Why the gender imbalance?

Question

So, a cursory glance of the Food & Cooking Users reveals a lot of men and few women. What's the deal?

• Does this site generally reflect the SOFU gender mix?

• Are there aspects of the UI/moderation which are off-putting?

• Is the scope of the site biased towards younger singles? Does it matter?

• Is there anything we could do to make the site more attractive/accessible to a broader audience?

• Should we reach out to female cooking blogs in addition to general sites (chowhound, seriouseats)?

User demographics from Quantcast via this MSO post:

* 78% male
* 68% Caucasian
* 79% No Kids (aged 0-17)

As I've tried to make clear in the comments, I don't care to stereotype any group. I just want to build out from the underlying bias of the SOFU community so we can attract a broader range of cooks.

Answer 1

I don't believe there's a gender problem with the site. In fact, had you not brought it up, I might not have noticed.

Regarding what to expect as the site grows,

• Most kitchen professionals, as Aaronut noted, are male.
• More men (21%) than women (11%) cook as a hobby.
• More women (21%) than men (9%) are in charge of cooking the family's meals.
• About 50% of each gender enjoys cooking

(Source)

As the membership of this site increases, I don't see why we'd be any different. You can probably expect to see more male than female professionals here, and a few more male than female laypeople, due to the tech connection (edit: as in due to the connection with the other Stack sites).

I have not found any part of the site to be biased one way or the other.

I do not think we should try to recruit new members by gender... that itself would be off-putting.

Answer 2

I think the current perceived male dominance is primarily due to the SOFU crowd. Many of the new users I've seen have female usernames. I see this as a sign that we are expanding, and are at least minimally capable of attracting a female audience. One of our most prominent members and moderators is female. I know she has expressed some consternation with referrals to the MSO site for FAQ questions, but I don't think that has anything to do with her gender, but rather her "non-geekness" (my words).

Regarding seed questions, I'm a little skeptical that a bunch of men making up questions that we think would be interesting to women would be very effective. Reaching out to bloggers is a great idea, but we should be doing that anyway regardless of gender.

Answer 3

Promoting the site to people who aren't familiar with Stack Exchange sites is a good idea. Seeding the site with questions about "family-style cooking, budget-cooking, quick-cooking, children, [and] incorporating store-bought ingredients" as a way of attracting more female users is not; not all women are concerned about such issues, and it would offend many women to be reminded that some people feel they are. If my husband had recommended the site to me because of such questions, I would never have registered here because my Sexism Alarm would have rung too loudly to allow it. The idea that an interest in cooking has something to do with one's gender identification or sex is old-fashioned at best, so I'm in favor of making general recommendations of the site to people who are interested in finding answers to their cooking questions rather than making assumptions about what sort of questions would be of interest to them.

Answer 4

Several points to make with respect to this question:

1. The site was "seeded" with the SOFU/Area51 membership, which is overwhelmingly male.

2. Most internet forums and Q&A sites have a somewhat "geeky" audience, and the geek contingent is overwhelmingly male. Even though cooking is a significantly less geeky subject, and even though the interwebz themselves are becoming less male-dominated (largely thanks to the advent of Facebook and other "social networking") - it's still nowhere near 50/50 yet.

3. Unless a lot has changed in the past few years, most people who actually work in kitchens (those whom we would want to make up the core "expert" audience) are male. Not all - I used to work with a female ex-sous-chef - but there's a certain attitude inside a typical kitchen that is, shall we say, somewhat more male-oriented.

4. I don't think the current "stats" actually signify any problem. Having fewer females on the site doesn't mean that they're reluctant to join, and our current membership seems to reinforce the point that the ratio of men to women and/or the topics being discussed on the site aren't going to dissuade anyone - male or female - from joining the site (unless their primary interest is in recipe swaps or some other off-topic subject).

5. I really don't think that it's a problem either way. We're a Q&A site, not a dating site. As long as the site is getting a steady influx of new users, new questions and new answers, who really cares about the exact gender balance?

6. In my experience on a few other forums, coming across as trying to actively recruit women is a surefire way to end up with fewer of them. It tends to be viewed as either stereotypically indiscriminate male horniness or worse, sexist in its subtle implication that a woman can't survive in a male-dominated field or area (a concept that was proven wrong decades ago).

Many of these points are just my opinion/experience, but I'd prefer not to see this subject discussed at length. It's ultimately irrelevant to our mission and can come across as creepy.