Why are there no female Audiophiles?

[pseudoid]

Generalizations:
IF there was a current 'demographically' dominant species in EE profession, and
IF this species was trained for managing electrons, and thus
IF they were not specifically trained for their 'social skills', and
IF they are objectively inclined, and
IF they are the shy type who don't get out much
Then-and-only-then, They can almost be considered handicapped -- IF not doomed -- in the dating/family scenes.

No, I was talking about my own personal disabilities.
So, my best recommendation would be to learn the art of making the opposite sex do the asking for dates!
In our next session, I will reveal my recommendations for making your mate appreciate not just the music but also the hardware.
evilgrin.gif

 

[Digby]

and pairing that with other research documenting how girls are disproportionately steered away/discouraged from math and STEM pursuits.

what research?

it seems to me a reasonable de facto hypothesis that women are more often than men discouraged from pursuing this hobby in a wide variety of subtle and non-subtle ways, intentionally and unconsciously, and so on.

such as?

Before you (or she) ask, there should have been plenty of non-verbal communication, gestures, suggestions, interactions, actual talking... all the obversions that should give you at least a bit of a clue if the other person could or couldn't be interested (the latter being much more apparent). Even then, nothing is guaranteed because many people often either over or under interpret these clues. But, at least you need to have some.....

This stuff that is so obvious, we can take it as a given. All of what you said is implied (unspoken) in what I said. When I said a man cannot know, I meant he cannot know for certain, without question. This is all rather pointless digression from the main point imo.

I can understand, because you are French, you may not have noticed that I implied as much, but I don't see how going over the ins and outs of dating is going to explain why there are few women in this hobby, unless we all have to date a women first, before she can begin appreciating audio equipment?

 

[Digby]

*ALERT* *ALERT*

I am, as likely you are, rather bored of going round in circles chasing tails. Has anyone got some concrete suggestions as to what would increase female participation in our dear hobby and why? Brief list format would do. Then we could discuss/debate/argue and might be able to collectively steer this ship back in the right direction. Thank you.

 

[pseudoid]

what research?

LoL!
You provided some of your related research findings; unfortunately, they may have become an OCD issue; due to length.
I provided some of my own findings (along w/references) and those turned into noise or fell on deaf ears.
Should we worry? I think not.

 

[pseudoid]

A neighbor is soon to become an RN.
When asked why nursing, he had replied that it is a good environment to find a mate for starting a family.
He also had this smirk on his mug because the RN salaries have gone sky-high since Covid.

"Oh stop it! ...You are such a misogynist!"?

Win-win!

 

[tmtomh]

what research?

such as?

This stuff that is so obvious, we can take it as a given. All of what you said is implied (unspoken) in what I said. When I said a man cannot know, I meant he cannot know for certain, without question. This is all rather pointless digression from the main point imo.

I can understand, because you are French, you may not have noticed that I implied as much, but I don't see how going over the ins and outs of dating is going to explain why there are few women in this hobby, unless we all have to date a women first, before she can begin appreciating audio equipment?

Gendered socialization of children

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

Women's treatment in online fora, including unwanted advances

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

Barriers to women in STEM and engineering

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

Is society sexist?

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

And some interesting results when using "safe online environment for women" as the seach query:

Google Scholar

scholar.google.com

 

[Axo1989]

Here's an union report (and since it's ASR, some graphs) about gender discriminations and sexual harassment in a major Hi-Fi chain store in Australia:
https://raffwu.org.au/wp-content/up...ion-Sexual-Harrassment-at-JB-Hi-Fi-RAFFWU.pdf

View attachment 310119


View attachment 310120

Wow, that was pretty interesting, especially as I've been to JB Hi-Fi more than once.

Fyi for non-Australians, it's a general electronic goods retail chain, so I've been there for TV and computer things more than actual Hi-Fi. Gaudy and brash inside, I more often end up at David Jones or Apple respectively, for much better atmosphere and service. JB is usually pretty busy (big age range among staff, lots of young staff too). I wouldn't want to work there, to my sensibilities the general vibe sucks. Even before reading that.

In any case, no excuses. Wonder how it compares to similar retail chains?

 

[MattHooper]

Digby

And I'm not attributing anything below to you...just using your post to riff off of.

*ALERT* *ALERT*

I am, as likely you are, rather bored of going round in circles chasing tails. Has anyone got some concrete suggestions as to what would increase female participation in our dear hobby and why?

I'm of two minds about that.

