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Poll: Male or female or other

105 points| codegeek | 13 years ago | reply

2 years since last poll. Lets see where we are at now? Previous polls:

https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22Poll%3A+Male%22

EDIT: Added a 3rd new option "Other" on public demand.

207 comments

order
[+] jurassic|13 years ago|reply
Female here and longtime lurker before registering somewhat recently. The only time I feel very cognizant of the gender imbalance is in comments of articles about the lack of women in tech. Some amount of introspection on how to be welcoming to everyone is good, but the constant drumbeat of articles on the "woman question" definitely increases my feelings of "otherness". These pieces and the comments that follow are often addressed toward men as if there are no women present.
[+] galvanist|13 years ago|reply
I think that some ongoing discussion of the STEM gender gap and other difficult group introspection is useful and important and I hope we can navigate the line between being self-aware and beating a field of dead horses.

Anyway my interest in this now annual survey (and the short-lived sexual orientation survey and the hypothetical race survey) is more self-serving and not so much about how to solve a problem. I'm interested in a profile on HN, as a community, to help me decide how much attention to pay / weight to give to elements of certain discussions here. If we're just a straight white dude monoculture then I want to factor that into my thinking. Come to think of it, I'd be interested to learn about the overall gender / age / ethnicity / sexual orientation / religion / country of origin demographics of other groups that I sometimes pay attention to (like Interesting People) especially when the community has a voting role in discussion moderation (like HN or reddit).

[+] lutusp|13 years ago|reply
> These pieces and the comments that follow are often addressed toward men as if there are no women present.

Or perhaps they're comments that the writer believes are gender-neutral, so the gender of the reader isn't an issue? This is obviously not always true, but it might be in some cases that are misread as being male comments directed toward other men.

> Some amount of introspection on how to be welcoming to everyone is good, but the constant drumbeat of articles on the "woman question" definitely increases my feelings of "otherness".

The "woman question" wording isn't really the most common phrasing, and it certainly sounds exclusionary.

In all such exchanges, there are some encouraging facts:

1. Mathematics doesn't care about your gender.

2. Code doesn't care about your gender.

3. A properly run code project doesn't care about your gender, only whether you can code.

Expressed another way, the basics of code development are gender-neutral, and where people are involved, a certain amount of direct experience will persuade most people that your results are worth supporting.

As to being excluded in a more social sense, the best way to defeat that is not to care about it. It's basic human psychology that not caring about acceptance will make the other group members wonder why you don't care, which naturally enough and quickly makes you an insider.

[+] kintamanimatt|13 years ago|reply
I didn't realize how much of a sausage fest this site really is. It's amazing how much intellectual talent we're missing out on because it seems tech scares away women.

I'd actually be curious to see what kind of sexual orientation distribution there is also. I wonder if it'd fall in line with the general population.

Created: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5520651

(Edit: Not sure why this poll has been killed. It was created as a serious poll to satisfy my curiosity, not as backlash! It was actually yielding some really interesting information, in particular the higher proportion of non-straight people than is normal in the general population.)

(Edit again: now been unbanned!)

[+] simonsarris|13 years ago|reply
I think its important to remember that "tech" doesn't scare away women per se. People scare away women.

And I doubt its a strict sexism problem, either. My engineer friends are the most negative group of friends I have. By miles.

Criticism is great, but the negative attitudes I see among them (and here, and Reddit) upset the hell out of me, and I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't as-big of a problem.

[+] Tichy|13 years ago|reply
What if I told you that I find the term sausage fest offensive and it makes me feel unwelcome in this community?
[+] lutusp|13 years ago|reply
> It's amazing how much intellectual talent we're missing out on because it seems tech scares away women.

I don't think "scares away" is accurate. There are reasons women don't get into tech, but I don't think being scared is high on the list. I also think this will change over time -- I think social perceptions are changing and technical and scientific occupations are gradually being seen less as a male approach to processing reality and more gender-neutral.

For all our sakes, I hope this is true.

