What Is the Harm in Gendered Citation Practices?

Women are cited less frequently than men in a variety of scientific fields. Drawing theoretical resources from Fricker and Hookway, I argue that these gendered citation practices constitute a form of participatory epistemic injustice insofar as they prevent female scientists from fully engaging in the epistemic practices of science. Furthermore, Longino’s notion of “uptake” gives us a way of understanding gendered citation practices as an epistemic harm accrued not simply by individuals but by scientific communities as a whole. Finally, I discuss the cumulative harms of this kind of participatory epistemic injustice for individuals and for marginalized groups.