She's Reddit: A source of statistically significant gendered interest information?

TL;DR

This study introduces a method to identify gendered interest differences on Reddit by analyzing a vast dataset of comments, revealing significant gender-based preferences in subreddit participation and activities.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel statistical approach to detect gender-specific interest terms on Reddit, avoiding biases of traditional topic modeling.

Findings

Gender influences subreddit selection and activity preferences.

The method identifies significant gendered interest terms.

Reddit can be a valuable source for studying gender interest differences.

Abstract

Information about gender differences in interests is necessary to disentangle the effects of discrimination and choice when gender inequalities occur, such as in employment. This article assesses gender differences in interests within the popular social news and entertainment site Reddit. A method to detect terms that are statistically significantly used more by males or females in 181 million comments in 100 subreddits shows that gender affects both the selection of subreddits and activities within most of them. The method avoids the hidden gender biases of topic modelling for this task. Although the method reveals statistically significant gender differences in interests for topics that are extensively discussed on Reddit, it cannot give definitive causes, and imitation and sharing within the site mean that additional checking is needed to verify the results. Nevertheless, with care, Reddit can serve as a useful source of insights into gender differences in interests.