An Index of Her Own: An Investigation of the Proportion of Women Indexed in Evolutionary Psychology Textbooks

A gender bias that disadvantages women is ubiquitous in academia. It has been demonstrated across a broad range of domains, including grant awards and peer review. Previous research has also found that this bias is reflected in textbooks. Here we evaluated seven books on evolutionary psychology, five of which were edited volumes. We assessed whether (1) women were less likely to be indexed than men and (2) women were less likely to be a contributor to edited volumes than men. In addition, we examined which women were featured in more than one book. Using descriptive statistics and meta-analytical techniques, we found that around 1 in 4 entries in the book indexes were women, and around 4 in 10 contributors to edited volumes were women. We discuss the potential mechanisms that could produce these findings. Finally, we offer suggestions on how the inclusion of women in citations could be improved.