[+] dominicmauro|13 years ago|reply
With a ratio of nearly 20:1, I don't even know that you can say "it seems" that women are scared away anymore.
[+] stratosvoukel|13 years ago|reply
I cant understand why the poll was taken down! Maybe we can make another simpler one? Without gender? It may be a little oversimplifying but it would be more viable regarding the platform. The starting options could be: Gay (Gay male/ Lesbian), Straight, Bisexual, Asexual, Queer, Pansexual . ?
[+] VLM|13 years ago|reply
Maybe they're too smart to go into tech. Said (only half tongue in cheek) by a father of a smart daughter with no interest (so far) in tech. I don't think its solely parenting as my son is nuts for tech. And its not the lack of role model as I met the wife when she was in a Z80 assembly programming class, back when that tech was only somewhat obsolescent. Several years remain of copying mommy in all other ways, this is not a teen rebellion thing.
[+] redidas|13 years ago|reply
How much of it is women being scared away versus women not having an interest or not considering it?

I'm not disagreeing that some women are scared away, but I can't fully expect that its the only reason for this gender imbalance.

As a guy, I can't really answer that. It'd take asking women outside of tech as to why they never considered it... Not just asking women in tech what they dislike about the gender imbalance in tech.

[+] Dewie|13 years ago|reply
> It's amazing how much intellectual talent we're missing out on because it seems tech scares away women.

The same can be said about how stereotypes, personality types and culture scares away certain races, certain subcultures, certain age groups etc.

It's not as simple as "scares away half the population"; it might be so much as "scares away 95% of the population", of which there is an unknown percentage that would not be scared if some small part of any part of how tech looks to the outside changed.

And then there's a question of how many of those are really scared off.

[+] TazeTSchnitzel|13 years ago|reply
This makes me wonder how many females here are cisgender. Myself, I'm transgender. I reckon there's probably a far higher proportion than average, since some transwomen have opposite-gendered childhoods, and hence were in an environment where being in tech would be acceptable, perhaps.

I'm not saying it's a problem if there are a lot of trans women here, it's just it would be highlighting a problem if there aren't a lot of cis women here in comparison, because that would mean tech was scaring women away and the only ones who were here are the ones who had been unfortunate enough to have had male childhoods.

(I'm worried this will come off as horribly bigoted or something, I don't know, I hope people can see what I'm getting at)

[+] bird_in_hand|13 years ago|reply
I've been to a conference for undergraduate GSMs in tech, and while I don't have any statistics, it felt like there were almost as many transwomen/genderqueer presenting as female as there were women (and still many more men and transmen). I think it's super awesome that tech is as welcoming to trans people as it is and has been from other people's stories that I've heard. I'm just worried that it isn't as sensitive to bi-cis-women as trans folks and gays or lesbians.
[+] jcromartie|13 years ago|reply
When a woman gives a deep technical talk on some comp sci topic, I pretty much assume she's trans. I'm not sure why, but it's been pretty true so far.
[+] Mz|13 years ago|reply
I am a cis female, but I am not sure if you would view me as "in tech". I run some websites. I have a certificate in GIS. I have never managed to get a job in GIS (long, irrelevent story).

I think it isn't "tech" that's the problem. I think it is "the old boys club" atmosphere, which can be changed.

Thanks for chiming in.

[+] FUlibs|13 years ago|reply
So you're a guy who likes dressing up like a girl. Ok, acceptable. Now stop lying and calling yourself a girl. You're not.

Edit: Fuck you downvoters. Yes, I know it's socially unacceptable to question someone's "identity". I don't care. That identity is a lie. He's a woman because he likes women's clothing just like I'm black because I love me some fried chicken.

[+] beyondavatars|13 years ago|reply
I'd rather be considered a person in engineering rather than a woman in engineering, but I'm still interested in the stats.
[+] Mz|13 years ago|reply
And I am still interested in hearing from you if you are female. (Edit) Previous (closed) thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5074151

I guess you can post here or shoot me an email (my gmail starts with talithamichele).

Thanks.

[+] jcromartie|13 years ago|reply
I try to treat everybody on tech sites as if I don't know their gender, but I certainly assume that they are male.
[+] TazeTSchnitzel|13 years ago|reply
It's ingrained into my subconscious. I automatically refer to people on IRC networks and such with male pronouns, without thinking about it.

