Thanks for the responses so far.
> The gender ratio in R should reflect the gender ratio of the potential
> users, as this is the pool the R users / developers are coming from.
I agree with this, but then again I don't think R really has 0% female
users/developers as the R member list suggests. I'd rather expect to see
10-50% women (my quick guess of gender balance in STEM areas, depending
on where on the ladder and in which country one samples). Perhaps the R
community should be assessing if there's some additional bias applied
during the selection of supporting or ordinary members?
Cheers,
Maarten
On 25/11/14 09:15, Rainer M Krug wrote:
Sarah Goslee <sarah.gos...@gmail.com> writes:
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.
Apart from that, your input is very valuable and your answers very
hands-on helpful - and this is why I am glad that you are on the list -
and not because you are female.
Looking at R developers / CRAN package developers / list posts gender ratios
might be
interesting, but I don't think it tells you anything: If there is a
skewed ratio in any of these, the question is if this is the gender
ratio in the user base and, more importantly, in the pool of potential
users.
I have no idea about the gender ratios in potential users, but I would
guess that some disciplines already have a skewed gender ratio, which is
then reflected in R.
The gender ratio in R should reflect the gender ratio of the potential
users, as this is the pool the R users / developers are coming from.
As long as nobody is excluded because of their gender, background, hair
or eye color, OS usage, or whatever ridiculous excuse one could find, I
think R will thrive.
Don't get me wring - nothing against promoting R to new user groups.
But anyway - interesting question.
I was teaching True Basic for several years, and I definitely did not
see a gender bias in their programming abilities - the differences was
in many cases that males thought they could do it, and females thought
they could not do it because it involves maths... But I was able to
prove quite a few wrong.
Cheers,
Rainer
(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.)
Sarah
On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 10:10 AM, Maarten Blaauw
<maarten.bla...@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
--
| Dr. Maarten Blaauw
| Lecturer in Chronology
|
| School of Geography, Archaeology & Palaeoecology
| Queen's University Belfast, UK
|
| www http://www.chrono.qub.ac.uk/blaauw
| tel +44 (0)28 9097 3895
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