This webpage is an ongoing resource that will be updated over time, its contents should not be taken as complete at any time where this message shows. This page is maintained by ISA councillor Danniella Sherwood (University of Prishtina, Kosovo and Arachnology Research Association, United Kingdom). The ISA council is made up of volunteers working full-time in arachnology who give their limited free time to serve the community.

The 21st century landscape of arachnology reveals ongoing gender disparities within the field, despite notable improvements in representation of women among the contingent of early-career researchers and attendance at international conferences. Indeed, whilst recent conferences, such as the 22nd International Congress of Arachnology in Montevideo in 2023 have seen increased participation of women, especially in proportions of student presentations and posters, female arachnologists remain markedly underrepresented in more senior roles and other aspects of academia due to the ‘leaky pipeline’ for the reasons detailed below.

Early societal messaging, outdated gender role expectations, inaccurate media stereotypes, and lack of visible support structures within the academy contribute to women’s underrepresentation and attrition in science careers more generally. In arachnology specifically, Holmquist & Gillespie (2022) showed female first authorship in one prominent arachnological journal remains below 25%, and that women face other barriers globally such as (but not limited to): 

• Implicit bias in hiring processes
• Harassment (of all types) in the workplace
• Unequal recognition and appreciation of work
• Underrepresentation in societal leadership roles, tenured jobs, and plenary speaker opportunities
• Underrepresentation in awards and other formal recognition
• Limited resources available to mothers (e.g. lack of childcare at conferences, adequate maternity leave, or flexi-hours)
• Higher prevalence of Imposter Syndrome and feeling ‘out of place’

A recent study by Montata et al. (2025) examined authorship trends of spider names, showing that men made up 73.4% of the total of 594 authors of spider species described from the Americas from 1946 to 2021. The field was thus clearly male-dominated, made even more apparent that this unequal percentage share is in spite of several pioneering female arachnologists having described spiders during this period, such as Elisabeth Bangs Bryant, who meticulously named hundreds of species. Of the percentage share by women, 7.2% were of Global North scholars and 18.5% were Global South scholars. What is most interesting though is that Montana et al. (2025) showed that authorship teams where more women were included also tended to have more representation of Global South scholars, meaning that when women are empowered, it often leads to net benefits for other demographic groups more broadly. However, their research concurred with Holmquist & Gillespie (2022) that first authorship – a vital milestone, particularly for Early Career Researchers – is still underrepresented for female scholars, and much work clearly must be done to improve the equitability of arachnology for women.

Addressing these disparities requires concerted efforts across all career stages, especially in terms of support from senior colleagues to drive change, including: improvement of workplace culture, providing more avenues of mentorship, and fostering supportive policies to retain women through the academic pipeline. For the latter, these should policies to deal with harassment by male colleagues, and introduction of flexible working arrangements and childcare support for mothers in academia. The increased scholarship on gender matters in arachnology, and the creation of organisations dedicated to highlighting and mitigating disparities for women in the field (see below) are also a sign that the problem is at least being recognised. Nonetheless, there is a long way to go before the structural sexism in arachnology is even remotely adequately addressed.

One of the encouraging developments in the history of arachnology has been the recent formation of the Support Women in Arachnology (SWA) group in 2020. SWA works to support female arachnologists, study and publish on the problem of gender bias in arachnology, and to propose impactful and effective actions and policies to mitigate the problems faced by women in academia. The group also does important advocacy work at symposiums, meetings, and on social media. In their own words, they "... want to break down barriers, end discrimination, and disprove stereotypes".

SWA has presented numerous posters at symposiums, empirically showing gender bias in arachnology, and have been subject of positive news stories (e.g. https://www.uol.com.br/ecoa/ultimas-noticias/2021/09/13/como-aracnologas-estao-combatendo-o-machismo-na-ciencia.htm and https://ciencianarua.net/como-vencer-o-preconceito-de-genero-estruturado-e-persistente-na-academia-cientifica/). Please visit the links below to find out more about their work.

Website: https://swa.my.canva.site/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SwaWomen
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/groupswa/

Further examples of peer-reviewed papers exploring the roles of women in arachnology are listed below and will be updated as more research is published.

