Why aren't there more female forum participants?

[L07 Shooting Star]

In another topic, the discussion evolved into a lack of female participation in the forum.  I thought it worthy of starting a new topic.  Can anyone offer any thoughts on why this is the case?  Any lady members out there that would like to comment?  Frank discussion without stereotyping would be appreciated.

[broKen]

/quote]



Sorry, but that was my first reaction 

[JOYCEfromNS]

Simply IMO its not of interest to them (females) to the extend it is males.

Persons who join forums such as this are for the most part for lack of a better word "Gear-Heads". How many here have only one guitar or only one acoustic guitar and only one electric. My guess you would be a minority.

Generally speaking in my experience most of the good male guitarist I know have an arsenal of gear; females not so much. There are of course exceptions but this has been my experience. I suspect its not much different on the Larrivee Facebook Group - don't know but I suspect its similar.

[tuffythepug]

We've never had a lot of participation from  females on this forum.  I doubt that any other guitar-themed forum fares any better in that department though.  The female members we do have seem content to just read the posts and stay on the edges most of the time.  Which is too bad because we love hearing from them.   I know of one member who previously had been very active,  even went  to the Forum III unveiling in Vancouver several years ago.., and she (Lyric Girl) just lost interest in guitars when other issues took over her life.  Our most famous female member, "Cowgirlie" , real name Juni Fisher, has not checked in here in about 4 years.   I don't know why.  My guess is she's simply too busy.

I propose that we created a "hunky" calendar with bare-chested manly men from the forum gracing the pages each month.  That would attract tons of female interest, huh ?

Let's  see, we could start with Unclerob for January
Danny for February
Ducktrapper for March
Walkerman for April   

and so on..    How about it gents ?

[ducktrapper]

Women are smarter than us?  

[ducktrapper]

We've never had a lot of participation from  females on this forum.  I doubt that any other guitar-themed forum fares any better in that department though.  The female members we do have seem content to just read the posts and stay on the edges most of the time.  Which is too bad because we love hearing from them.   I know of one member who previously had been very active,  even went  to the Forum III unveiling in Vancouver several years ago.., and she (Lyric Girl) just lost interest in guitars when other issues took over her life.  Our most famous female member, "Cowgirlie" , real name Juni Fisher, has not checked in here in about 4 years.   I don't know why.  My guess is she's simply too busy.

I propose that we created a "hunky" calendar with bare-chested manly men from the forum gracing the pages each month.  That would attract tons of female interest, huh ?

Let's  see, we could start with Unclerob for January
Danny for February
Ducktrapper for March
Walkerman for April   

and so on..    How about it gents ?

Can I keep my hat on? 

[unclrob]

Not a bare chested shot but.....

[Mikeymac]

I propose that we created a "hunky" calendar with bare-chested manly men from the forum gracing the pages each month.  That would attract tons of female interest, huh ?

Let's  see, we could start with Unclerob for January
Danny for February
Ducktrapper for March
Walkerman for April   

and so on..    How about it gents ?

I'll only appear if I can hold my OM-05 over my, um, torso...

...and I think Duck is right - women are smarter than we are. If any of them have started reading this thread, they're already rolling their eyes... 

I agree with what's already been said - women don't participate much on any guitar forums. There's one very active female participant on the Ovation forum - there was another, but sadly, she recently passes away (cancer, I believe). She was also a guitar shop owner in Hot Springs, SD (I have been in that shop), so she was motivated to contribute.  Ironically, the other female who posts regularly there has one of the largest Ovation collection on that forum (over 15 guitars for sure); very unusual for a woman.

Also, participation here (and on other forums) is down in general - just look at how slow it is around here. This makes it even more obvious who the regulars are, and it's obvious there are many male members who haven't been posting much lately.

Good thread topic... but so easy to veer into a ditch... 

[tuffythepug]

I'll only appear if I can hold my OM-05 over my, um, torso...

..

So glad you didn't say J-05.    :whistling

[Mikeymac]

So glad you didn't say J-05.    :whistling

You see?!  ^^^THIS^^^ is why the ladies don't hang out here! 

[ducktrapper]

I'll only appear if I can hold my OM-05 over my, um, torso...