There is a sense in which I don't necessarily care about increasing female participation in the hobby. And it is in this sense:

There are threads that always pop up in audiophile forums, including this one, along the lines of "how do we get more young people interested in the high end audio hobby?"
As I mentioned in one of those threads here....why? People have their own interests, for their own reasons, why must we proselytize and try to recruit people? Do we need to feel more validated or something?

My friend is a motorcycle enthusiast. I don't care for motorcycles. Nothing against my friend or his motorcycle compatriots...it's just not something I'm interested in. And I really don't need him trying to proselytize to me why I ought to get in to motorcycles, thank-you-very-much. Nor does my wife have anything against me or my audio buddies. She doesn't join us because high end audio gear just doesn't interest her. I'm not going to spend time hand wringing about that and proselytizing to get her to enjoy it. Just as I don't need her to rope me in to her Taylor Swift fandom.

So...IF it's the case that, generally speaking, women aren't generally interested in high end gear....THEN I don't see why we have to become like an advertising agency to draw them in to the hobby, or proselytize about it. People do what interests them.

HOWEVER....

IF it's the case that there really are significant numbers of women who are interested in high end audio, or who would be inclined but are put off by some sort of systematic or prevelant barrier....THEN....I think we need to try to uncover any of these barriers to women in the hobby and do our best to remove them and welcome women (and that would include adjusting the attitudes of male audiophiles, if that turns out to be one significant impediment). There shouldn't be barriers or impediments, of any kind, to someone expressing their interest, or from developing an interest.

I would like to see more woman in the hobby. For essentially the same reason I would enjoy it if my wife shared my interest in the hobby - it's nice when other people are interested in the same things. And it would be nice to see the demographic diversify....insofar as the interest was actually diversified!

But aside from that, I'm not sure I see things from the point of view, almost like marketing, "We need to get more women in to this hobby, how do we do it?"

There may absolutely be an argument, idea I wasn't considering there. And I can perhaps intuit some arguments for a type of proselytizing.

 

[Axo1989]

In terms of general vibe—to the extent that may bear on this subject—a while back reading the humour thread here I started hitting ignore on posts that mentioned WAF un-ironically, or had other jokes about women, or were a bit too retro/creepy (to my delicate sensibilities at least) and ended up with whole pages that were blank (I didn't leave all those people on ignore, because other posts were interesting—some stayed though).

Doesn't answer the question why it's so predominantly men that are interested in hi-fi in the first place, but I did wonder 'what am I doing here' just a bit at that point. Still here though.

 

[pseudoid]

+1 to @MattHooper.

And I can perhaps intuit some arguments for a type of proselytizing.

IMO evangelism is considered a noble endeavor but I am not certain if it breaches into the proselytizing.
As long as it is not done for profit, without coercion and one practices what they preach.

My every attempt (in about 8) to ween people out of their TV-sound has failed miserably and I did not even want them to go "audiophile"!
Independent of Male/Female!

 

[Swtoby]

My every attempt (in about 8) to ween people out of their TV-sound has failed miserably and I did not even want them to go "audiophile"!
Independent of Male/Female!

I've had similar experiences. I'm thinking there might be too much over analysis in this thread. While I don't think it's true that there are no female audiophiles, check out the Audio Belle on YouTube as well as on the business end with Sherri at Geshelli, I think for the most part audio is niche. People in general don't seem interested, man or woman. Same as my other interest in movie soundtracks. I get bemused looks when I tell people I collect Jerry Goldsmith scores. Some pursuits just don't have widespread popularity.

 

[Axo1989]

I've had similar experiences. I'm thinking there might be too much over analysis in this thread. While I don't think it's true that there are no female audiophiles, check out the Audio Belle on YouTube as well as on the business end with Sherri at Geshelli, I think for the most part audio is niche. People in general don't seem interested, man or woman. Same as my other interest in movie soundtracks. I get bemused looks when I tell people I collect Jerry Goldsmith scores. Some pursuits just don't have widespread popularity.

Yes, for sure.

I've also suggested modest nice-looking alternatives—like KEF LSX instead of soundbar+sub—with no real take-up. With a couple of exceptions (musos or peeps with the odd floor-stander stereo) acquaintances/friends/family go for the latter, or maybe Sonos. Hi-fi isn't a mainstream interest at all, as we know. Which makes sense in a way because bluetooth speakers and earbuds/headphones do the job. The marginal utility of increased expenditure doesn't add up for most people. And apartment dwellers can't crank up the volume, where they'd more likely notice the difference.

