Where are all the women audiophiles?

[MattHooper]

I think given what we know about tech hobbies and tech spheres in general, about the internet in general, and about society in general, our starting point has to be that the answer to "Is there misogyny in the audio hobby" must be "yes," and the question to be investigated is, "how much, how widespread, and how exactly does it tend to manifest itself."

Exactly. That is a carefully expressed version of the problem that I would absolutely agree with.

We have to be very careful about leaping from anecdotal evidence to suggestions about how widespread something is, because it’s just as much a part of the human condition to over-extrapolate.

One of the first high-end audio stores I ever started visiting regularly, and still one of my go to audio emporiums, was run by a woman - Angie Lisi of American sound and now Angie’s corner - who is now very well known in the industry. She had an amazing amount of knowledge about a wide array of products and it was always great hanging out there.

I never talked to her about bad experiences in the industry, but I would certainly bet she could tell of a number of misogynistic experiences in high end audio.

But I could make that a good bet simply because most women who encounter a lot of men will have had their misogynistic encounters, and if you’re in an industry in which you are a woman dealing mostly with a whole bunch of different males, it’s no surprise, unfortunately that there’s going to be bad apples.

Unfortunately, all this gets into very touchy areas in how people process these discussions. It’s like a lot of people feel that a cautious or scientific mode of questioning are just the wrong approach when we’re talking about ways in which people can be or feel hurt, whether it’s racism or sexism, etc. Being the object of any of those can be so hurtful that anybody daring to question ANYthing about somebody’s “ lived experience” or even the broad claims they make on their experience, can seem insensitive and uncaring. And so at some point we seemed to default into “ if somebody felt that way, it was that way, and you can’t question the beliefs they have based on their experience.”

But of course, if we are going to care about the truth of what is going on, we’re going to have to acknowledge that people are not necessarily reliable interpreters of their experience. That’s practically the theme of ASR.

It reminds me of some conversations I’ve seen (and I’ve been a part of) on this and similar subjects, for instance, I remember one on Reddit asking about female audiophiles and some who chimed in complained of encountering “ mansplainig” very often in high-end audio… in audio stores, etc. Where the salesman would just talk to them as if they were not knowledgable, even though they were.

But… if we are talking about personal experiences, and I look back at my own experiences, I’ve experienced plenty of that too. It happens a lot. I’ve had experiences where some stuffy audio store owner starts
“ educating me” and I stop him and say, it’s OK, I work in pro audio I’m aware of all these technical claims and I’ve been an audiophile for decades, you don’t need to tell me any of this and I’d like to talk to you about the product I’m interested in.”

In one ear and out the other! He went right back to talk to me like I knew absolutely nothing. He couldn’t help it. He was pretty much programmed that way. Again I’ve experienced this a number of times. Lots of dudes are just like that… they want to show off their knowledge, or aren’t very socially perceptive or whatever. Heck that “ I’m going to explain this to you “ phenomenon is riven through many of the conversations on this very forum - we love to explain something to the other guy.

But if I were a female audiophile I might have interpreted that instance as “ he’s only treating me as ignorant because I’m female. He wouldn’t treat a guy this way. Chock up another instance of mansplaing!”

And of course, one can start off primed to make these interpretations by other REAL experiences of mansplaining or misogyny.
So there can be a mix of accurate interpretations with misinterpretations…. Which is why if we’re trying to get to the bottom of things it’s best to move past all our anecdotes and “ lived experience” epistemology, to more formal careful investigation.

Is my point “therefore, mansplaining does not exist as a phenomenon, and those female audiophiles never actually experienced it?”

Of course not. There’s no reason in such a case to think that there’s smoke but no fire.
But the question is how to investigate if there’s a fire and how big is it?
Just like investigating and prosecuting crime, every report of misogyny should be taken seriously, which is different than taking every such report as defacto true and unquestionable. (Otherwise nobody would ever have to prove any allegations in a court of law).

And this is why I agree with you that ideally before leaping to conclusions we would want good data for those conclusions. Especially when the reputation of a group of people are community hangs on those accusations.

