Is it common practice for book reviews editors to be excluded from chief editor(s) meetings? I'm a book reviews editor (volunteer role) for a newly established journal (running just for the last couple of years). The journal has a couple of chief editors, myself as the book reviews editor, and then an editorial board. I manage the book reviews (including soliciting, organising, reviewing, editing, etc) which are eventually sent off to the editors for approval. We've never (to my knowledge) have had an editorial board meeting. The editors meet every two months to discuss the journal (strategic and administrative), but I have never been invited to these meetings.
Not having worked with a journal in this capacity before (I have guest edited special issues, published, and done peer reviews), I'm unsure as to whether or not book reviews editors should be included in at least some of these meetings/discussions since they pertain to the shaping of future journal issues (and book reviews may be a part of that, such as limits on word lengths, which books to focus on, etc). However, as I'm quite new to this, perhaps it is normal for such editors to be excluded from bigger picture meetings/discussions?
I have this horrible nagging feeling that I'm being excluded purposely because I'm a young woman working with older men, but I think I'm just overthinking it due to my lack of experience in journal editorial practices.
Edit/Clarification : This is a purely academic role. The editors are not paid for running the journal.
This is going to vary from journal to journal. Still, it's unlikely they're intentionally excluding you for nefarious reasons. More probably they're simply doing it because of inertia (it was always so, why change it?) or because they think you might not be interested (sociaca88 is probably busy and we're not paying her so we should try not disturb her, etc).
If you want to join the meetings, you can just ask. Be sure to mention &quot;which books to focus on&quot;, which is a great reason for you to attend the meetings. They probably won't decline as well. Only caveat is there will probably be broad swathes of the meetings which are not relevant to you and might not be of interest to you.