After reading Stuart Pimm’s book review in Biological Conservation, in which he compared a fellow scientist to a whoring prostitute, which is a very gender-specific and woman-degrading metaphor, I wrote a letter (BiolCons 2014) to Book Review Editor Phil Cafaro, which he yesterday told me had disappeared into the automated maw of the Elsevier system (note: I’d sent it directly to him, as book editor, via that system):

“Sorry not to get back to you about your letter about the Pimm review. Richard Primack had asked me to allow him to respond to any such complaints, so when yours came in, I left it for him to respond to. Unfortunately, it must have been addressed directly to me, rather than sent through the Elsevier system. So he didn’t see it, so didn’t respond to it. I thought he had seen it, so just left it to him to respond. In other words, it fell through the cracks. Sorry about that!”

Having heard via twitter that Biological Conservation would publish Amanda Stanley’s response to the review, I contacted Editor Richard Primack to inquire why I’d never received confirmation that my letter had been read.  He quickly and courteously responded:

“I agree with your points. Pimm¹s book review contained offensive language that was inappropriate for a scientific journal….We are not able retract the review just because of offensive language. Articles can only be retracted when there are more serious issues, such as fraud and plagiarism. I asked Pimm to remove the offensive language, but [he] refused. So writing an editorial was the best that we could do…. “

I think it’s great that Biological Conservation has published Dr. Stanley’s letter and also that she was interviewed about this issue on Retraction Watch. Along with Dr. Stanley, I’m tired of having to deal with this kind of casual misogyny from colleagues.  As I think it’s important that this not be perceived as a crusade by one or two scientists (see also,  Britta Teller), I decided to add my voice to the mix. I invite other colleagues to join us in making conservation biology and other STEM fields welcoming to a diversity of scientists.