Which gender/marital category would you place yourself into?

[sensei]

This is a recreation (for comparative purposes) of a poll started by miz ducky in February 2008. I have used her question and options without change to help see if the demographics of actively participating members have changed significantly.

If you simply click on the poll, your identity will remain anonymous. Replies commenting on the question or responding to the results are welcomed. Betarians of any duration, new and old, are welcome.

Some of you may be interested in the previous poll and the thread it inspired:

http://www.anime-beta.com/phpBB/viewtop ... hlight=age

Please respond to the poll first, however. Thanks to all who participate!

[Sky Rat]

Ummm...what about being in a permanent committed relationship, but not being legally allowed to get married?? I feel somewhat disadvantaged responding to this poll. I'm engaged, at least.

[sensei]

Thanks for asking, Sky Rat. That came up in the old thread. I'd respond "How would you identify yourself?"

Many people consider themselves married, and in fact are married under common law in some states, but have never been before a judge or priest. Anyhow, it's not the point of my ethnography to define "marriage" or even "gender" but to get a sense of the overall demographics of the most active posters. There are some hypotheses about these demographics that need to be verified or exploded rather than just assumed.

[Sky Rat]

Okay. Taking that into consideration I voted as married. I'd qualify under common law anyway, even if I technically haven't any legal paperwork. My lifestyle is more similar to a married person than not, if that's what the survey is measuring.

[iceman57]

Ummm...what about being in a permanent committed relationship, but not being legally allowed to get married?? I feel somewhat disadvantaged responding to this poll. I'm engaged, at least.

Many people consider themselves married, and in fact are married under common law in some states, but have never been before a judge or priest. Anyhow, it's not the point of my ethnography to define "marriage" or even "gender" but to get a sense of the overall demographics of the most active posters. There are some hypotheses about these demographics that need to be verified or exploded rather than just assumed.

I even have a kid and am not married but voted married (whooooo burn 10 times in tarnations you man of ice)
I'd like to see how Sensei will define "gender" for people that didn't fill the blank in their profile : "girls non willing to be sexually harassed by male geeks"

[Keropi]

Well I'm not married. I don't think I'm ever going to be married.

Maybe I feel a bit bad for my parents since they're never going to have grandchildren, but that's how it goes. They don't say much about it, but sometimes what they're thinking leaks out a little from what they say. My younger sister was more likely to get married than me, but she passed away fourteen years ago from Ewings sarcoma so that was that.

At least my sister and I got to enjoy watching anime regularly for about six months prior to her passed away. A rental anime/bookstore/gaming store opened up a block from my house in ?June 1996. She was the one that recommended pooling together to get a WebTV unit to get onto the internet around December ?20th 1996. She went into the hospital around ?Jan 12th, 1997 and never returned home after that. I discovered cel collecting ?March/April 1997.

And it all went downhill from there. Lol

[sensei]

Results from 2/2008:

Man - Married 9% [ 8 ]
Man - Not Married 25% [ 21 ]
Woman - Married 29% [ 25 ]
Woman - Not Married 35% [ 30 ]

Total Votes : 84

Results so far in 2/2011:

Man - Married 13% [ 7 ]
Man - Not Married 17% [ 9 ]
Woman - Married 25% [ 13 ]
Woman - Not Married 43% [ 22 ]

Total Votes : 51

Crunching these a bit, we find (expressed in rounded percents, which don't add up to 100):

Male/Female – 34/64 in 2008, 30/68 in 2011. Given the numbers, I’d say the difference between the two figures is not likely to be significant. Both show that the most active Beta members have been and continue to identify themselves as female.

Married/Not Married - 38/60 in 2008, 38/60 in 2011. Again, there’s some dithering among male/female categories that is not likely to be significant. But the conclusion seems again clear that the most active Beta members tend to describe themselves as unmarried.

The second finding (which is what I was after) is not surprising: scholars have suggested that the activity of collecting tends to be a solitary one. Social networks devoted to a given form of collecting, the theory holds, balance the isolation that collectors experience with the opportunity for intense engagement with others who engage in the same activity. This is supported by a number of comments in the questionnaires I’m getting back from Betarians via PM. (But the 38% finding suggests that it’s not socially isolating, or at least not to a degree that precludes marriage.)

The first finding isn’t as easy to interpret. What do Betarians think? Is this a reflection of a female bias in the anime fanbase or does collecting animation art seem to appeal somewhat more to females than to males? (Or ... I could think of several other plausible explanations.)

[Keropi]

The first finding isn’t as easy to interpret. What do Betarians think? Is this a reflection of a female bias in the anime fanbase or does collecting animation art seem to appeal somewhat more to females than to males? (Or ... I could think of several other plausible explanations.)

I don't know it's hard to say. When I went to the cel collectors meeting at Anime Expo in 1998 there were just about only guys there. Or was it only guys? I can't be sure. When I was there I'm sure it was at least 85% guys in that room. Not too surprising I suppose since the anime fanbase was more male targeted back then (although anime is still targeted much more toward guys even now). By 2000 or 2001 though, I think the cel collectors panel at AX had about a 54-55% guys in the room if I'm remembering correctly. I counted the last two or three times I went, but I don't have the figures handy.

Not sure what the true percentage would be if we included all the collectors that aren't active on this board. I think the female posters here tend to be a little more active here than the guys, but I don't have a guess as to how much the difference is.

[iceman57]

About collection, statistics are 75% M / 25% F.

[sensei]

About collection, statistics are 75% M / 25% F.

Interesting. Could you give a brief account of the data sample that you used to generate this statistic? If possible, I'd like to use this as a comparison to Beta's distinctive composition.

[iceman57]

Thesis source, fluctuates from 75 to 80% depending on collectors samples (various universes), but basically the guideline. I'm working these day on representation of women in communities.

[sensei]

Harvesting data here as well. Interesting that 16 more votes came in, but the overall contours did not change significantly.

Male/Female: 31/69
Married/Unmarried: 40/60

I hacked around and found some US data on overall anime fan demographics. Two (based on volunteered gender for two major anime-related websites) showed a closer split between the genders, both slightly favoring females (44 M/56 F and 49 M/51 F). The third, a site specializing in fanfics, was, like Beta, much more strongly skewed toward female participants (32 M/68 F).

That suggests that Beta may function somewhat more like a fanfic site: certainly some of the anime galleries I've seen tend toward being tribute sites to certain much-loved series and show curators engaging with the art they display in something of the same way in which the creators of fanfics use the characters and plot details as a "springboard for imagination" (interesting term from an academic essay I'm using as background).

Thanks to all who read the thread and took time to vote. I feel like bean-counts like these are important to keep an analysis honest and not just a jargon-filled way of saying, "From my personal observations, I think it's true that ..."