The same old story — paper rejected with 3 (AC) 1-5-4 reviewers It happens often; it is part of the delight of interdisciplinary peer review, and I am too old to worry about it.
Reviewer 1 provides a mark of 1 based on the following:
"the paper lacks engagement with a robust, existing, critical body of literature related to X and Y"
The first author who was referred to as key missing reference publishes in diverse, yet relevant fields and according to google scholar has less than 400 citations, h index and I index of 10. The reviewer then list a number of papers which I will gladly read in the future (thank you reviewer 1). None of these sources were published in the Interdisciplinary field of the conference, I submitted to, but which represented often unconnected voices in distinct fields. Their impact varied from less than a dozen citations to around 400 max.
So dear reviewer 1, this is NOT a ROBUST body of existing literature; this is a very interesting review you have been working on, but I cannot find published. From a quick check, you have identified the possibility for the emergence of a research niche which I will gladly engage with and try to shape. You definitely served me better than a google scholar search which was very unlikely to return these results in pole positions, or the articles of the conference I had submitted to, which BTW served as the ground of the paper. The X and Y angle you are disputing relates to a field which the authors of this paper have substantially published on and not only at this specific conference.
The critical niche you have identified can enrich mainstream perspective, but cannot just kill it as inadeguate. By offering it as a possible alternative you may reinforce your vision
The second issue was even more complicated. Reviewer 1 stated
"Please consider constructing a more inclusion definition of gender - female, male,
or androgynous is no longer the scope or frame of gender identity and expression.
Trans, non-binary, gender-nonconforming etc. should be included."
Ok, thank you! We recognise the need for an inclusive conceptualisation of gender in the introduction, but what to do? Most related works address the binary definition and our research participants also complied to it. We did not enforce the mainstream reading, but we rather noticed and elaborated on the strong persistence of gender-binary stereotypes in children hoping to move it towards a more inclusive perspective. The paper may have been a nice allied to reinforce this vision.