Studying Gender in Conference Talks -- data from the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society

TL;DR

This study analyzes gender representation among speakers and question-askers at the American Astronomical Society meeting 223, revealing gender balance among speakers but under-representation of women among questioners, influenced by session chair gender.

Contribution

It provides new empirical data on gender dynamics at a major scientific conference, highlighting disparities in question-asking behavior related to gender and session chair influence.

Findings

Gender ratio of speakers matches conference attendees.

Women ask fewer questions than men, especially under male chairs.

Question-asking disparities may be due to age and seniority effects.

Abstract

We present a study on the gender balance, in speakers and attendees, at the recent major astronomical conference, the American Astronomical Society meeting 223, in Washington, DC. We conducted an informal survey, yielding over 300 responses by volunteers at the meeting. Each response included gender data about a single talk given at the meeting, recording the gender of the speaker and all question-askers. In total, 225 individual AAS talks were sampled. We analyze basic statistical properties of this sample. We find that the gender ratio of the speakers closely matched the gender ratio of the conference attendees. The audience asked an average of 2.8 questions per talk. Talks given by women had a slightly higher number of questions asked (3.2$\pm$0.2) than talks given by men (2.6$\pm$0.1). The most significant result from this study is that while the gender ratio of speakers very closely mirrors that of conference attendees, women are under-represented in the question-asker category. We interpret this to be an age-effect, as senior scientists may be more likely to ask questions, and are more commonly men. A strong dependence on the gender of session chairs is found, whereby women ask disproportionately fewer questions in sessions chaired by men. While our results point to laudable progress in gender-balanced speaker selection, we believe future surveys of this kind would help ensure that collaboration at such meetings is as inclusive as possible.