Edit: and it's chicken-and-egg really, over here people buy what they see in JB HI-Fi, rather than go to an actual hi-fi store. And JB stock/display what sells in volume. Rich people go to DJs where they can see B&O (or an actual hi-fi or B&O store) but capitalism doesn't provide the working/middle class with much surplus budget these days.

 

[theREALdotnet]

In STEM fields, there is a combination of hard data and strong hypotheses to explain gender disparities in entry, and gender disparities in persistence and thriving post-entry. Roughly speaking, the data boils down to what I wrote in the comment you are responding to: fewer mentorship opportunities; tendency for senior STEM researchers to offer male students positions in their labs more often than female students (documented, among other means, by controlled studies akin to those done to test discrimination in housing markets: applications from fictitious grad students sent to senior researchers, with identical student resumes/CVs and identical cover letters, and only gender different); and so on. The strong hypothesis comes from taking note of the well-established scholarly literature on how parents (and family members, and the society in general) start to apply gender roles and expectations to their children as early as infancy, and pairing that with other research documenting how girls are disproportionately steered away/discouraged from math and STEM pursuits. There's also data on women students' majors at categories of colleges and universities graduate, and women's colleges leave co-ed ones in the dust when it comes to the percentage of their overall women student bodies that graduate with STEM degrees.

Of course academic study and professional work is not the same as a hobby or online discussion - I acknowledge that. But given that women experience the same (or at least very similar) types of behavior in online discussion and communities as they do in the society in general and in STEM fields, it seems to me a reasonable de facto hypothesis that women are more often than men discouraged from pursuing this hobby in a wide variety of subtle and non-subtle ways, intentionally and unconsciously, and so on.

With all that said, it is not my view that "there would be just as many female audiophiles if it weren’t for unconscious bias and gendered expectations and assumptions placed on young men and women." But it is my view that were it not for those factors, there would indeed be a lot more women audiophiles than there are now.

And I would also say that if there were significantly more women in the hobby, the hobby would also likely look at least somewhat different than it does now. If fundamental gender differences in how people are socialized exist (and they most certainly do), then those differences don't cease to play a role when individuals socialized that way become involved in something. So based on that, I'd presume a critical mass of women in the hobby would change it, in ways I wouldn't venture to try to guess or predict.

Thank you, that was a well-reasoned reply.

 

[MattHooper]

In terms of general vibe—to the extent that may bear on this subject—a while back reading the humour thread here I started hitting ignore on posts that mentioned WAF un-ironically, or had other jokes about women, or were a bit too retro/creepy (to my delicate sensibilities at least) and ended up with whole pages that were blank (I didn't leave all those people on ignore, because other posts were interesting—some stayed though).

Doesn't answer the question why it's so predominantly men that are interested in hi-fi in the first place, but I did wonder 'what am I doing here' just a bit at that point. Still here though.

I hope you stick around

I know what it's like to be a sheep among the wolves. I've been in a number of forums where I defended beliefs that were, to say the least, not shared by the group (that includes everything from defending objectivism in heavily subjective audiophile forums, to being an atheist in religious forums (a welcome atheist, btw)).

I'm a Liberal Canuck yet still a 20 year member of a MMA forum that always had a locker-room vibe, skewed almost entirely male and testosterone charged, and generally USA conservative. Once Trump came along, and political polarization in general, AND differences over the Pandemic, wow did things turn rough! (E.g. MAGA folks thinking you are everything they hate....) Felt like being a goldfish dipped in a school of piranhas! The level of vitriol would make anything in this place look like a bus full of nuns. But I've stayed. Never much bothered by the rough and tumble, there remain some very good peeps in the forum still, and I do prefer to get outside my bubble and interact with people who see things totally different than I do, even vehemently.

How much direct relevance that has to a male/female divide, and comfort zones related, I don't know....

 

[MattHooper]

On the humour front...

Here's a long time blog written by the wife of a pretty extreme audiophile (the audiophile being an audiogon member I believe).

I LOVE her writing. So witty! I never get through one of her posts without some laughs!

The Audiophile's Wife​

A gathering place for the victims of sound.

The Audiophile's Wife

A gathering place for the victims of sound.

www.theaudiophileswife.com

 

[Axo1989]

I hope you stick around

I know what it's like to be a sheep among the wolves. I've been in a number of forums where I defended beliefs that were, to say the least, not shared by the group (that includes everything from defending objectivism in heavily subjective audiophile forums, to being an atheist in religious forums (a welcome atheist, btw)).

