[R] Gender balance in R

[Hatcher, Catherine]

I just saw this comment and I agree with Peter. I have occasion to ask
questions and get help on the R forum but I am not a programmer and use
programs as I need them and I suppose I must comment more often. :)

On 11/25/14, 11:28 AM, "peter dalgaard" <pdalgd at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>On 24 Nov 2014, at 18:34 , Sarah Goslee <sarah.goslee at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I took a look at apparent gender among list participants a few years
>>ago:
>> https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/2011-June/280272.html
>> 
>> Same general thing: very few regular participants on the list were
>> women. I don't see any sign that that has changed in the last three
>> years. The bar to participation in the R-help list is much, much lower
>> than that to become a developer.
>> 
>> It would be interesting to look at the stats for CRAN packages as well.
>> 
>> The very low percentage of regular female participants is one of the
>> things that keeps me active on this list: to demonstrate that it's not
>> only men who use R and participate in the community.
>> 
>> (If you decide to do the stats for 2014, be aware that I've been out
>> on medical leave for the past two months, so the numbers are even
>> lower than usual.)
>
>
>...and very welcome back!!! (I did notice the chronicles on your blog).
>
>Re. the gender issue, it is certainly not that women aren't welcome, it's
>more that they aren't there. There are various potential reasons that
>come to mind, but it easily ends up in speculation and stereotyping.
>
>It is a bit of an embarrasment and people are discussing what to do about
>it, but some of the countermeasures have a tendency to backfire, so we
>need to be a little careful.
>
>- Peter D.
>
>
>> 
>> Sarah
>> 
>> On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 10:10 AM, Maarten Blaauw
>> <maarten.blaauw at qub.ac.uk> wrote:
>>> Hi there,
>>> 
>>> I can't help to notice that the gender balance among R developers and
>>> ordinary members is extremely skewed (as it is with open source
>>>software in
>>> general).
>>> 
>>> Have a look at http://www.r-project.org/foundation/memberlist.html -
>>>at most
>>> a handful of women are listed among the 'supporting members', and none
>>>at
>>> all among the 29 'ordinary members'.
>>> 
>>> On the other hand I personally know many happy R users of both genders.
>>> 
>>> My questions are thus: Should R developers (and users) be worried that
>>>the
>>> 'other half' is excluded? If so, how could female R users/developers be
>>> persuaded to become more visible (e.g. added as supporting or ordinary
>>> members)?
>>> 
>>> Thanks,
>>> 
>>> Maarten
>>> 
>> -- 
>> Sarah Goslee
>> http://www.functionaldiversity.org
>> 
>> ______________________________________________
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>
>-- 
>Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
>Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
>Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
>Phone: (+45)38153501
>Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
>
>______________________________________________
>R-help at r-project.org mailing list
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>and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.