This list https://math.stackexchange.com/users?tab=reputation&filter=all contains mostly male names. Women seem to be relatively invisible here on math.SE. Is there any particular reason behind less participation of women on our site using their real names?
Is this not a cause for concern?
Izabella Laba, a female mathematician, has written two posts about why she does not participate on MathOverflow that you might find interesting: the first, and the second.
I am an undergraduate in Biology and Math, and also a woman. I find this question particularly interesting because my choice to use Christian over Christianne while filling out the forms was a knee-jerk reaction and I gave it minimal thought. For me, it was the obvious choice. And, to be honest, laziness was the motivating factor.
In my experience in a myriad of different types of online communities, being a female means that you have to deal with additional issues. Regardless of whether it is offensive or not, being female becomes a thing. You are no longer a player you are a female player, or you are no longer a commentator, you are a female commentator. Note here that no man felt the need to specify that they were a man when commenting, but of course its necessary for me to identify myself as a female. Given that the topic here is partially that women may use male names, one could reasonably think that a commentator (with a gender neutral or male name) was a woman or man but (I think its fair to generalize) we all assume they are men unless stated. My choice was less to become a male but more to choose the gender neutral option.
I'm not sensitive enough to care what a random person on the internet thinks of me, so gender slurs don't particularly bother me more than other inane comments. For me, its simply tedious to have to deal with the extra baggage that comes along with being a woman on the internet - be it against women, neutral, or positive encouragement. There is simply more extraneous discussion when you're a woman. Why would I want to talk about the fact that I'm a woman (or that apparently I should make you a sandwich) when discussing politics?
I realize that I'm not addressing the source issue. Why I'm so accustomed to such behaviour that it becomes a tedious matter rather than one to be battled is, of course, a very big issue. Being the lazy person that I apparently am, I have no wish to delve into it here.
So, if it can be assumed that I am not the only person to feel this way, the absence of female names can be partially attributed to an acclimation of women to internet culture. Anyone who surfs the internet knows what buttons spark internet debate (think gender issues, islam, gender issues, and did I mention gender issues?) and may develop tactics to avoid it. I have no more delusions about convincing sexist individuals (on the internet) to respect women than I do about convincing Christian Fundamentalists that dinosaurs and man did not coexist. (Note that I making no claims to whether or not such activity takes place here, just that its a trend over the entire internet)
I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this. Are there women who feel this way? Are you also part of the internet generation? Men, are you surprised to hear this perhaps jaded reaction? Additionally, don't men often use pseudonyms here? I'm assuming your question was why a woman would be more likely than a man to use one.
I am a girl and I do not use my name because of some embarrassing situation on chat, confronting with some boys (I think I should say one boy) whose behavior is completely disrespectful with female users. Saying including obscene things. If there were more respect, maybe I , or others, would use their names. How there's no control over people's education, I prefer to stay like that.
I could think of several reasons for this:
So I don't think there is any cause for concern. There may be more women here than what can be read from public profiles, usernames and such, but they prefer anonymity for reasons of their personal safety or whatever. This site may not have creepy nerdy dudes looking for hot math chicks, but let's leave the decision to disclose one's identity to each and every member. They have their reasons.
I am a woman and I downvote. (Bumper sticker, anyone?)
My name, profile, and icon reveal my identity clearly. I am proud to be a smart, educated woman, (or a woman who is educated and smart) and have never felt the need to hide my gender. The fact that there are boys of any age who harass women for educating themselves in mathematics just makes me happier to be a woman.
If you want more women to use this forum, then get more girls and women to study mathematics. If you are a teacher, this is your job, and as a collective whole, you are still not doing it well enough. I am interested in math for one reason: I had a continuous string of excellent teachers.
I just noticed something which distresses me, regarding participation by women on Math StackExchange, and perception of us and our contributions here. Please peruse the text of the question. It inquires specifically about Math StackExchange, also known as math.SE. I will highlight the portion that makes that obvious:
In response to the question, answers were provided by three female users. They were courteous, candid and relevant. Yet this answer which consisted of three brief bullets points, one of which was "men like to show off, women don't" received more up votes than two of the three womens' answers.
