Sexism in Economics Textbooks
Preeti Varathan /
Quartz
In a study of eight leading introductory economics textbooks, Betty Stevenson and Hanna Zlotnick of the University of Michigan found a gender mix that favors men even more than reality does. The duo tallied 2,858 people—economists, business leaders, policy makers, celebrities, and fictional characters—across the eight books, categorizing the gender, role, and setting of each. They found that just 18% of people in the textbooks were female, far lower than the 57% of college students who are, and still lower than the share of women (51%) in the US.