For Men Only

I thought David's original question was interesting enough but then the thread has produced some very dubious assertions based on partial observations that seem to be focused upon work or study environments. I think people are good at spotting things that confirm their beliefs and good at ignoring things that refute them.

This is probably why the myth that men = empirical/technical, women = irrational/artistic persists.

For the record, I'm a man who quit chemistry at school as early as possible because it was too hard (chickened out), I shoot only with natural light and I've just washed up and put our boy to bed. My wife's at work and earlier she did some work toward her maths degree.

winger said:

I also offer one huge reason why many believe women have little interest in learning the technical aspects - from an early age in school, girls are usually pushed towards the house stuff and boys are pushed towards the scientific and outside stuff. Studies have shown that this leads towards both sexes believing that girls don't understand the technical parts as well (just read an article yesterday, in fact). In school, boys are usually the ones who speak up, not the girls. Girls are taught to be quiet and listen. Boys are taught that being raucous is fine. Women who are used to being around groups of men can usually dish it out as well as take it, and will stand up for themselves (as we're seeing here). Just because you think women are shying away from the technical stuff by not posting relentlessly about it, doesn't mean we don't like the technical part. More women do need to be pushed towards science in school - any of you with girls had better be thinking about this, too. It takes overcoming a social bias, though. And apparently a world-wide one.

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Amen. I have two grand daughters. I've been paying attention in the toy stores. "Science" themed toys have pictures of boys on them, or maybe a boy doing the activity and a girl watching. There are some "girl" versions of popular toys that encourage science and engineering skills - they are coloured pink and purple, feature flowers or kittens, and are dumbed down (ie fewer moving parts).
Hard to believe these attitudes are still so pervasive and insidious.

Leaving the gear (or 'junk') point alone for a sec, there might be more notable women in photography than homosexual men...?

A point of interest however; Minor White (the homosexual man and great photographer) said film is "seemingly inert yet pregnant with possibilities".

In my experience, women like getting things done, men like thinking about getting things done - hence male dominated forums full of pontificating.

sly said:

Amen. I have two grand daughters. I've been paying attention in the toy stores. "Science" themed toys have pictures of boys on them, or maybe a boy doing the activity and a girl watching. There are some "girl" versions of popular toys that encourage science and engineering skills - they are coloured pink and purple, feature flowers or kittens, and are dumbed down (ie fewer moving parts).
Hard to believe these attitudes are still so pervasive and insidious.

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Yes! I have a 3 year old son and two nieces. Most of the "boy" toys need putting together or are designed for that to be the fun part (blocks, Legos, small motorized things) - very gadget oriented. The "girl" toys have flowers, fashion, pink, princesses and are already to use - no putting together. They came out with a Lego something aimed at girls and it's PINK. I do believe a girl complained about it being pink, too.
As a child, I played with my brother's Legos, climbed trees, and rode my bike all over town - I've never been a "girly girl". But I felt a fair amount of pressure from my female cousins and some classmates to want to play with Barbie dolls.

There's a lot of this issue that's really got more to do with nurture than nature - and I don't think many people realize that.

sly said:

Amen. I have two grand daughters. I've been paying attention in the toy stores. "Science" themed toys have pictures of boys on them, or maybe a boy doing the activity and a girl watching. There are some "girl" versions of popular toys that encourage science and engineering skills - they are coloured pink and purple, feature flowers or kittens, and are dumbed down (ie fewer moving parts).
Hard to believe these attitudes are still so pervasive and insidious.

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I work in a cutting-edge high-tech science-and-technology environment and can assure you that depite those stereotypes the number of women in science and technology is quite large in number. And, believe me, none of them just got there on their good looks... they are just as hard working and competent as the men. If one looks at the scientist/engineer popualtion of my company by age it is clear that the older folks are mostly men. As the older folks retire and are replaced there is much greater gender and racial diversity. Sure, part of that is programmed by "selective HR practices" but in general anyone hired really has the skills to do the job. What really makes life hard is when folks count numbers of women, minorities, etc and talk about that instead of talking about skills, experience, and technology (as JBrunner pointed out earlier).

And now on to gun shows-I've never been to one myself but can't help wondering if they're full of men.

ann said:

You all need to go out and make images, use that equipment !

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Did it! Got a late start (yacking here in the morning, then stopped by the darkroom to start the prep for pouring some carbon tissue tonight), but did get out and make two exposures of one image (4x10). First one at f64 for 30 minutes and the other at F45 for a hour. Wandered around during the exposures, laid down for a while on the forest floor listening to the rain (not much coming down to the ground) with the sound of the creek and the ocean in the far background.

Light was flucuating a little. I was going to do make another image -- full frame 8x10, but as it was already 4:30 when I finished the last one, the light would have died before I got enough light on the film. I'll develop the film tonight (got a couple sheets of 8x10 of my boys at the beach a couple days ago to do, too). Then I need to decide if I want to try to print tonight also -- but might just save that for tomorrow.

One of the reasons I quit the US Forest Service was because advancement possibilities dropped considerably due to court-ordered (well-deserved, too) preference toward women. Thank the goddess for that! I loved being out in the wilderness building trails, etc, but was not looking forward to moving more into office work.

ann said:

You all need to go out and make images, use that equipment !

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made a rubbing the other day
and a print from it today !

