Monday, July 25, 2011

Gender and Science Fiction/Fantasy—More Numbers

…from DMS at GeekasChicas.com.

I recently read a blog entry about gender distribution in submissions and publications that Edmund Schubert, the editor of Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show (IGMS), posted on Magical Words. He quoted three emails from two assistant editors relating submission rates and then provided publication rates. He then made the claim that they publish women at the same proportion that women submit, calling the ratio “close enough.” I hear not everyone was impressed by this rigorous approach and the subsequent detailed analysis and conclusion. Rather than pick a side, I decided to look at his submission and publication numbers and see if there was a statistically significant conclusion to draw. After all, the data provided is exactly the kind of data I need for a Chi-Squared test. Isn’t it exciting!

Link to the full article.

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