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
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.) 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
Sarah Goslee <sarah.goslee at 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.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 >>-- Rainer M. Krug email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de PGP: 0x0F52F982 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 494 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-help/attachments/20141125/497e092c/attachment.bin>
On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 12:34 PM, 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.I plotted the gender of posters on r-help over time. The plot is here: https://twitter.com/scottkosty/status/449933971644633088 The code to reproduce that plot is here: https://github.com/scottkosty/genderAnalysis The R file there will call devtools::install_github to install a package from Github used for guessing the gender based on the first name (https://github.com/scottkosty/gender). Note also on that tweet that Gabriela de Queiroz posted it, who is the founder of R-ladies; and that David Smith showed interest in discussing the topic. So there is definitely demand for some data analysis and discussion on the topic.> 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.Thank you for that! Scott -- Scott Kostyshak Economics PhD Candidate Princeton University> (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.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 > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
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 > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.-- 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