I hadn't realized this until just today, but I had assumed that all the other Ask Ubuntu users were male, but then I saw a username that appeared to contain a female first name and realized that women probably use this site too. Does anyone know the actual statistics of how many female users there are?
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FYI, Andrea isn't always necessarily a female name.– edwinkslCommented Jun 4, 2016 at 22:33
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okay sure, but the point is it called attention to my likely-erroneous assumption– TallChuckCommented Jun 4, 2016 at 22:37
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I am aware of the point being made, hence me prefacing what I said with "FYI".– edwinkslCommented Jun 4, 2016 at 22:39
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4Seriously asked: why do you care? I (hopefully) don't change what I say nor how I say it in view of gender.– guntbertCommented Jun 5, 2016 at 11:26
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1I am a naturally curious person– TallChuckCommented Jun 6, 2016 at 4:49
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3Speaking as a woman, I think that tracking gender is a valuable goal. In a context where maleness is assumed, those of us who don't identify as male often get misgendered. It ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy if woman/nonbinary folks feel excluded.– Zanna ModCommented Jan 25, 2017 at 11:15
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1@Zanna I agree, we should make an effort to include as many different demographics as we can because different people have different views and it can only benefit us to include as many as possible. I am not sure what "nonbinary" means but I would be all for a push to bring in more under represented groups and make them feel part of the community.– Mark KirbyCommented Jan 25, 2017 at 13:31
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@Zanna No I don't think it's good to put Gender into users minds, we are here to chew gum and pop up. Chit chat aside When I see an avatar I'm not interested in the gender but in the personality behind. Q&A FTW!!– userDepthCommented Jan 30, 2017 at 1:38
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Gender is in my mind when all users are referred to as "he" whether I want to think about it or not. The luxury of not thinking about gender is for those who can feel included.– Zanna ModCommented Jan 30, 2017 at 4:27
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2 Answers
I don't think any such statistics are available, and the closest you can get to an answer is the annual Stack Overflow Developer survey. Of course, the survey is voluntary, and the set of AU users may not have much in common with the set of respondents.
Quoting:
Men
92.8%
Women
5.8%
Other
0.5%
Prefer not to Disclose
1.0%
55,128 responses
Our survey results demonstrate a dramatic disparity in tech among men and women. In fact, we know women make up a more significant proportion of the developer workforce than this suggests. According to Quantcast, about 12% of Stack Overflow's readers are women. (We don't actively track gender internally.) We also know this survey underrepresents people in countries where developers have an increased likelihood of being women such as Asian countries like South Korea, India, and China.
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6Bear in mind people publicly identifiable as women receive considerably worse treatment compared to male and undefined profiles. It doesn't seem implausible that many women who identify as female in normal life would save themselves some hassle by hiding their gender online.– Oli ModCommented Jun 6, 2016 at 7:29
Stack Exchange sites use Quantcast, which collects demographic data (by redirecting some percentage of traffic to an anonymous beacon, such as Facebook's, which matches the visitor to the data that Facebook's beacon discloses about them.) Or at least used to collect, as a post by an SE employee ends with "we appreciate the ability to opt out of the beacon and plan on turning it off". In any case, Quantcast's demographic card for Ask Ubuntu has
- Male: index 191
- Female: index 13
indicating that a randomly chosen visitor to AU is 91% more likely to be male than a random Internet user (and 87% less likely to be female). Take the data with a generous helping of salt, but that's all we have.