Looking at the history of shortlisted and winning books for this prestigious popular science writing prize, I’m kinda shocked but not shocked how terrible the gender balance has been historically… only moderating slightly in the past few years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_Science_Book_Prize
For many years, the shortlists are all men.
The question is whether the gender balance of authors writing (or rather, being paid to write) good popular science books has suddenly improved – or has the nomination and shortlisting process improved?