HalSF
Senior Member
Having seen these questions and quandaries raised many times in audio forums for many years now, I have a couple of observations.
— Focusing on generally low representation of women among hi-fi enthusiasts, audio engineers and product designers, and music-industry technical professionals obscures as much as it reveals. There's nothing particularly problematic about the audio world that explains things that you don't find replicated in consumer electronics writ large and computing and energy and structural and mechanical engineering and so on. The numbers may vary to some degree but things that involve tinkering with gadgets and high-tech components and wide swathes of applied science also have roughly these same statistics. Being intensely involved with cameras and photography, evaluating and choosing the best televisions, being fascinated with automobiles, motorcycles, bikes — same thing, a large preponderance of male engagement. Audio has no special claim to enhanced guilt or misogynistic blight or sociological circumstances that make it worse (or better) than all these other realms. It's not particularly an audiophile thing — the syndrome is much, much bigger.
— Discrimination and harassment and condescentation toward women and other unwelcoming behaviors are obviously real, but so is self-selection and the free expression of affinity on the part of women. It's difficult in general to disentangle things that push women away and out or suppress their enthusiasm, from free choice and inherent proclivities. There's a lot of confusing and inconvenient if ambiguous evidence that even when you diligently remove all gender stereotyping and remove everything that tends to push boys toward conventional boy things and girls toward conventional girls things, there's still a mysterious marked tendency for boys to do boy things and girls to do girl things.
— You might expect extremely challenging scientific and technical fields like medicine and life sciences to match the same numbers, but the representation and achievements of women in those fields seems to far surpass the lower numbers in the other technical fields mentioned above. Genius and obsession is distributed equally between men and women but the channels genius follows often dramatically diverge.
— I don't think there's any practical action plan that men should embrace in order to seriously change and reform these things in the communities of audio enthusiasts. Be kind, don't be a dick, and do not tolerate boorish and hostile attitudes and stupidity directed at women in particular or in general. Beyond that it's largely up to women to participate or not, perhaps to congregate in women-only audio spaces if that's amenable and fruitful, and help keep the hi-fi spirit positive and moving forward publicly or privately in any way they choose. And although there are downsides to online anonymity (hello, trolls!), it's entirely possible to be in the swim of audio enthusiasm without ever disclosing whether you're a man or a woman if that's how you want to roll.
— Focusing on generally low representation of women among hi-fi enthusiasts, audio engineers and product designers, and music-industry technical professionals obscures as much as it reveals. There's nothing particularly problematic about the audio world that explains things that you don't find replicated in consumer electronics writ large and computing and energy and structural and mechanical engineering and so on. The numbers may vary to some degree but things that involve tinkering with gadgets and high-tech components and wide swathes of applied science also have roughly these same statistics. Being intensely involved with cameras and photography, evaluating and choosing the best televisions, being fascinated with automobiles, motorcycles, bikes — same thing, a large preponderance of male engagement. Audio has no special claim to enhanced guilt or misogynistic blight or sociological circumstances that make it worse (or better) than all these other realms. It's not particularly an audiophile thing — the syndrome is much, much bigger.
— Discrimination and harassment and condescentation toward women and other unwelcoming behaviors are obviously real, but so is self-selection and the free expression of affinity on the part of women. It's difficult in general to disentangle things that push women away and out or suppress their enthusiasm, from free choice and inherent proclivities. There's a lot of confusing and inconvenient if ambiguous evidence that even when you diligently remove all gender stereotyping and remove everything that tends to push boys toward conventional boy things and girls toward conventional girls things, there's still a mysterious marked tendency for boys to do boy things and girls to do girl things.
— You might expect extremely challenging scientific and technical fields like medicine and life sciences to match the same numbers, but the representation and achievements of women in those fields seems to far surpass the lower numbers in the other technical fields mentioned above. Genius and obsession is distributed equally between men and women but the channels genius follows often dramatically diverge.
— I don't think there's any practical action plan that men should embrace in order to seriously change and reform these things in the communities of audio enthusiasts. Be kind, don't be a dick, and do not tolerate boorish and hostile attitudes and stupidity directed at women in particular or in general. Beyond that it's largely up to women to participate or not, perhaps to congregate in women-only audio spaces if that's amenable and fruitful, and help keep the hi-fi spirit positive and moving forward publicly or privately in any way they choose. And although there are downsides to online anonymity (hello, trolls!), it's entirely possible to be in the swim of audio enthusiasm without ever disclosing whether you're a man or a woman if that's how you want to roll.
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