Why are more speedcubers male than female?

[Max Cruz]

Interesting how some of the countries with a higher percentage female cubers are countries of muslim majority.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hCee2Y9-0G7TIimpoRS5pzJpD10EvUl_LGs2xujQT-g/edit?usp=sharing

What do you believe causes this? Is it more than just an interesting correlation?

 

[One Wheel]

What do you believe causes this? Is it more than just an interesting correlation?

If I were to guess I'd say that if we were dealing with statistically significant numbers it might have to do with gender disparities in educational opportunities.

 

[Isaac Lai]

Interesting how some of the countries with a higher percentage female cubers are countries of muslim majority.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hCee2Y9-0G7TIimpoRS5pzJpD10EvUl_LGs2xujQT-g/edit?usp=sharing

It's worth noting that almost all the cubers from the countries at the top of the list live outside their respective countries. Also, I'm almost certain the Surinamese cubers are somehow related.

 

[Gomorrite]

It's worth noting that almost all the cubers from the countries at the top of the list live outside their respective countries. Also, I'm almost certain the Surinamese cubers are somehow related.

That could be the case with a few cubers from countries that never held a competition, but Morocco, Algeria, United Arab Emirates or Tunisia all had competitions. I actually think most of them do live in those countries.

The Surinamese probably do live in The Netherlands.

 

[turtwig]

What do you believe causes this? Is it more than just an interesting correlation?

It's probably just that these countries have very few cubers, so the proportion is susceptible to more variation. If we look at the bottom of the list we get the same kind of countries, so I don't think it really has to do with the countries.

 

[AlphaSheep]

It's probably just that these countries have very few cubers, so the proportion is susceptible to more variation. If we look at the bottom of the list we get the same kind of countries, so I don't think it really has to do with the countries.

This discussion is actually quite interesting. If you ignore countries with less than 100 competitors, then the Muslim countries with a very low percentage of female cubers are in east Asia, (Malaysia, Indonesia), and the ones with a very high percentage of female cubers are in North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria). While these countries share a common religion, they are culturally very different, and that is very likely to have an impact on stats like this.

 

[abunickabhi]

Reviving this post as I think it needs more discussion:

Raising a few questions:

1. How much of the gender gap (in cubing) is caused by sexism?
2. I'm really curious as to why there is such a large gender gap in cubing?
   
   
   On the other hand, as pointed out by Jacob on CF, Real talk, cubing is far ahead of other mental game sports in the gender gap. Cubing is about 10% female, whereas chess, tcgs, crossword, memory champs, and more are all around 1%. And that’s all more due to social perception, that should lean more and more better every year.
   
   
   
   
   
   

 

[Eli Apperson]

Reviving this post as I think it needs more discussion:

Raising a few questions:

1. How much of the gender gap (in cubing) is caused by sexism?

Um, none of it. I don't know where you'd get that idea.'
I'm really curious as to why there is such a large gender gap in cubing?
Contrary to popular opinion these days, there actually is a difference between the male and female gender, and this causes some hobbies/fields of interest to be more appealing to the respective genders

 

[Thom S.]

Um, none of it. I don't know where you'd get that idea.'
I'm really curious as to why there is such a large gender gap in cubing?
Contrary to popular opinion these days, there actually is a difference between the male and female gender, and this causes some hobbies/fields of interest to be more appealing to the respective genders

There are more feminist opinions that I won't get into. Yet.
I wouldn't say that there is a lot of sexism in the cubing. Maybe there is a lot of gender gatekeeping with kids(there more certainly is), where boys will "humiliate" girls trying to get them off of what they like.
The fact that many women are still told to stay off of complicated things might indeed affect if there is sexism or not, but again, I don't wanna get into this any more.

I'm not sure there is anyone arguing that there are no differences betreen the male and female sex. There most cartainly are many anatomical differences. It's argued about if there are non-anatomical differences as well between all sexes, genders, gender identities.

 

[OldSwiss]

Under the kids of my friends there are more girls that know how to solve a cube than boys.
Some of them are faster and more secure, some of them al little bit less, but they all are still on the LBL level.

But I think no one of them ever thought about going to a competition.
Maybe boys are just more competitive, maybe it scares girls off to go at events with 90% boys.

Besides of this, there are/were no events in our area.

 

[Thom S.]

maybe it scares girls off to go at events with 90% boys.

Had a girl in my company years ago as an apprentice.
She was too scared to go to vocational school for 10 weeks as she would be the only girl that turnus and promptly quit because of that as her reasoning.