  Information about gender differences in interests is necessary to disentangle
the effects of discrimination and choice when gender inequalities occur, such
as in employment. This article assesses gender differences in interests within
the popular social news and entertainment site Reddit. A method to detect terms
that are statistically significantly used more by males or females in 181
million comments in 100 subreddits shows that gender affects both the selection
of subreddits and activities within most of them. The method avoids the hidden
gender biases of topic modelling for this task. Although the method reveals
statistically significant gender differences in interests for topics that are
extensively discussed on Reddit, it cannot give definitive causes, and
imitation and sharing within the site mean that additional checking is needed
to verify the results. Nevertheless, with care, Reddit can serve as a useful
source of insights into gender differences in interests.
