For two decades, the Women in Management and later the Gender and Diversity in Organizations (GDO) division of ASAC has appealed to the ASAC Executive Board and CJAS editors to establish a GDO section within CJAS. As a division, we feel that GDO scholars have been marginalized in both our existence, and in our scholarship on the issues of gender and diversity at work.

We are clearly disappointed with the journal’s decision to eliminate the GDO area as a “free standing” section within CJAS. We are concerned that it will signal to GDO scholars and the academic community at large that our work is not important, and thus not worthy of representation in a broad based management journal. We also fear that this will be perceived as a regressive step on the part of ASAC, and will discourage current and prospective scholars working in gender and diversity research.

Jean Helms Mills, Albert Mills, and Gloria Miller organized two special issues in 2009 and 2010 and received over 30 (international) papers. Rick Hackett, the out-going editor, promptly approved the creation of a GDO section for the journal, with Judith Pringle, an internationally known feminist scholar, serving as the section editor. Judith immediately established an international editorial board to encourage submissions from around the world, consistent with the journal’s mission to be more international.

The in-coming editor’s proposed solution for us to submit our work to the Interdisciplinary section of CJAS does not work for several reasons. Foremost, it requires scholars to justify the “interdisciplinary” nature of their work, which creates an unnecessary hurdle for GDO scholars and further discourage prospective submissions to CJAS. Second, GDO scholarship has different epistemology (e.g., feminist theorizing), and therefore may not be grouped with related fields of inquiry such as organizational behaviour or human resources. Third, it may potentially be challenging for an Interdisciplinary section editor, who may not have familiarity with a particular GDO topic, to access experts for the review process, and to make informed judgments on reviewer decisions. This will unnecessarily delay the review process, which was a constant source of frustration for GDO scholars prior to the creation of a GDO section.

We do not feel that reinstating the GDO section of CJAS will in any way detract or diminish the reputation or standing of CJAS. In fact, inclusion of a GDO section enhances the reputation of the journal as an important outlet for publishing among GDO scholars globally. On this basis, we respectfully request that CJAS reinstate the GDO section of CJAS.