And a problem… already run into in this thread… is that some people intertwine their own moral zeal with their claims, such that if you dare question the claims or suggest a more rigorous approach to understanding the phenomenon, your support for the cause and your character is questioned. This is unhelpful nonsense.

On the other hand I have always been puzzled by many men's defensiveness around this, since these same men often object to the whole idea of systemic discrimination

I know you were not directing that at me, but to be clear, I certainly would not object to any prospect of systematic discrimination. But I think there should be good data and evidence for any specific claims.

So if one believes that there is only individual choice, and one is sure that one does not behave in problematic ways towards women, then why would one feel so implicated when someone talks about men behaving in those ways? Why not just feel like, "Well, I know that's not me" and not get all exercised about it? Again, I am not directing this at anyone here - it's just a general observation.

Because, even if somebody believed in the first sentence in that paragraph, in a society, other people’s beliefs matter.

You may as well be asking why a black person cares about widespread racist beliefs about Black people. Take a racist trope like
“ Black people are lazy.” Even if a black person “ believes that there is only individual choice” and also knows “ I’m not lazy” it would still matter if there’s a systematic or widespread belief in that direction. Why wouldn’t somebody who is not lazy care about being automatically seen as lazy?
Not to mention such widespread beliefs about “ systematic black laziness” would likely cut prospects of being hired for good jobs etc

So it doesn’t only matter what you think of yourself; it does matter what other people think of you. That’s why we combat racism.

If there is indeed widespread misogyny in the audiophile world I admit I haven’t seen it. And I also admit that I would be less likely to have seen it than a female audiophile - who would be subject to misogyny. So I would certainly want to listen to the experience of female audiophiles to see what it’s like from their perspective. And taking that perspective very seriously!!

But from there, I go right back the first paragraph of yours that I quoted in this post.
How bad is it and how widespread is it ACTUALLY? For that we need to have a sober assessment that doesn’t just rely on anecdotes.

Is the hobby “ inherently misogynistic” to the degree that justifies any female in the hobby to have a default expectation that you or I or any other male audiophile here holds misogynistic views? I certainly hope not. And I would certainly hope that people would base their claims and expectations on a realistic assessment of the evidence.
Unfortunately, I doubt there will ever be an investigation shedding more light, but if there is a systemic misogyny problem, I wouldn’t want that waved away!!

 

[Doodski]

Exactly. That is a carefully expressed version of the problem that I would absolutely agree with.

We have to be very careful about leaping from anecdotal evidence to suggestions about how widespread something is, because it’s just as much a part of the human condition to over-extrapolate.

One of the first high-end audio stores I ever started visiting regularly, and still one of my go to audio emporiums, was run by a woman - Angie Lisi of American sound and now Angie’s corner - who is now very well known in the industry. She had an amazing amount of knowledge about a wide array of products and it was always great hanging out there.

I never talked to her about bad experiences in the industry, but I would certainly bet she could tell of a number of misogynistic experiences in high end audio.

But I could make that a good bet simply because most women who encounter a lot of men will have had their misogynistic encounters, and if you’re in an industry in which you are a woman dealing mostly with a whole bunch of different males, it’s no surprise, unfortunately that there’s going to be bad apples.

Unfortunately, all this gets into very touchy areas in how people process these discussions. It’s like a lot of people feel that a cautious or scientific mode of questioning are just the wrong approach when we’re talking about ways in which people can be or feel hurt, whether it’s racism or sexism, etc. Being the object of any of those can be so hurtful that anybody daring to question ANYthing about somebody’s “ lived experience” or even the broad claims they make on their experience, can seem insensitive and uncaring. And so at some point we seemed to default into “ if somebody felt that way, it was that way, and you can’t question the beliefs they have based on their experience.”

But of course, if we are going to care about the truth of what is going on, we’re going to have to acknowledge that people are not necessarily reliable interpreters of their experience. That’s practically the theme of ASR.

It reminds me of some conversations I’ve seen (and I’ve been a part of) on this and similar subjects, for instance, I remember one on Reddit asking about female audiophiles and some who chimed in complained of encountering “ mansplainig” very often in high-end audio… in audio stores, etc. Where the salesman would just talk to them as if they were not knowledgable, even though they were.

