[Foundation-l] Do we even know if there is a Gender Gap

[Andrew Gray]

On 21 February 2011 17:49, James Heilman <jmh649 at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have heard a great deal lately about a "gender gap". Is there really a
> gender gap? With 93% of editor not marking there gender known per
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-02-14/News_and_notes
> <http://ref>might it just be that female editors prefer to keep there gender
> unknown which seems like an equally valid explanation of the results.

It's fair to say that any figures we get are rendered pretty dubious
by the privacy/nondisclosure issue, and it's certainly true to say
that there are going to be observable and predictable biases as a
result, but I don't think this effect is going to be strong enough to
entirely explain away the figures.

The various calculations and surveys on the demographics of the
editing community are probably wildly inaccurate in many details, but
with the figure widely quoted of about 10-15% of editors being female
... well, most people seem to have nodded and said "yes, that seems
about right". It's not widely dissimilar to earlier estimates, and it
fits with a lot of anecdotal observations of (and from!) the community
over time.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk