[Corella]

Good question risen! An American said to a German recently: Corporate Germany is a white old man. And right he is, we are much behind in supporting women into leadership positions. As far this is under progress, my impression is all cliches about change in higher levels where ever, about better communication skills, team work, community awareness, less selfishness and what ever died away immediately. With the background of a biology-education i´m not surprised, since we´re used to a 50:50 quote long ago so i had some experience before. Also i have some insight within the German Greens who too have a healthy quote and carefully supporting it to keep within higher levels. This could be a hint, that the phenomenon is not caused by the subjects itself. And as soon women take over, the behavior shows hardly anything new. So what to say, i´ve no idea.

However: there is much show off and less real discussion, which reminds to other typical young male paramour behavior. Women too drive personhood prosthesis like modern picups aso. but they obviously drive those a different style, don´t they? I´d guess somewhere in this direction...

[basil_hayden]

Internet discussion boards hasve always been and will always be 90% male and 10% female.

If you want to find where all the broads went, go to Facebook or a sexcam site.

Women have better things to do than gab on the interwebs.

[Fishman]

Perhaps Basil is correct. But peak oil itself may have something to do with it also. Prior the discussion was prep, prep, prep. Now the discussion turns to the toll that peak oil is bringing about, hunger, unemployment, debt, political turmoil. One discussion seems more palatable to most women. I miss those discussions, Hein,(yes I know, male) if you are out there, your's were some of the best. Smallpox had some of the best also.

[chris89]

I assocate a lot of the sustainability movement with women; especially the activist and permaculture sides. Understanding peak oil could be seen as one (important, but not mainstream) part of that movement. Not just women, but most people in general are more likely to be motivated by environmentalism, lifesyle change and political change. There are lots of less technical, more accessible issues than peak oil which are all part of the same urgent cause. Peak oil makes the case that massive economic and societal change is necessary, whereas I think many women and men have already reached the same conclusion for ethical and envioronmental reasons.

[Loki]

I tend to agree with Fishman's take. There are lots of women interested in what individuals and families can do to prepare for an uncertain future (Sustainable Country, a LATOC spinoff, seems to be >50% female), but the focus of this board as shifted to more "macro" topics, which apparently appeal more to men. I would guess this gender disparity may be one of the main reasons for the harder edge of discussion here.

Ludi is active at SusCo. Shanny is at Malthusia. No idea where Smallpoxgirl wandered off to, I miss her. I saw Threadbare pop back in briefly, not sure if she's here to stay. Blu is Blukatzen (sp?), don't think she's been active in a while.

[vtsnowedin]

As to the ratio of female engineers question. From my experience with a government agency that employs civil engineers and technicians for outdoor site supervision the ratio is about thirty males per female even after decades of affirmative action hiring. Being the gal in charge of a multi million dollar construction project is just not in the dreams and aspirations of many women and of those that try it many soon find they prefer an in office position and apply for them and soon transfer to them.

[davep]

I miss Ludi, Shanny and Smallpoxgirl too. They helped to balance out the slightly over the top testosterone-driven posters.

[Pretorian]

SPG is an asset for any forum for sure. She might as well start her own.

[dinopello]

Since we're namin names, where is mercurygirl ? Two years ago a post and then poof. Then there is uNkNowN ElEmEnt and probably some others I'm forgetting. It's like a cyberspace rapture event.

[Loki]

Yep, mercurygirl and UE, two more I failed to list. Also Lumpy, who was active not too long ago.

I find the preponderance of engineers a bit puzzling, I would have thought engineer types would be more prone to techno-utopian fantasies. Guess not.

[dolanbaker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'Y')ep, mercurygirl and UE, two more I failed to list. Also Lumpy, who was active not too long ago.

I find the preponderance of engineers a bit puzzling, I would have thought engineer types would be more prone to techno-utopian fantasies. Guess not.

[ian807]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Loki', 'I') find the preponderance of engineers a bit puzzling, I would have thought engineer types would be more prone to techno-utopian fantasies. Guess not.

[dinopello]

There are all kinds of Engineering personalities. I'm the "if it ain't broke kind" and there are the ones that always want to tinker with something. There are the optimists and the pessimists (we would say realist). Who would you want to design your space ship, an engineer that is optimistic or pessimistic ?

[Pops]

Looking at Alexa, which is kind of like neilson ratings for the internet, we are pretty balanced gender wise as compared to the average internet denizen. If anything, we skew just slightly more female than average.

TOD & ASPO are way, way more male.

The average PO.com reader is older, off the chart whiter, likelier to be middle income and possessing a college education than the average internet user. Compare that to TOD, energybulletin and ASPO (peakoil.net) that have very high graduate degree percentages and way more $100k+ incomes than average.

I'm not sure how often Alexa re-computes, maybe we look that way because of higher participation of ladies in the past or maybe it's just that our female readers aren't posting.

[Lore]

Alexa is not a good metric to measure by. It's a geek tool that requires the Alexa tool bar to be installed. Alexa is owned by Amazon.com, and is a Microsoft-powered web tool that measures traffic-popularity based on a sampling of about 10 million Internet users.

[2012 Survivalist]

In my experience with forums, women tend to only be interested in LOLs and giving personal advice. They love prepping because questions/answers tend to be focused on what the individual can do.

Men also love providing personal advice, especially if they have skills (like being a mechanic), but they also like to discuss big picture stuff like politics and peak oil.

A women might discuss politics, but it would typically be how their vote affects them personally. And they'll chat about it.

A man might discuss the broader ramifications of a political situation, and they might spend an hour writing a manifesto style post.

I'd be very surprised if there was >5% females here.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'A')lexa is not a good metric to measure by. It's a geek tool that requires the Alexa tool bar to be installed. Alexa is owned by Amazon.com, and is a Microsoft-powered web tool that measures traffic-popularity based on a sampling of about 10 million Internet users.

[FairMaiden]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'B')lu.. don't remember.. was she Russian? I remember a Russian that somebody was rude to and he / she left.
So there's your answer. The forum had some women, but they were driven off by the uncivil attitude around here. As for economics, there's a poster who very rarely posts but knows what's she's talking about -- Floridagirl. Otherwise women don't seem interested in the global derivative timebomb and the latest news that the ECB is doing margin calls (sounds doomy, need to read more on that).

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'A')lexa is not a good metric to measure by. It's a geek tool that requires the Alexa tool bar to be installed. Alexa is owned by Amazon.com, and is a Microsoft-powered web tool that measures traffic-popularity based on a sampling of about 10 million Internet users.