But… if we are talking about personal experiences, and I look back at my own experiences, I’ve experienced plenty of that too. It happens a lot. I’ve had experiences where some stuffy audio store owner starts
“ educating me” and I stop him and say, it’s OK, I work in pro audio I’m aware of all these technical claims and I’ve been an audiophile for decades, you don’t need to tell me any of this and I’d like to talk to you about the product I’m interested in.”

In one ear and out the other! He went right back to talk to me like I knew absolutely nothing. He couldn’t help it. He was pretty much programmed that way. Again I’ve experienced this a number of times. Lots of dudes are just like that… they want to show off their knowledge, or aren’t very socially perceptive or whatever. Heck that “ I’m going to explain this to you “ phenomenon is riven through many of the conversations on this very forum - we love to explain something to the other guy.

But if I were a female audiophile I might have interpreted that instance as “ he’s only treating me as ignorant because I’m female. He wouldn’t treat a guy this way. Chock up another instance of mansplaing!”

And of course, one can start off primed to make these interpretations by other REAL experiences of mansplaining or misogyny.
So there can be a mix of accurate interpretations with misinterpretations…. Which is why if we’re trying to get to the bottom of things it’s best to move past all our anecdotes and “ lived experience” epistemology, to more formal careful investigation.

Is my point “therefore, mansplaining does not exist as a phenomenon, and those female audiophiles never actually experienced it?”

Of course not. There’s no reason in such a case to think that there’s smoke but no fire.
But the question is how to investigate if there’s a fire and how big is it?
Just like investigating and prosecuting crime, every report of misogyny should be taken seriously, which is different than taking every such report as defacto true and unquestionable. (Otherwise nobody would ever have to prove any allegations in a court of law).

And this is why I agree with you that ideally before leaping to conclusions we would want good data for those conclusions. Especially when the reputation of a group of people are community hangs on those accusations.

And a problem… already run into in this thread… is that some people intertwine their own moral zeal with their claims, such that if you dare question the claims or suggest a more rigorous approach to understanding the phenomenon, your support for the cause and your character is questioned. This is unhelpful nonsense.



I know you were not directing that at me, but to be clear, I certainly would not object to any prospect of systematic discrimination. But I think there should be good data and evidence for any specific claims.



Because, even if somebody believed in the first sentence in that paragraph, in a society, other people’s beliefs matter.

You may as well be asking why a black person cares about widespread racist beliefs about Black people. Take a racist trope like
“ Black people are lazy.” Even if a black person “ believes that there is only individual choice” and also knows “ I’m not lazy” it would still matter if there’s a systematic or widespread belief in that direction. Why wouldn’t somebody who is not lazy care about being automatically seen as lazy?
Not to mention such widespread beliefs about “ systematic black laziness” would likely cut prospects of being hired for good jobs etc

So it doesn’t only matter what you think of yourself; it does matter what other people think of you. That’s why we combat racism.

If there is indeed widespread misogyny in the audiophile world I admit I haven’t seen it. And I also admit that I would be less likely to have seen it than a female audiophile - who would be subject to misogyny. So I would certainly want to listen to the experience of female audiophiles to see what it’s like from their perspective. And taking that perspective very seriously!!

But from there, I go right back the first paragraph of yours that I quoted in this post.
How bad is it and how widespread is it ACTUALLY? For that we need to have a sober assessment that doesn’t just rely on anecdotes.

Is the hobby “ inherently misogynistic” to the degree that justifies any female in the hobby to have a default expectation that you or I or any other male audiophile here holds misogynistic views? I certainly hope not. And I would certainly hope that people would base their claims and expectations on a realistic assessment of the evidence.
Unfortunately, I doubt there will ever be an investigation shedding more light, but if there is a systemic misogyny problem, I wouldn’t want that waved away!!