I'm a Liberal Canuck yet still a 20 year member of a MMA forum that always had a locker-room vibe, skewed almost entirely male and testosterone charged, and generally USA conservative. Once Trump came along, and political polarization in general, AND differences over the Pandemic, wow did things turn rough! (E.g. MAGA folks thinking you are everything they hate....) Felt like being a goldfish dipped in a school of piranhas! The level of vitriol would make anything in this place look like a bus full of nuns. But I've stayed. Never much bothered by the rough and tumble, there remain some very good peeps in the forum still, and I do prefer to get outside my bubble and interact with people who see things totally different than I do, even vehemently.

How much direct relevance that has to a male/female divide, and comfort zones related, I don't know....

Thanks! Well I'm learning how to stick around without talking bait carefully/carelessly laid down by some of the protected class of old-timers, so I may even survive (I did get a two-week holiday after reporting a couple of anti-woke rants and a transphobic post, which was the closest I've come to storming off shouting "nazi bar").

One of the good things about here (apart from the actual subject matter) is that people aren't afraid to have a decent in-depth conversation at times. I'm younger than the Facebook generations, and was never drawn to Twitter's short-form posting, and have so far avoided being drawn in to local community fora (don't post where you live is a rule I find useful) so social media isn't my general thing. But specialist forms I understand. It would be interesting/weird though getting into a generally social/political conservative one (I don't always have your grace and tact).

Anyway on-topic I agree with this too:

Why no female audiophiles? I don't care. If anything I wish there were more men involved in it, because in my reality out in the real world I'm the ONLY one who's into this hobby. For me, more men involved would make awkward social situations go more smoothly. It would be nice to regularly encounter guys who can discuss how to integrate a subwoofer with full range mains in a 2.1 theater system without it sounding like crap, or talk about the nuances of planar magnetic vs dynamic headphone drivers. Instead it's all about whether or not I watched the game. The conversation ends quickly as my eyes glaze over in ignorance and I wind up reaching for another beer to cope with the boredom.

Not the "don't care" part so much but for sure more people, as well as more women, would be a (good) change.

 

[Axo1989]

On the humour front...

Here's a long time blog written by the wife of a pretty extreme audiophile (the audiophile being an audiogon member I believe).

I LOVE her writing. So witty! I never get through one of her posts without some laughs!

The Audiophile's Wife​

A gathering place for the victims of sound.

The Audiophile's Wife

A gathering place for the victims of sound.

www.theaudiophileswife.com

Ok I'm going to waste some hours reading this I expect.

Edit: yep. Also it's an actual oldskool blog rather than a forum. There used to be this great Safari extension thing called ShutUp! which basically hid comments on any web page. I f*cking loved it. It didn't make the transition to the current Safari extension architecture though. Vale, great thing.

 

[theREALdotnet]

Fyi for non-Australians, it's a general electronic goods retail chain, so I've been there for TV and computer things more than actual Hi-Fi. Gaudy and brash inside

Yes, and I reckon they’ve become much worse in recent years. I used to go there a lot when they had aisles and aisles of CDs and DVDs. They used to have a wall full of AVRs. All of that has shrunk to a pittance or gone away altogether. I don’t think they have much left at all that I’m interested in. I believe the last things I bought there were some small kitchen appliances

 

[Axo1989]

Yes, and I reckon they’ve become much worse in recent years. I used to go there a lot when they had aisles and aisles of CDs and DVDs. They used to have a wall full of AVRs. All of that has shrunk to a pittance or gone away altogether. I don’t think they have much left at all that I’m interested in. I believe the last things I bought there were some small kitchen appliances

I had forgotten. I used to enjoy CD browsing/buying there. There and also at Borders (which didn't survive). Ahhh the old days.

 

[MattHooper]

Ok I'm going to waste some hours reading this I expect.

Edit: yep. Also it's an actual oldskool blog rather than a forum. There used to be this great Safari extension thing called ShutUp! which basically hid comments on any web page. I f*cking loved it. It didn't make the transition to the current Safari extension architecture though. Vale, great thing.

That's a funny extension!

It would probably save me a lot of time if I used one.

I do view a lot of youtube content and I refuse to get in to commenting under videos (especially responding to comments under videos), because boy if I did....that rabbit hole would be the ultimate time suck.