...and I think Duck is right - women are smarter than we are. If any of them have started reading this thread, they're already rolling their eyes... 

I agree with what's already been said - women don't participate much on any guitar forums. There's one very active female participant on the Ovation forum - there was another, but sadly, she recently passes away (cancer, I believe). She was also a guitar shop owner in Hot Springs, SD (I have been in that shop), so she was motivated to contribute.  Ironically, the other female who posts regularly there has one of the largest Ovation collection on that forum (over 15 guitars for sure); very unusual for a woman.

Also, participation here (and on other forums) is down in general - just look at how slow it is around here. This makes it even more obvious who the regulars are, and it's obvious there are many male members who haven't been posting much lately.

Good thread topic... but so easy to veer into a ditch... 

15 Ovations? Well, obviously, they are not all  smarter than us! 

[unclrob]

All of my female clients but one play Taylors.The one plays an OM10.Also many Martin players.

[ducktrapper]

All of my female clients but one play Taylors.The one plays an OM10.Also many Martin players.

Taylor. Chick guitars. Maybe that's why there's not many women here?   

[eded]

Way back when, on rmmga (before the days of Facebook and this forum, for me), there were about 7 or 8 women amongst the couple hundred users with some being spouses of male users.  I think there are a lot more male guitarists than female, and when usenet and forums like this we're in wider use, three were a lot more men using computers than women.  Plus, women had bad luck with abusive men...  stalking and such, back then.  Plus people using "handles" and not being traceable.  On rmmga, here were women who found the place and showed up and after being hit on by male users were gone.  One has to be pretty geeky to use this text based format, and in general, much fewer women are geeky enough to deal with how much work it takes to post pics and such here.  Add to that, the ease of use and transparency (lack of anonymity) of formats like Facebook....  you snap a picture, click an icon and voila, its uploaded.  Lack of female participation has bunches of reasons, and I don't see participation here going up any time soon.

Ed

[ryler]

I don't think there are that many of us on guitar forums to begin with, as others have said.  When I first joined,  I waded in with maybe more caution than if it weren't predominantly men participating here.  Part of it is that men don't give each other (or anyone) much room to be wrong.  If you're wrong or imprecise on a forum, you're going to be called out on it.  So I think that's a slight inhibitor to posting.  That said, people are really polite here, I find.

I think women tend to hold back around a group of men until whatever safety-metric we deem necessary has been met.  It's from being raised to be careful of your physical safety and perhaps from genetic wiring.  Or maybe that's just me, but it is how I operate.  I think the younger generation might not do this as much.  They're just bolder.

I was also reluctant to reveal my gender lo these many years ago because, well, I don't know.  I thought people would treat me differently. Less respect or something.  There's a lot of just awful things on-line about women, so an on-line forum--so public, it feels riskier than if I were male.

But that's a lot of analysis for what is probably better summed up as:  not that many women play guitars by comparison.

[George]

Well, a woman member weighs in at last!  Thank you!  I have four daughters and six granddaughters, so I can relate...

[unclrob]

I have always had a simple rule..as soon as you take up an instrument you are no longer male or female you are a musician no matter how good or bad you are at your instrument.On a side note back in the day there weren't that many female tech's or luthier's either now there some wonderful female luthiers.

[L07 Shooting Star]

Ryler,
Your post is very insightful to me.  The responses to the topic have exceeded my expectations.  Eded, I think you are on to something.

I suppose if this was a forum about cars or motorcycles or guns, the lady's participation rate would be similar.

[ST]

Most of the guitarists I know are male.
Most of those are enthralled by their instruments,
   and they like to talk about them,
    and they play them.

Most of the female guitarists I know play their instruments,
  and they enjoy the music.

[Gordo in OZ]

Good question. Most of the people I have worked with and play with are female musicians and they pretty much all have fantastic instruments that they have owned for years. Women I know seem to buy a really good instrument and stick with it forever. Probably not a bad idea. Women apparently do not suffer from GAS. Guitar forum is like a bar for guitar nerds where generally we don't talk much about normal guy stuff like football, beer, cars and pizza. Start a debate about capos or fretboards and I'm in there.