The 2016 Gordon Research Conference on the Auditory System, “The Plastic and Dynamic Auditory System”, was representative of research in this field. Attendees/poster presenters only (not speakers) included 35 women and 60 men giving a base rate of 37% women. Interestingly, this is exactly the same as the base rate we determined for the auditory neuroscience field using NIH RePORTER, suggesting that for this field that source is a reliable metric.

Another possible base-rate metric for the auditory neuroscience field is the membership of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO), which sponsors the major annual international meeting in hearing research (the ARO Midwinter Meeting).  As of August 2016, registered members of ARO included 1064 men and 491 women, giving a base rate of 32%.

Taking the average, the base rate is estimated to be 35%.