Women DO like to show off! Does the respondent and 20 others believe that female mathematics enthusiasts, academicians, researchers and credentialed working professionals in the field are shy and timid (actively avoiding encomium from peers, and all the associated benefits), whereas MALE mathematicians are bold, boisterous, competitive, proud, thus enjoy public display of prowess and plumage?
Although I may seem irate with the person who answered, I am not. It is the validity accorded to his answer by so many others that I find so sad.
I haven't even addressed my primary concern. Look whose answer received the most up votes, and was accepted as the best by the original poster? The answer was written by a man but more pertinent is the fact that that answer is NOT correct! This is why it is a poor answer and should not have been up voted, and selected (unless women are not especially credible or welcomed on Math SE):
Why do women participate LESS on our site, using their real names?
Good answers should be written by, or about, Math SE users. For this particular question, female Math SE user answers would be more relevant. There were three answers written by female Math SE users, about the Math SE website.
There were also many answers written by male Math SE users, about female Math SE users of the Math SE website. Most were thoughtful, detailed and relevant. They have equal or greater merit than the accepted, most up voted answer, I believe.
I am being excessively precise in order to make a point. In fact, the two posts in the most up voted, selected answer were meaningful and informative. I am grateful to the individual who posted that answer for sharing them with us. I remain distressed that Math SE users are not more objective in their assessments, including assessment of each other (and self-worth, implicitly). "Hero worship" is not conducive to increased knowledge and understanding. That isn't a criticism of QiaoChu Yuan. He didn't up vote himself 31 times and select his answer as best. Others did.
math.SE, and our site, not Math Overflow, which is a different, not-SE website (one with highly sophisticated users e.g. full tenured professors of mathematics).
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Commented
May 9, 2013 at 1:55
I am female! I am Ellie. I like babirussa very much. That is the image I use for my avatar here, and elsewhere on line. Thus I am Feral Oink. I thought that "Feral Oink" was obviously female, as pigs are thought of in popular culture as pink. Apparently this is not true. For example, on English Language & Usage SE, many think I am an adolescent boy. I find it amusing to be praised for being a "sharp young fellow". (I was once referred to as a "nosy, pseudonymous porcine" on another SE site, which I didn't care for, but that isn't gender-specific.)
When I was in college, my mathematics classes, particularly the more advanced classes, were predominantly female. I was graduated from Swarthmore College. In contrast, all classes based on mathematics applications, whether physics or electrical engineering, had more men than women. This became further pronouced in engineering graduate school Oddly, male:female ratios are becoming less balanced (more men, fewer women) rather than more balanced recently. Well, that's true in the U.S.A., possibly not elsewhere.
While on SE sites, I like the feeling of generic participation that accompanies a pseudonym. Unfortunately, I suspect it also diminishes my credibility. I am not especially active on this SE, compared to others. I don't know of any other women who are active on Math SE. I think a few people may be female, but it can be difficult to tell, due to language differences. Thus, there may be more females here than you, or I, realize! As a native English language speaker, with some French and rusty Mandarin Chinese, it isn't easy for me discern whether names are male or female.
Finally, as someone else observed, there should be more participation by women in these sorts of venues. For example, there is a woman that I know who is a full professor of operations research, with a background in mathematics. I know another who has nearly completed a PhD in computational biology, though her strengths are in mathematics and numerical methods. They write math blogs etc. Yet neither has responded to my suggestions to give Math SE, or Cross-Validated or other SE's a try. I don't know why. I think they'd like it, if they tried it.
There are two possible reasons: Either women are afraid to use their real names when posting, or there may be not as many women who are interested in math. My Calculus I class has about a 3:1 ratio of men to women, even though the overall gender ratio at the university is 2:3 (men to women).