I worked for ~2 years with a young female ~24 years old named Twyla. Her boyfriend was an aspiring to be studio engineer and had been apprenticing under a studio engineer for a couple of years at a very busy large sound studio. Twyla had a strong interest in good sound for her music listening pleasure, she listened to her boyfriend chatting about sound engineering everyday, was very proud of him, visited the studio multiple times per week and Twyla said that is why she applied at the AV, car audio, home audio, CD/records/tapes big retailer that I worked for at that time. I was at the top of the heap as far as a sales guy in the home audio dept could be without being a manager and so I enjoyed power amongst my peers and I was a cornerstone for them when coming to me for knowledge and ideas about most anything. Twyla saw within hours of her employment at the store that I was a go-to person, she approached me and asked if I would support her when she had questions about any stuff and teach her when she needed that. Frankly she was a very common sense person, a hot brunette with straight hair down to bottom of her back and I loved her the moment I laid eyes on her but I never expressed that in any manner at all. So I feigned casual interest and said, "OK anytime you have a question and need some ideas I am here and will support that."

Anyway... We went for lunch and dinner as often as I could convince her that I could afford to pay because she was just starting out and was not making much money. (I could afford it. I made pretty good dough at that time.) So Twyla was attending the weekly product training meetings at different hotel locations all over the city or at other stores of the same company we worked for. There would be ~40-~50 home audio sales people at each meeting. Twyla was the only female ever at those meetings because she was the only female in the company that ever worked in the home audio department. Those meetings ran for about 8 months of the year every Thursday night. Twyla was 100% accepted by every single sales person in the home audio department company wide and she enjoyed strong support from the sales representatives and the engineers that trained us each Thursday night at the product training meetings.

She never did get proficient at home audio gear straight commission sales because she never had the drive/aggression/intention to get super busy and make it happen and she faced a very stiff competitive sales environment in the city of ~1 million people because that's how it was at that time in the industry. It was sink or swim and one needed to grab the bull by the horns if they wanted to make something of themselves. She never experienced any sort of misogynistic experiences, gender bias, grudges held against her, being shorted on assistance or plain old treated like a dumb woman. It was a very healthy environment and we let her grow into the home audio department, the store and the company and she had breathing room to make mistakes, learn and we hoped she would become one of us top 10% to 15% sales people that created the majority of the cash flow that kept the company operating, the staff paid and the heat and lights ON.

I also worked for a successful very busy mom & pops sales and service AV store where it was all gender bias, all gender stereotypes, all racial this and racial that rubbish and more that was all propped up and created by the ~52 year old store owner who thrived on that stuff all day everyday. Every chance that he had he pursued that stuff in his personal stories of his sexual exploits, dumb horrible jokes, always biased comments etc . He chased all the women that he encountered including the secretary, the never ending incoming and outgoing strippers that flew in weekly to strip at his stripper bar and his wife of his 3 boys was often looking for him when he went missing which was often and pleading for me to tell her/answer her question, "Where is he this time?" It was a terrible environment. I worked hard and I became the store manager so that he could take off to poor tropical countries and find ~14 year old local female teens to shack up with him in his hotel(s) for a ~month or so at a time each time.

I became very sick and tired of the up to ~several times per week "Show and tell" displays of his toys like the many handguns in the oily canvas bag that he brought to work regularly, the assorted legal and illegal army knives, the expectation that I would enjoy/participate in his daily story telling of his exploits and his conquering all the women while he assumed that I would not tell his wife and generally I simply learned to dislike him and wanted out very much. I went for 3 days on a break and drove in my car for ~580 miles to a major city. I walked into a major AV equipment chain head office, explained myself and was graciously given a immediate meeting with a high level manager who liked me and told me immediately to go to an address where a ex-bank was being rebuilt inside to be the next new AV store for the chain and there I would find the chain owner and if he liked me I would be hired. So I went there, walked in over all the construction materials, dirt, wood, tools etc and found the old man eye balling concrete forms and recognized his strong European accent and he hired me right on the spot after meeting me. I drove back the ~580 miles to meet with my soon to be ex-boss, told him I am leaving ASAP, cleaned out my home that I had not filled with stuff because I knew that I was not decided on life yet, packed the car, got in the car that night and drove back the ~580 miles to the major city to start my new job at the big AV chain store. I was majorly relieved to escape that employer, very happy to have escaped all that racial, sexist, gender bias and whatever else was going on store and looked forward to a new fresh start.

