorship of scientific publications – particularly in Africa and the Global South – highlights the enduring challenge of achieving gender equality in the scientific community. African women scientists represent 31.1% of the scientific community in Africa, bringing valuable diversity and new perspectives to scientific research. This study examines the evolution of their presence in top-ranked journals in both 2010 and 2022, utilizing a text mining approach. We analyzed a comprehensive dataset of African publications, including 30,455 articles from 2010 and 137,566 from 2022, sourced from the Web of Science and covering all 54 African countries. Additionally, we conducted qualitative interviews to explore the specific challenges faced by these women. Our findings indicate a consistent presence of African women in fields like education, environmental science, and social sciences, with growing interests in ecology, sustainability, and COVID-19 research. The publishing landscape has diversified, featuring contributions from both established publishers (Taylor and Francis, Elsevier, Springer, Wiley) and newer ones (MDPI). Significant contributions come from Egyptian and South African institutions, with emerging prominence from universities in Morocco and Tunisia. However, underrepresentation persists in technology, engineering, and physical sciences. The study’s originality lies in its comprehensive analysis, filling a literature gap by using an extensive database and a novel method to infer author gender at the article level. This is further enriched by qualitative insights, offering a nuanced view of the challenges African women researchers face and highlighting specific research areas and themes. This multifaceted approach provides new perspectives on the role of African women in the scientific community.
