Under Bova, that rose to almost 20%.

Under Schmidt, it fell to under 10% in the first year of Schnidt’s run.

“Some of the publications we have included in the main count are US- or UK-specific in their coverage; others cover books published in both countries. We have therefore provided country gender breakdowns as well as the overall count. Of note, this year’s proportion of books by women/non-binary individuals is the lowest recorded in the SF Count to date, both overall (39.9%) and in the US (42.0%) and UK (31.3%)”

I guess you use numpad for typings numbers. 5 and 2 are just next to each other.

And as one of those “nefarious” puppies. (Didn’t nominate, not voting, and frankly not caring one way or another for the actual results ) I thank you for the link. The non-puppies have cried invalidity of the data, without really providing anything to back theirs.

I like data… And with probability of 42%, the low percentage of women does look statistically significant on the 95 confidence interval. As it does with the more universal percentage of 39,9%.

Of course since only a fractions of books are ever reviewed by Science fiction publications, the above data could be critized on it. Or even that it only includes science fiction.

Martin Wisse, I believe, has made a case that the current malaise in British SF can be explained as the result of more than a decade of all the promising women in British SF being driven, actively or passively, from the field.

“If we ask how many British women are publishing original adult science fiction with a major genre publisher in Britain, the answer is pretty bleak: with neither Liz Williams nor Gwyneth Jones having contracts at the moment, I think the answer may be just one writer, Jaine Fenn. [Edit: As of next year, thanks to a change in publisher, Sophia McDougall will meet these criteria; there is also the mysterious RJ Frith.]”

https://vectoreditors.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/women-and-the-clarke/

Let’s try, “running with a 45/55 split would still likely show, to take the non-random example of novels (since that’s what the Locus data is for), that a 5/0 gender split would be statistically unlikely if people were just happening to read what came out with no bias whatsoever. The Puppies, incidentally, did not nominate any novels by women.”

If you look at the Locus data for submissions for reviews (again for novels), there is a small disparity where men, but probably not enough of one to sink our host’s numbers. As I said in the first comment, I’m not terribly mathy, but I’m reasonably confident you could run the numbers on 55/45 split, and they wouldn’t be wildly different.

It would still, most likely show, that a slate of, say (since we have data there), five novels ALL of which were by men what the Puppies originally put forward, incidentally, would statistically unlikely if people were just happening to read what came out with no bias whatsoever.

So far as I can tell, your math is right, but so what? Your math is just recapitulating the starting assumption. It’s easy enough to tell that more men than women have historically been nominated (and are nominated this year) by just looking at the list of names. Which, in most cases, correspond to binary gender identity. Though historically it helps to know that “CJ Cherryh” and “James Tiptree, Jr.” were women.

The real question is why it is that more men than women write award-winning science fiction stories. It might be discrimination on the part of publishers or fans. Or it might be gender-based differences in aptitude for or interest in writing science fiction or fantasy. If we found out that more women than men write successful romance novels, would we assume that it was the result of anti-male discrimination? Or is it possible that women are just more into romance novels than men?

I am not suggesting SF is as skewed male as romance is skewed female. And indeed a perusal of the list reveals quite a few award-winning female sf writers — CJ Cherryh, Lois Bujold, and Joan Vinge all come to mind. But some skew could easily account for the differences we observe.

http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/4841729.html