Ferrero et al. (2021) published an in-depth article on three exceptional women at the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales (MACN), in Buenos Aires, who were all renowned arachnologists: Rita Delia Esther Schiapelli (1906–1976), Berta Sofía Gerschman de Pikelin (1905–1977), and María Elena Galiano (1928–2000). Rita Schiapelli and Berta Gerschman formed a two-woman team widely considered as the doyennes of tarantula taxonomy in the 20th century. They described many new species and genera and alternated their name order on papers. Berta has 1 genus and 8 species named after her. Similarly, Rita has 12 species named in her honour. Rita was the first head of the arachnology section of the MACN, thus making yet more history as a female arachnologist. Similarly, María Galiano was the doyenne of Neotropical salticid taxonomy in the 20th century. Her detailed papers, with high-quality drawings, and description of numerous new species significantly advanced knowledge of jumping spiders throughout South America and beyond.

Gochberg (2021) wrote a detailed account of the life of Elizabeth Bangs Bryant (1875–1953), Harvard’s premier arachnologist in the early 20^th century who was shockingly working for decades without renumeration. She highlights the huge impact that Bryant had on arachnology, particularly spider taxonomy, despite the institutional and societal barriers she faced during her entire career. Bryant was the doyenne of Caribbean spider taxonomy in the 20th century, producing two major monographs and numerous shorter papers in which she described hundreds of species and numerous genera.

Sherwood (2022) chronicled the history of women in British arachnology from 1800-2000, with a special focus on Eliza Fanney Staveley (1831–1903) and Frances Mary Murphy (1926–1995). Staveley was the first British female arachnologist, publishing the landmark book British Spiders in 1866, and authoring a short journal article on specialist structures in spiders. Frances, an early member of the British Arachnological Society, was a recognised expert on the spiders of Surrey and on the rearing of spiders in general. Frances contributed significantly to the understanding of Southeast Asian spiders, during many collecting trips with her husband John A. Murphy to remote areas of the world. Their joint spider collection is one of the largest in the UK and is deposited at the Manchester Museum.

Version 1.0 | Danniella Sherwood

There are over 4350 currently valid spider genera according to Version 24.5 of the World Spider Catalog (https://www.wsc.nmbe.ch). Women have been significantly underrepresented in arachnology, but recognition for their achievements is slowly becoming more prevalent. This online checklist shows all genera named for women or named after a female given name. It is an expansion of a previous article which focused on matronymic genera described for arachnologists only (Marusik & Sherwood, 2022). Names are listed as they are maintained in the World Spider Catalog, followed by the current family placement in ( ) and the status of the genus (i.e. valid or invalid) in [ ]. This checklist was compiled during late evenings on aeroplanes, trains, in the jungle and in the desert during 2022–2023. It would not have been possible without the encouragement of colleagues, especially Yuri Marusik and Jan Beccaloni. I also thank Yuri, Jan, and Mercedes Burns for comments which improved the initial version; also Ivan Magalhaes who brought two genera to my attention which were overlooked in the previously cited paper. Please send additions and corrections to: (danni[dot]sherwood[at]hotmail[dot]com).

Ferraro, D. P., Panti, C., Tancoff, S., de Cabo, L. I., Chornogubsky, L., D´Hiriart, S., Grismado, C.  J., Ramírez, M.  J., Scioscia, C.  L., & Cruz, L. E.  (2021). Mujeres científicas del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales: las primeras aracnólogas. Revista del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales 23(2): 147–166.

Gochberg, R. (2021). Elizabeth Bangs Bryant: Brief life of an underappreciated arachnologist: 1875–1953. Harvard Magazine. Cambridge, Mass.

Holmquist, A. J. & Gillespie, R. G. (2022). Finding spider woman: the past and present role of women in arachnology. Arachnology 19(Special Issue): 126–136.

Marusik, Y. M. & Sherwood, D. (2022). Matronymic genera in spiders (Araneae) named  for arachnologists. Arachnology 19(Special Issue): 150–157.

Montana, K. O., Gorneau, J. A., Gosnell, J.  S., Crews, S.C., Xavier, C., Marta, K., Pantoja, P., Hannappel, M. P., Stiner, E., Jones, M., Mottershead, G. S, Cala-Riquelme, F. & Esposito, L. A. (2025). If history is written by the victors, who describes the spiders? Species author trends reflect gender and geopolitical disparities in biodiversity science. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 146(1): blaf067.

Sherwood, D. (2022). Few and far between: a history of women in British arachnology 1800–2000. Arachnology 19(Special Issue): 137–149.