David Lyga said:

My opinion was, and remains, that since the age of chivalry was assassinated by women's liberation we should welcome women as equals and support their rights on a level playing field; but a playing field that ALSO removes the previous advantages that 'made up' for their inequality in the past

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in bold is the part that might make people think you're sexist, underlined is probably why you are... in case you were still wondering

winger said:

I also offer one huge reason why many believe women have little interest in learning the technical aspects - from an early age in school, girls are usually pushed towards the house stuff and boys are pushed towards the scientific and outside stuff. Studies have shown that this leads towards both sexes believing that girls don't understand the technical parts as well (just read an article yesterday, in fact). In school, boys are usually the ones who speak up, not the girls. Girls are taught to be quiet and listen. Boys are taught that being raucous is fine. Women who are used to being around groups of men can usually dish it out as well as take it, and will stand up for themselves (as we're seeing here). Just because you think women are shying away from the technical stuff by not posting relentlessly about it, doesn't mean we don't like the technical part. More women do need to be pushed towards science in school - any of you with girls had better be thinking about this, too. It takes overcoming a social bias, though. And apparently a world-wide one.

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This is sadly only too true. The only thing I'd say is that this social bias discourages girls before they might even want to learn the technical stuff - helping perpetuate the idea thereafter, it's all depressingly circular.

For a thread containing claims that men are more technically minded and logical in their thinking, there seem to be a lot of logical fallacies flying around...

batwister said:

In my experience, women like getting things done, men like thinking about getting things done - hence male dominated forums full of pontificating.

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I agree with you. Somebody else would say that your statement is patronising toward men and shows a misandric attitude.

I would say that yours is an opinion and, as such, perfectly able to live in a forum (misandric or not). I see a lot of misandry in this forum and even in this thread, but I consider it a natural and legitimate way of expressing one's thought. I don't weight others' opinions on a moral or socially-acceptable scale. This is what pisses me off, the continuous fingerpointing of supposed-to-be unacceptable attitudes or opinions.

Furthermore, I agree with your quotation above word by word.
I did note, in my experience, that men tend to have a much more abstract and theoretical approach to things, while woman tend to do things more in a "hands-down" fashion.

Man, even when playing football, tend to be very interested in the different behaviour of different balls. Woman would tend not to give a pence, unless, that is, they are attending a course on football manufacturing.

I see a difference in men and woman mentality regarding a lot of things. I don't know up to which extent this difference is due to nature or nurture, but I see a difference. Raising a thread over this, as David did, is not patronising, or sexist, or misogynist, is just exchange of thoughts.

Reading some of the comments about how females are steered away from the technical side of things as youngsters makes me feel as though I must have had a rather odd upbringing. The massive advantage to growing up dirt poor is that you make your own fun.... and making a race track in a barren garden bed for one's matchbox cars, climbing trees and building cubbyhouses out of old fence palings and whatever was lying around was a far more enjoyable (and cheap) form of entertainment than trying to scrounge up money to get a complete tea set for a doll with a missing head! I can't say I ever felt pressured to be "girly". Everything was MacGuyvered when I was a child - from toys to necessities - which means all very hands on and dirty. I like to know both the how and the why of everything so photography is a good fit for me in that respect.

I joined this forum because I LOVE reading about how others overcome obstacles - whether it be setting up lighting scrounged up from common household objects to getting the best print from very old papers (all I have ready access to and all I can really afford.) I can't think of a single time when I've looked at WHO was posting the information and either raised or lowered my estimation of its validity based on the gender of the poster. Quite simply, I'm just grateful that there are so many people here who are so incredibly generous with their time, knowledge and personal experience. THAT is the draw card to APUG for me - the wealth of living knowledge. I've read every book I can get my hands on when I have a question, a concern or a mere curiosity.... but reading books doesn't allow someone to say, "But what if...?" and receive a response. To me this forum is the joy of an interactive library....walking, talking tomes of information who happily open their covers, share their stories and will cheerfully tack an appendix or two to the end of the story if something is still a little unclear.

It's a blessing.... so thank you to ALL of you for being so generous with your time. As has been noted by quite a few people in this thread, everyone's time is precious and prioritised accordingly so it truly is a gift when people choose to spend it here sharing with everyone else.

Thank you!

Some of you guys are driving me away with your crazy bigotted sexist attitudes... and I'm a guy. No wonder the women are scarce on this forum!

Alan W said:

And now on to gun shows-I've never been to one myself but can't help wondering if they're full of men.

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The majority of venders and buyers at the annual local gun show are men. However, a fair proportion of my female friends in farming country consider a gun as just one of many tools to be competently used when necessary rather than as a symbol for something that Freud might have elaborated on.

For concrete information on the gender of actively creative people, I maintain the mail list for both a visual artist's group and a writer's group. About 10% on the lists and who actively participate in events are men. In a list of 33 area writers who have actually published books, 15 were men. Some of these books involved military combat, which skews the statistics. I sell photographs at an annual arts & crafts fair, and most of my customers are women.

Since no one is exposed to the entire population, I would imagine opinions expressed in this thread are based on the group of people he or she associates with currently or in the past. All I can say is, group of women I work with and have known are mostly highly logical and very well educated. In fact, when I had to ask a mathematical (calculus level) question, the first person I called was a woman. Just recently, I had a lengthy conversation about "pointers to pointers" in C (if you know IT, you know it's a confusing subject) with my colleague who is a woman.

Some of the opinions expressed in this thread are very toxic - not because the opinions contained in it but the way it is expressed is rude and condescending. I hope they don't talk like this in person. I would also like to mention, being PC (politically correct) and being considerate (or just maintaining decorum) when speaking is not the same thing.

This is probably the saddest thread I've seen in APUG for quite a while. With that, I'm out of this thread. Thanks.

tkamiya said:

In fact, when I had to ask a mathematical (calculus level) question, the first person I called was a woman. Just recently, I had a lengthy conversation about "pointers to pointers" in C (if you know IT, you know it's a confusing subject) with my colleague who is a woman.

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... but probably because they know their stuff, not because of their gender.

[video=youtube;LCV9J_qoDZY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCV9J_qoDZY&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Hey Dungeons and Dragons is great, they are no women for me.
As long as it the board game.