Gender Consciousness

[Starbuck]

as a female, with an androgynous profile picture and name; i find that i am often 'assumed' to be a man.
whether this is because the overall demographic of this site is predominately male, or if it's my style of writing i dont know, but i do find that interesting.

I would agree that there seems to subset of females in the hobby who make excessive anthropomorphisms about their pets, but this is found in people who keep dogs and cats as well. How many men refer to their dogs as their 'kids'? I personally dislike these terms, and i do think it serves to mask some of these females knowledge...

On a related note, today i had a female professor (DVM) in class discussing situational ethics on a case by case basis, and she referred to every animal as a 'kitty' and 'puppy', and that to me was distracting and honestly lowered my opinion of her, albeit unfairly.

I think it is less of an issue of damaging the female reputation and more of an undermining of our credibility as an active part of the community.

[LadyWraith]

I agree completely with Aaron about the anthropomorphism issue with women. And I think that they ARE generally loudest women voices heard. And it is a shame for sure cause there are some down right cool ladies interested in this hobby. From what I've noticed we are a little quieter than the guys too. Not really sure why that is. I haven't personally encountered the nudity and such so I have no real input about that aspect.

[lady_bug87]

Originally Posted by Starbuck

as a female, with an androgynous profile picture and name; i find that i am often 'assumed' to be a man.
whether this is because the overall demographic of this site is predominately male, or if it's my style of writing i dont know, but i do find that interesting.

I would agree that there seems to subset of females in the hobby who make excessive anthropomorphisms about their pets, but this is found in people who keep dogs and cats as well. How many men refer to their dogs as their 'kids'? I personally dislike these terms, and i do think it serves to mask some of these females knowledge...

On a related note, today i had a female professor (DVM) in class discussing situational ethics on a case by case basis, and she referred to every animal as a 'kitty' and 'puppy', and that to me was distracting and honestly lowered my opinion of her, albeit unfairly.

I think it is less of an issue of damaging the female reputation and more of an undermining of our credibility as an active part of the community.

Exactly my point our credibility does suffer

[Aaron_S]

Originally Posted by LadyWraith

I agree completely with Aaron about the anthropomorphism issue with women. And I think that they ARE generally loudest women voices heard. And it is a shame for sure cause there are some down right cool ladies interested in this hobby. From what I've noticed we are a little quieter than the guys too. Not really sure why that is. I haven't personally encountered the nudity and such so I have no real input about that aspect.

You're right. There ARE some wicked ladies. Tracy Barker and Kathy Love spring to mind. Of course there's plenty right here on this forum too!

I don't know why women are quieter but maybe it's because they don't get sucked into the chest beating contests that men easily get drawn into.

I believe the point made by Starbuck and echoed by Lori makes a lot of sense. The credibility suffers and that's a REALLY good way of putting it.