(M)any women on the site?

[pears]

So I'm only aware of one other regular female on the site. Are we the only two? Is science (and this site) that male dominated?

 

Forgive me if I'm being nosy

[ydoaPs]

At least two staff members (Hypervalent Iodine and Mooeypoo) are female as well as a few other members that I know. Though, the ratio is off. I do like that you listed "other" as there is at least one trans member on the site.

[pears]

The other female I knew of was Hypervalent Iodine. I have seen posts from Mooeypoo in older threads but haven't seen her around recently. Are you still out there Mooey?

[swansont]

Is science (and this site) that male dominated?

 

 

Yes. There is a gender imbalance in science. With the possible exception of biology. Many will expound on the reasons, but I think that the discussions tend to focus on there being one cause, when in reality there are several. (Technically it's generally attributed one cause: sexism, but depending on the discussion, there is disagreement over what time period it manifests itself. Societal pressures when they are kids, social choices in high school, sexism in college, sexism in grad school, sexism toward faculty, and maybe more.)

[pears]

Interesting. In high school I've often thought there's a kind of critical mass thing at play. Once a subject becomes too gender dominated the other gender 'sees' subject X as a boys/girls subject or just doesn't want to be the odd one out in class.

[iNow]

Just out of curiosity, why does it matter? It shouldn't matter if I'm male, female, or a hippopotamus. What should matter is the content, evidence, and logical coherence of the posts I make. That's sort of the beauty of sites like this. It doesn't matter what your biological traits are. It doesn't matter where you were born, or what you believe, or who you know. It's egalitarian and we all have the same opportunity to make our points regardless of how we look or which plumbing we have.

[pears]

No of course it doesn't matter if someone is male/female/hippo (though I imagine a hippo might find it difficult to login/perform experiments with those big clumsy hands). But I was curious. I work in a very male-dominated environment and noticed that I'd only seen one other regular contributor with the female gender box ticked so i wondered if science was similarly male-dominated. It would seem a shame to me if women were as poorly represented in science as they are in computing. Similarly it seems a shame if they aren't as interested in science as men are (and so are under-represented in sites like this). This is not because I would prefer to have discussions with women or want to judge someone on their gender but because I would like to see women engaging with and enjoying science. I don't like to think of a gender as missing out.

[CharonY]

Well, time for a serious discussion. When this site started there were a lot of female members. In fact, you could not swing a pregnant dugong without hitting one. But then things happened. Bad things. Especially ydoaPs. The number of casualties were horrible. Then things became worse. Frogs fell from the skies, Comic Sans became a real thing, iPhones started to take calls and ydoaPs became moderator.

And there is no one to blame but us. And the others. And medication.

Edited October 8, 2013 by CharonY

[iNow]

Lol. ^Nice.

 

On another note, sites like this often degrade into pissing matches... Topics like evolution, climate change, relativity, vaccinations leading to autism... Sometimes it feels like no matter how well supported a position people keep arguing. I've found that men often seem to enjoy this type of sparring and quarreling more than women, so women naturally tend to self-select away from discussion boards like this.

[EdEarl]

Temple Grandin makes a case that people with autistic tendencies tend towards careers in science and engineering. Since there are 4:1 male:female autistic people, it may explain the preponderance of males in science and engineering.

 

I agree with iNow that discussions are (or at least should be) independent of gender, and that the relevant issues are logical. Nonetheless, I believe men and women sometimes have different logical perspectives, and that more women would improve the quality of discussions.

[Tridimity]

My sex chromosomes are XX. Make of that what you will.

[swansont]

I work in a very male-dominated environment and noticed that I'd only seen one other regular contributor with the female gender box ticked so i wondered if science was similarly male-dominated.

 

It may be that because of the gender imbalance that there are some women who don't declare their gender out of concern for how they might be treated. I've seen some example of un- or poorly-moderated sites (e.g. gaming sites) where the online behavior towards women is simply ghastly.

[CharonY]

My sex chromosomes are XX. Make of that what you will.

 

Hmm, I actually do not know whether I have been karyotyped...

[hypervalent_iodine]

No of course it doesn't matter if someone is male/female/hippo (though I imagine a hippo might find it difficult to login/perform experiments with those big clumsy hands). But I was curious. I work in a very male-dominated environment and noticed that I'd only seen one other regular contributor with the female gender box ticked so i wondered if science was similarly male-dominated. It would seem a shame to me if women were as poorly represented in science as they are in computing. Similarly it seems a shame if they aren't as interested in science as men are (and so are under-represented in sites like this). This is not because I would prefer to have discussions with women or want to judge someone on their gender but because I would like to see women engaging with and enjoying science. I don't like to think of a gender as missing out.

 

How do you know I'm not a female hippo? There's no box for hippo.

 

But seriously. My own personal experience is a bit left of the norm, since the school I was associated with had fairly equal representation of the genders. In fact, the head of school was and is a female, the PhD coordinator and the person running the undergrad labs were also both female and my lab was predominantly female. Going outside of the school, the story is a little different. At the place I work now, the two people who manage the labs are female (though the director of the institute I work at is male) and many of the people I work with are also female (the split is approximately 50:50). I think this is a very isolated situation, though. Going to conferences makes it very easy to see that at least at the professor level, males tend to be the majority.

