Peer review is the process of subjecting research to close examination by others in the same field. This can determine if a study should be published, reviewed or even completely rejected. However, even this process has numerous flaws. First of all, the peer review process is extremely prone to bias. Women are greatly underrepresented in the peer review process – this does not help with the already rampant problem of sexism in science. Specifically, there is evidence that women do not receive as many grants as men do during the peer review process. This blatant sexism I obviously problematic, however, there are definitely different solutions to make this process fair. There are many options to improve the peer review process. Blinding the reviewers, training them, opening up the process to the world or selecting the reviewers carefully, are all ways to try an improve this process. Hopefully changes happen soon but until then, the peer review process is the best we have for research criticism and examination.
