[Origami] Research on gender differences in origami

[Joseph Wu]

I apologize for sarcastically nitpicking on John’s final point and for 
ignoring the first part of his message.

His insights on the experiences of OPF were interesting and useful.
And looking at some of the other responses, it seems that there is 
actually some useful data out there that could be analyzed to provide 
some answers to the original question. I wonder if anyone would be 
willing to take up that task.
Moving forward, it should be relatively easy to collect current data. 
All that would be required would be to set up an online questionnaire 
and then promoting it widely across all the various origami 
organizations. Granted, that would skew the data towards people with 
internet access, but it would probably be able to generate more data 
than previously gathered.

--
Joseph Wu, Origami Artist (via iPhone)
e: josep...@origami.as
w: http://www.origami.as
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facebook: http://www.facebook.com/joseph.wu.origami


On Aug 12, 2022, at 12:30, jscu...@ohiopaperfolders.com wrote:

On the question of gender (use any definition of gender here) differences in 
origami, we at Ohio Paper Folders have a somewhat unique experience in this, as 
we have taught literally tens of thousands of random people in hospitals, 
libraries, and especially at the Ohio Asian Festival, Columbus Arts festival 
and several similar events.

We pay to have a tent there and we teach the public beginner models at no 
charge.

We have seen essentially NO bias of gender, age, race, education level, income 
class, native born vs immigrant...Obviously downtown Columbus arts festival 
trends towards higher income people, but pretty broad racially.  Asian festival 
trends towards higher non-white percentage (both because of the type of 
festival and the fact that the venue borders a neighborhood that is very high 
percentage African American).  But...both no real gender bias.

And at the CenterFold origami convention based solely on the names of attendees this year 
was 52% "female".  2019 was 54%.  Some of those are non-binary, trans etc.  
Just going by eyeballing the list of names, so hardly scientific...but should be close 
enough for jazz.

John Scully

Re: [Origami] Research on gender differences in origami

[jscully]

I do actually know these people.  This years convention was one week ago.  
Let's put this one to bed.  I could say that rain is wet and you would object.

Joseph Wu said:

I'm impressed you could tell so much from a list of names.

Re: [Origami] Research on gender differences in origami

[Papirfoldning.dk]

> On 13 Aug 2022, at 18.03, Alex Matthews via Origami
> The link for it is: 
> https://origamiusa.org/news/update-2-origamiusa-survey-results-2015-2016. 
> There is a wealth of information there that may help you in your research.
That is an amazing amount of data.

The male/female distribution says 47.2 % : 52.2 % which is very close to the an 
even distribution, given that with the age distribution these percentages are 
close to the general distribution (eye-balling the numbers at 
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/)

/Hans

Re: [Origami] Research on gender differences in origami

[Anne LaVin via Origami]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 4:20 PM Joseph Wu  wrote:

> On 2022-08-12 10:46, jscu...@ohiopaperfolders.com wrote:
> > And at the CenterFold origami convention based solely on the names of
> attendees this year was 52% "female".  2019 was 54%.  Some of those are
> non-binary, trans etc.  Just going by eyeballing the list of names
>
> I'm impressed you could tell so much from a list of names.
>

As my mom used to say to us on road trips: "Don't make me pull over, you
two."

Since of course one cannot accurately deduce someone's gender from their
name, I interpreted this as meaning that as convention organizer, from
personal interactions, John knows that the numbers are not 100% accurate,
but are just rough ballpark figures.

 ... and moved on, keeping the discussion about *origami*. Which is what I
request we do, here.

Anne

Re: [Origami] Research on gender differences in origami

[Alex Matthews via Origami]

Hello Elina,

OrigamiUSA conducted a survey back in 2015 of over 1,700 individuals that 
looked at various trends in origami and its relation to OrigamiUSA, and part of 
that study looked at differences between gender, ethnicity, location, level of 
education, categories of models folded, and much more. The link for it is: 
https://origamiusa.org/news/update-2-origamiusa-survey-results-2015-2016 
. 
There is a wealth of information there that may help you in your research.

Best,
Alex



> On Aug 10, 2022, at 6:37 AM, Elina Gor via Origami 
>  wrote:
> 
> Hello origami fellows,
> I'm looking for published articles about gender differences in origami, if 
> there are any.
> Other subjects of interest are age differences, education and work fields 
> differences.
> 
> Thank you,
> Elina Gor
> 
> 
> 
> 
>   
> 
>  Sender notified by 
> Mailtrack 
> 
>  08/10/22, 01:31:46 PM   
> 

Re: [Origami] Research on gender differences in origami

[Anne LaVin via Origami]

On Fri, Aug 12, 2022 at 9:43 AM Elina Gor via Origami <
origami@lists.digitalorigami.com> wrote:

> Thank you everyone who answered my request.
> I tried different academic databases like Google scholar, Proquest etc.
> But I didn't find what I was looking for. That's why I used this platform
> to find the answers.
> Thanks again to all of you who replied to me and shared their thoughts and
> experience.
> I would be happy to accept more of this.
>

I wonder if there's enough data in, say, the Origami Database (
https://oriwiki.com/) to pull out information along the lines of "how many
pieces of what type have been designed by folks who identify as a
particular gender per year?" This would only capture things
designed-and-published, but still could be could be an interesting thing to
chart over time.

Though there is no gender information in the database (at the moment) it's
not such a large community that that would be impossible to gather; and
information about where something is published and the date of the
publication is in there, I believe, or at least obtainable. Perhaps the
database maintainers could be convinced to do some interesting queries on
the existing data?

Much harder to capture is if there's any difference in *interest in folding
particular styles/types/etc. of origami* tied to any particular genders.
Maybe some kind of online survey could yield some interesting numbers?

And as a list admin I'll add a mild plea to everyone to recall that the
purpose of this list is to discuss origami, and that arguments about
gender, per se, are not appropriate here. Polite corrections or additions
to someone's content are fine, but let's please give everyone the benefit
of doubt and not assume anyone is trying to be insulting or non-inclusive.
This is an area of discourse where language and norms are rapidly evolving.
Be careful in what you say, and lenient in what you accept.

Anne