[ydoaPs]

Well, time for a serious discussion. When this site started there were a lot of female members. In fact, you could not swing a pregnant dugong without hitting one. But then things happened. Bad things. Especially ydoaPs. The number of casualties were horrible. Then things became worse. Frogs fell from the skies, Comic Sans became a real thing, iPhones started to take calls and ydoaPs became moderator.

And there is no one to blame but us. And the others. And medication.

I thought we weren't supposed to talk about that after the incident with swansont.

[CharonY]

 

 

Going to conferences makes it very easy to see that at least at the professor level, males tend to be the majority.

 

That is actually quite an interesting point. In many biology programs at the undergrad level there is a female majority. Some groups are completely female even on the graduate level. However, there are still more male than female PIs. And I think you will see that almost everywhere higher positions have a lower f/m ratio.

There are numerous reasons for that and but one (in academia) is possibly that pregnancies can delay progression for women a little bit.

Some older (mostly but not exclusively male) faculty in conservative departments see taking a time-out to care for the child as a lack of dedication to science. And there are cases where female Profs are basically back at their desk a day or two after giving birth. This is a bit silly considering that one of the advantages of academia is that outside of teaching you have in theory more liberties than at other jobs (exempting ubiquitous self-exploitation). The good thing is that the mentality is changing in that regard and having a work/life balance is more and more accepted. I should not comment on that, however, as I am not really good at it, either.

 

Edit:

Just found an interesting article indicating that in the younger markets females are more commonly found in senior positions in companies (up to 51% in China, compared to 20% in the USA). Source

Edited October 8, 2013 by CharonY

[swansont]

I thought we weren't supposed to talk about that after the incident with swansont.

Ahem. Gag order!

[CaptainPanic]

That's sort of the beauty of sites like this. It doesn't matter what your biological traits are.

No, no, no! Even if I can only see your 12 point Arial, it would be better if you have boobs. Just my 2 cents.

 

 

On another note, sites like this often degrade into pissing matches... Topics like evolution, climate change, relativity, vaccinations leading to autism... Sometimes it feels like no matter how well supported a position people keep arguing. I've found that men often seem to enjoy this type of sparring and quarreling more than women, so women naturally tend to self-select away from discussion boards like this.

I may agree with that. I wonder if the ratio of men/women here says something about science in general, or merely about online science forums. It is one thing to be a scientist. It is something else altogether to enjoy anonymous online bickering about science.

[hypervalent_iodine]

I may agree with that. I wonder if the ratio of men/women here says something about science in general, or merely about online science forums. It is one thing to be a scientist. It is something else altogether to enjoy anonymous online bickering about science.

 

I would be inclined to go with the latter. From what I've noticed of other forums, science based or otherwise, and even threads on social media sites, any sort of substantive debate / bickering session seems to be dominated by males. I can't think of a logical reason for why this is, it just seems to be the trend based on my compilation of anecdotes (and if true, it's an interesting one at that).

 

That is actually quite an interesting point. In many biology programs at the undergrad level there is a female majority. Some groups are completely female even on the graduate level. However, there are still more male than female PIs. And I think you will see that almost everywhere higher positions have a lower f/m ratio.

There are numerous reasons for that and but one (in academia) is possibly that pregnancies can delay progression for women a little bit.

Some older (mostly but not exclusively male) faculty in conservative departments see taking a time-out to care for the child as a lack of dedication to science. And there are cases where female Profs are basically back at their desk a day or two after giving birth. This is a bit silly considering that one of the advantages of academia is that outside of teaching you have in theory more liberties than at other jobs (exempting ubiquitous self-exploitation). The good thing is that the mentality is changing in that regard and having a work/life balance is more and more accepted. I should not comment on that, however, as I am not really good at it, either.

 

Edit:

Just found an interesting article indicating that in the younger markets females are more commonly found in senior positions in companies (up to 51% in China, compared to 20% in the USA). Source

 

Pregnancy is definitely a large part of it, if not the largest. That paper was a good read, also; China is such an intriguing landscape.

[ajb]

There are women users here, but we don't hold that against them.

[Moontanman]

If I told you that you had a lovely body would you hold it against me? medication... definitely medication...

[iNow]

I would be inclined to go with the latter. From what I've noticed of other forums, science based or otherwise, and even threads on social media sites, any sort of substantive debate / bickering session seems to be dominated by males.

This is definitely more inline with my intended point. It's not just science forums, but online comments sections and forums in general, IMO. There are probably some cool studies out there exploring gender differences in online behaviors and likelihood to participate at sites like this.

[CharonY]

I think that has something to do with the fact that males are much better are prioritizing the important things. I mean, I know women that see something on the internet that is wrong and do not care. Something wrong! On the internet!!

[EdEarl]

I think that has something to do with the fact that males are much better are prioritizing the important things.

Men and women may think different things are important, but it is incorrect to think women do not prioritize important things.

[StringJunky]

Men and women may think different things are important, but it is incorrect to think women do not prioritize important things.

I think CharonY was being humorous.ie that the internet is NOT important.

 

I think these sort of discussions we have here is a relatively safe extension of play-fighting or sparring etc but at the cognitive level and, by and large, it possibly suits the male psyche more than females.

Edited October 10, 2013 by StringJunky