Saturday, September 18, 2010

Academic titles for women, take two!

A male colleague and I once wrote a paper for a journal. I was first author, he was second author. We are both (still) PhD students, though he is perhaps slightly closer to finishing than I am. We mutually agreed he would be second author because I did the lion's share of the idea generation, research, paper writing, etc. Our websites both clearly indicate we are PhD students, as do our bios in the article.

Recently, one of the journal's editors contacted each of us individually to review a newly submitted article.

Here's the invitation to me:
Dear Ms. Ada Lovelace,
The following paper has been submitted for publication at Our Fantabulous Journal. Can you review it?
Thank you,
Journal Editor
Yet, here is the invitation to my fellow grad student:
Dear Dr. Charles Babbage, 
The following paper has been submitted for publication at Our Fantabulous Journal. Can you review it?
Thank you,
Journal Editor
I am intrigued. Why am I a "Ms." but he's a "Dr."? Is this one of those cases where the editor saw my colleague's name as second author and assumed he was the "senior author"? Even still, for a two-author publication, I'm not sure one can automatically assume the first author is PhD-less and the second author is PhD-full.

I guess this is better than the editor assuming I'm male.

Funny thing, though - a different (female) editor at the journal recently corresponded with us on another matter, and addressed me as "Professor Lovelace," and didn't address my co-author at all. We both found this highly amusing.