[R] list demographics

[Jim Lemon]

On 06/07/2011 06:20 AM, Sarah Goslee wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I got curious about something, so in proper scientific fashion I
> obtained some data and analyzed it.
>
> Question: what is the female participation in the R-help email list?
>
> Data: the most recent list postings, obtained from the website. I took
> my best shot at classifying the names given in the email header as
> male/female, but ended with a fair number of unknowns.
>
> This dataset had 2797 list messages, in 895 questions. 1501 messages
> were replies to one of those questions by someone not the original
> querent.
>
> Across all messages, 6.5% were from women, 77.8% from men, 15.7% unknown.
>
> For new questions, 11.7% were from women, 61.2% from men, 27.0% unknown.
>
> Among responses to other people's questions, 2.6% were from women,
> 92.3% from men, 5.1% unknown.
>
> Nine women answered other people's questions, but only two were what
> I'd consider active participants, offering more than two answers. (Not
> divided up by separate questions, so could be several replies in one
> discussion.)
>
> For men, 214 answered questions, and 90 offered more than two answers.
> (Not divided up by separate questions, so could be several replies in
> one discussion.)
>
> Six active participants were unclassifiable, so even if all of those
> were female, that would still be only eight women actively
> participating in the list in this sample.
>
> Is the list representative of statisticians? People who use R? People
> who participate in statistical software email lists? I have no idea,
> but I found it interesting that there is so little female
> participation in the list, even asking questions (where you'd expect
> to see students and new R users), and almost no female participation
> in answering questions.
>
> For those of you who teach, are your classes heavily skewed?
>
> Sarah
>
Hi Sarah,
This is consistent with other studies of gender-related behavior 
(finally a chance to use "gender" correctly!). Women are more likely to 
ask for help when faced with a problem, so the over-representation of 
female "askers" is to be expected. Men may be quicker to post an answer, 
and that tends to inhibit other "answerers", unless the answer is wrong 
or incomplete or you can one-up the previous answerer. In the dark ages 
when I was foolish enough to study statistics, there were ten males in 
my course. That was everybody. Not that all statisticians are male, 
Australia's own Annette Dobson is one of the best known statisticians 
Down Under, and I could make quite a list of notable female 
statisticians just from memory.
Jim