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Why men think there are few women into audio?

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Marantz Fan

Marantz Fan

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There are many male dominated arenas that are also enjoyed by women. Why is audio different. It seems that very few women are really into audio.

My wife shoots, races a Porsche, published artist, works in a tech field but cares nothing about audio. In fact I know no women into audio even though many are excellent musicians and have better ears than most men I know.

What gives?
 
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Marantz Fan said:
There are many male dominated arenas that are also enjoyed by women. Why is audio different. It seems that very few women are really into audio.

My wife shoots, races a Porsche, published artist, works in a tech field but cares nothing about audio. In fact I know no women into audio even though many are excellent musicians and have better ears than most men I know.

What gives?
Click to expand...

No payoff for it?
 
My wife is a talented musician with good ears and only cares if it sounds good. She listens to music differently than I do. I listen technically. She knows there's a difference between the living room sound and the computer sound, but loud or quiet, more or less is as much as she cares about.
 
Why should they we do it for them!

I know quite a few men that are great chefs, and because of that, their wifes and/or girlfriends don't cook, same thing.
 
Without trying to make this sound sexist, it's not as big of a deal to many of them. My wife only cares that it sounds OK. She knows the difference between bad and good, and good and great, but really doesn't care all that much. She's more into what's playing and as long as it doesn't sound terrible, she's OK with it. She has never moved a control, other than a function or volume control, in her life.

That being said, I've known (and still do) a few gals that look at it like many guys do. But most of these gals are mechanically inclined or "techy" and want to know how stuff works. They can be "girly girls" when they want to, one of them looks like a model, but they can be (and are) as picky about sound as I am.
 
Seems your wife could probably answer the question better than we can...

My wife said "I don't know... Beats me... " She says appreciates good music and a good system, but she isn't going to analyze anything... She said she just likes music is all..

Then she asked why more women like to bake than men, even though men like to BBQ?
 
It may well be listening habits. Some of us listen to equipment, while its possible that more women listen to music. Its not just women though, there are lots of people who listen to music and don't give a hoot about what it plays on. Its us nutty obsessives that play with cables and speaker positioning and all that stuff. Somehow I think we are doing it wrong sometimes.
 
Just being ridiculous. I also doubt many would say I lack flair so thers that as well.

I'm sure a case could be made for some kind of social conditioning as a reason so few women seem to be into this hobby. Though as with most things there's likely more to it than that.
 
Marantz Fan said:
There are many male dominated arenas that are also enjoyed by women. Why is audio different. It seems that very few women are really into audio.

What gives?
Click to expand...

Academic answer:

my summary--wimpy nerds get some gender identity through some twisted logic.

NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies

<NORMA01 / 2011
Audiophiles: Gender reproduction in a technological ‘nerd’ culture
avBo Nilsson
Abstract
The point of departure for this article is a collective dominated by men; people interested in listening to music and sound through high fidelity (hi-fi) stereo equipment (audiophiles). The hi-fi culture actually attracts many different categories of people, such as music lovers, record buyers and collectors, hi-fi show visitors, designers, and journalists, but numerically most of them are men. According to some descriptions the hi-fi collective is also dominated by ‘nerds’ or ‘geeks’, categories associated with a marginal masculinity. This article examines, with the help of ethnographical methods and media material, how an audiophile discourse articulated in the hi-fi culture reproduces gender, especially the relation between men, masculinity and technology. The theoretical point of departure is discourse theory and a perspective of logics, which can promote an understanding of the principles for gender reproduction. However, the hi-fi culture is also an illustration of counter-logics, showing how gender (re)production is an unstable process located in the space between the subjective and the discursive level.

Keywords: Audiophile discourse,logics,gender,masculinity,technology
 
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Marantz Fan said:
There are many male dominated arenas that are also enjoyed by women. Why is audio different. It seems that very few women are really into audio
What gives?
Click to expand...

there is a tweak theory. makes audiophiles look worse than the gender identity hypothesis

the book is Music and Technoculture. there is a chapter on Introduction to Tweaking Theory

the key point of the chapter is that Men tweak audio or put great amounts of work into choosing components and accesories to make themselves feel like they have special knowledge and power, and can go to absurd lenghts to do it. (Appropriation). kind of like a dog peeing on a fire hydrant to mark it as his. I have never seen a female dog pee on a fire hydrant.

you can read a few pages on Google books. Illustrates why some audiophiles can believe stuff that makes no sense
 
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A quick accounting of stereo eq sales over the last 30 yrs accounts for just 1 female that came to me for Gear...She was ,what I strongly believed at the time,a lesbian,which was confirmed by her later when she admitted that her female partner couldn't change a fuse in the Marantz receiver I sold her..by the way her occupation...prison guard..lol
 
Okay... Here I go....

Since the door has been opened here, I'm just gonna walk right in.

What's at the top of the AK homepage? A pair of bikinied breasts. Oh, and a vacuum tube.
What do a lot of AKers have as their avatars? Butts and breasts.
All the trappings of a boys only club.

Is that your wife, daughter or granddaughter at the top of the page, or in that avatar? If not, it's someone's, that's for sure.

I have a wife and three daughters, and I shudder at what they are presented with on a daily basis as examples of what they should aspire to.

:thumbsdn:
 
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