Women are underrepresented in STEM, but the extent of this underrepresentation varies among STEM fields. Analyzing gender demographics of publications within a field is an effective means of quantifying representation because of the importance of publications to scientists’ careers and to the scientific community. We created a data set consisting of all publications accessed with a database search on each taxonomic order of herpetofauna as well as squamate suborders 2010-2019 and another data set with all publications on lizards and snakes 1970-2019 and used these data sets to estimate the genders of authors. During the past decade, our estimates show that male authors outnumbered female authors 2.24:1; however, female authorship increased steadily. Additionally, men also outnumbered women as first authors (1.95:1), last authors (3.30:1), and sole authors (5.29:1). Finally, qualitative analysis of authorship estimates in studies on lizards and snakes over the past 50 years show that female authors represented about 10–15% of authors from 1970 to 2000, followed by a rapid rise in female authorship over the past 20 years to current rates of >30% female authorship. Our data suggest that the gender gap in herpetology, which has traditionally appeared to be a male-dominated field, is slowly narrowing.