Sugimoto and Larivière's unique scientometric approach gained recognition within medicine when they coauthored a bibliometric analysis on gender and authorship in The Lancet's 2019 theme issue on advancing women in science, medicine, and global health. An acknowledged limitation is the use of one aspect of social identity, gender, in the binary assignment available in current classification systems and they were unable in most cases to include race or ethnicity indicators except where national census data allowed. The simple recognition of the editorial process being a social one—involving judgement, priority setting, negotiation, inevitable bias, and all the other aspects that define human behaviour—gives rise to seeing how decisions about what to publish and which messages to showcase are the product of a social process in which diverse sets of individuals applying high standards of editorial quality and scientific excellence nevertheless deploy agency, make choices, and exercise privilege. Within these missions, it is impossible to reject the calls for an inclusive science and to ignore the evidence and analysis that Sugimoto and Larivière provide, which show how incompatible the labour and reward systems of organised science are with the progressive values and principles we seek.