I don't support gender bias, misogyny or racial bias in my personal or professional life. They irritate me and generally make me frustrated, down and I want to leave the environment.

I met female "Audiophiles." They where very active in the hobby. They spent large on very specific gear that they carefully chose to build their systems with. Some where full AV systems buyers with large comprehensive AV systems made up of various brands and types of gear in their effort to get the best most capable system possible. They where all very careful to ensure that I delivered the gear, installed it and set it up. They wanted the full service treatment and they got that. Others where buyers of just speakers, amps, cassette players, CD players etc. They had occupations like a professional classical flutist musician, a wealthy retired ex-owner of a large chain of auto body repair shops, a banker, a doctor, a housewife, a in-house CSIS investigator at the city stock exchange, a shopping mall employee and all sorts of other various things that they did. One thing that I noticed that was common and prevalent to all of them was they searched for trust and reliability and when they found that in me they where very loyal and brought in female relatives and female friends to buy more stuff from me. A few of them even offered available time in their lives and then went out with me for drinks, dinners, concerts, pub'ing and recitals etc. One being a very wealthy older divorced woman that had been buying a ton of gear from me for ~3 years very carefully and gently invited me on her next cruise ship adventure going around the world on an all expenses paid vacation that she said she knew I really needed. She said it would be as friends., I could operate her new camcorder, record everything for her, she wanted my arm and it would be as friends or maybe more if I wanted that but no pressure at all she said. She said she had several nice new muscle cars and she would really appreciate me driving her around the city in them and us hanging out together. So one really never knows who they meet and things can really evolve sometimes.

There are many female audiophiles out and about. They are as I experienced more private about it than many audiophile males are. They they are quieter, more private and more reserved about it. That's just my take and maybe that's a totally wrong take on the matter.

 

[Fregly]

What a well-supported strawman argument!

What argument, what strawman? I made a comment on a bad social science lecture.

 

[Fregly]

There are nations where boys outscore girls in standardized math test, nations where girls outscore boys, and nations where there is no difference.

Well, as an aggregate, men and women score the same within statistical error in iq. But it is on the extremes of the distribution curve where vocational choices are made. For instance, violence is actually rather evenly shared, surprisingly, however the most violent at the extreme end are generally all men, and men are vastly over represented in prison populations; and this works for preference in occupational choice as well, the men most interested in things in the extreme (vs people oriented fields) are at the far end of the curve, so men overpopulate engineering etc. Choice is intellectual level and orientation plus personal preference, and the debate surrounds the personal preference aspect end if it. However it seems rather silly to me to declare it is the Patriarchy or whatever conspiracy that women in general do not want to be coal miners, sewer workers, lumber jacks, high rise iron workers, oil rigers, electrical line workers and on and on .....

 

[dtaylo1066]

I have rarely encountered female audio enthusiasts. Very few are shopping in the hi-fi store, and those at audio shows are usually along with their husbands. And the number of women hi-fi magazine or online reviewers or critics? The there is EveAnna Manley, but many here would say her amps measure like kaka.

But women love live music and concerts, and of course there are copious amounts of female musicians.

I think listening to music is mostly an indivicual or solo event, as in we do it alone, which most men are just fine with. Women are more social than men and typically do not seek out solo behavior.

As to music, I don't find many women who like Neil Young. Always wondered why?

Do we know how many women are registered on ASR? Must be a scant few.

My wife listens to music only as a background pleasantry. And she likes that in the car, house or at the gym. To sit and listen critically to music as a specific endeavor is anathama to her. She couldn't give a crap about a car, either.

 

[olds1959special]

Maybe because women are more emotion-driven and care more about the experience of listening to or making music then how to get there?

 

[Unixbot]

My ex-wife was as much a audiophile as I was. Once she came rushing from the kitchen and asked what have broken? I put in the powercord the wrong way in the outlet.