This is despite being female and sometimes frequenting majority-female channels.

[+] camus|13 years ago|reply
me too . is it a bad thing ? i dont know , would you assume i'm black ? you'd have no way to guess i am.
[+] haimez|13 years ago|reply
Obligatory comment about response bias. Glad we've gotten that out of the way.
[+] TazeTSchnitzel|13 years ago|reply
195:13 (now 195:14) at the time of writing.

I can't say I'm surprised, but that's more than 13x. I didn't know it was that bad.

[+] mdisraeli|13 years ago|reply
Female here, although I don't often comment. Used to place a few choice comments as FeministHacker [1], until a desk move at the office cost me access to the account. Oh well, incentive to get blogging more!

I've a lot of people who are very much dear to me who identify as non-binary, so I was thrilled to see the great support for the other option. As predictable for trans/cis discussions, a real jerk emerged from the woodwork, but the general support is great too!

Regarding the general topic of LGBT+ people (now that the other poll has been killed), if you're a queer hacker in the UK, feel free to get in touch!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=FeministHacker

[+] tokenadult|13 years ago|reply
By the way, we will have no idea what the actual ratio is here on Hacker News even after many more poll responses are recorded. (Another comment already in the thread points out that some respondents are voting more than once.) That's the defect of voluntary response polls. See

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5482013

for a recent posting of a FAQ on the subject. I have no doubt that there are more male than female participants here, and no idea what the actual ratio is.

(Most online communities I participate in, including my circle of Facebook friends, have a strong female majority. That's because many of those online communities pertain to education policy, and mothers care more about that issue than fathers, on average, at least as to online participation in discussion of policy.)

[+] joshguthrie|13 years ago|reply
Results are overwhelming, a 12:1 ratio for males:females and a 40:1 ratio for male:other.

At first, I was afraid to answer this poll truthfully because of the recent "gender issues" our scene has faced. But reading through the comments...yes, we (as always) dwelved into the "gender stuff" again but all involved parties managed to have a decent and civilized discussion.

Which made me realize: what our community really needs to improve isn't "red cards", "women-only events", "enforced talks parity" or any other stuff that's just dividing us further. What our community needs is civilized discussion.

[+] pmelendez|13 years ago|reply
Honest question: What is exactly the Other option? Don't trans-men and trans-women identify their selves as Male or Female anyway?
[+] lambada|13 years ago|reply
Gender is not binary. Myself, I'm neither male nor female in terms of my identity. To simplify it a bit, When I think of myself in my head I don't think of myself as being "a male" or "a female".
[+] djcapelis|13 years ago|reply
Genderqueer and other folks who identify outside the binary often prefer an other option. Trans people who identify as either a woman or man usually answer according to how they identify.
[+] bird_in_hand|13 years ago|reply
There are people who identify as genderqueer, who don't fit into any gender identity, and people who identify as a gender, who don't have a gender identity.
[+] rpncreator|13 years ago|reply
This assumes the presence of gender binary. This assumes a person fits into one of those identities, which is not always the case.
[+] codegeek|13 years ago|reply
I thought about adding a 3rd option but don't want to start a controversial post/poll.

EDIT: Added it on public demand.

[+] philipp-de|13 years ago|reply
the last 2 polls also had only 2 options. so for comparisons sake it will be better to leave it at that, i think.
[+] Dewie|13 years ago|reply
The wording hints more at a biological sex binary.
[+] FUlibs|13 years ago|reply
"Identities"? Go fuck yourself. You don't "identify as" male or female. You ARE male or female, because you have a cock or a vag. Simple as that. Why do liberals like shit like this?
[+] p6v53as|13 years ago|reply
Seems like gender ratio is not changing over time. But, to my surprise, there are actually more females than I expected.
[+] kation|13 years ago|reply
my vote isn't counting or changing the number at all, but it would be a +1 to female.
[+] booop|13 years ago|reply
Wow, 700 votes in just 40 minutes. Looks like this is HN's favorite topic.