Hi Caity,
Actually I quite agree with you. My x wife was a ham...we got
into it together, had sequential calls and stuff for a while. One
certainly could see the way the men reacted to her. In a way, it
was kind of funny... watching the guys hit on her right in front of
me, so to speak. Fortunately she was quite comfortable with the
whole thing, so we just enjoyed the humorous aspect of it.
She was interested in the hobby at first because of the public service
side of things, just as you mentioned. Her father was an active ham and
active in the red cross, and so was her older brother. She got interested
in it through them.
One thing that was different was that she became very active on the
HF bands. One doesn't see that very much, as far as I am aware. In
fact she became a highly proficient CW op, and used to chat in that mode
by the hour. Kinda forced me to learn CW so I could armchair copy out
in the living room :):) Unfortunately we are no longer together, but we
had
fun in the hobby for quite some time.
Another trend in the hobby is that the average age of hams seems to be
increasing at an alarming rate. (I'm an old fart of 50 myself). We not
only need more women in the hobby, but also more young people. For about
a four year period I taught ham radio license classes. I also headed up a
local VEC group for some time. Got about 100 people into the hobby. More
people need to be active in recruiting hams, or soon there will be none.
Ok...off my soapbox. I'm glad now that I kidded you Caity, because of
the fact that it has led to a very interesting discussion. I'm sorry if I
stepped
on your toes a little bit... that was just my pitifully misplaced sense of
so called humor.
73 de Gary, AA2IZ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Caitlyn Martin" <ku4qd@earthlink.net>
To: "Gary Hoffman" <ghoffman@spacetech.com>
Cc: <maxmoon@umn.edu>; <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 8:29 PM
Subject: My earlier post -- my last word (I promise!)
> Hi, Gary,
> >
> > Speaking for myself, I love female hams !!
> >
> > We need more.
>
> OK. This is off topic for the reflector so I won't get into a debate
> here, but... have you ever considered why there are so few women in ham
> radio?
>
> Here is some food for thought:
>
> Ham radio isn't marketed to women. Look at ham magazines. If
> you ask most men what is so great about the hobby they'll talk about
> building and fixing radios, morse code, contests to work as many people
> in as short a period of time as possible without actually talking to
> them, and so on. None of that appeals to me nor most women I know. If
> these same guys took a few minutes to look around at the women they do
> know in the hobby and ask them what is appealing about it *to them* they
> would have no problem encouraging women.
>
> Most women I know who are active hams are into public service work and
> emergency communications, which is a form of helping the community.
> Many like getting on the air and meeting people and making friends.
> There seem to be a very decent percentage of women involved in working
> QRP. That tends to tie back into emergency communication. Women seem
> to be disproportionately involved in mentoring and educating. Now, the
> majority of people who do these things are men. Somehow, though, they
> never manage to communicate the wonderful sense of community, of
> helping, of cooperation that can come out of a ham radio license to the
> wider non-ham world. Hence the lack of female participation.
> >
> > ((by the way...you single ? will you marry me??))
> >
> > Just kidding of course. :)
>
> I know you are kidding. OTOH, I have been hit on at almost every
> hamfest I have ever gone to, and I am neither young nor beautiful.
>
> I don't believe for a minute Max was trying to exclude women by using
> the word "gents" or that there was any deliberate slight on his part.
> There is simply an assumption that ham=male that is made by most
> everyone. My point was to make everyone (not just Max) aware that it
> gets perpetuated and it is neither right nor fair. I don't think Max is
> sexist in the least. I think his choice of language was unfortunate.
>
> It's not the one word "gents". I can point out four or five posts in
> the last few days that were worse. Max had the bad luck to write the
> post that broke the proverbial camel's back. Poor guy. I don't mean to
> pick on you, really.
>
> I work in a very male dominated profession and I happen to also have a
> male dominated hobby. That's fine. I'm comfortable with that. Many
> women wouldn't be. The effect of unintended sexism, though, is to make
> many women feel uncomfortable. We are socialized as girls to defer and
> not to make an issue. So... rather than be uncomfortable we stay away.
>
> I hang out in enough women's technical groups (both online and IRL) to
> know the impact of this sort of language. Most men don't see it as a
> problem and don't realize the impact. Many men then decry the fact that
> its so very hard to get women into the hobby. Well... if you (plural,
> not you personally) don't even realize how you're making it
> uncomfortable for some women then things won't change.
>
> Being hit on by some guy I've never even talked to except maybe once or
> twice on the air is way more uncomfortable than poor choice of language,
> BTW :)
>
> If you want to discuss this let's take it off list and leave the
> discussion here to Ten Tec radios. I hope this post puts the on-list
> discussion to bed.
>
> My post did do one good thing: it sure made a lot of y'all think :)
>
> 73,
> Caity
> KU4QD
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