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Women are the most active social networking users, so why are forums male-dominated?
- Thread starter ScOULaris
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Yeah, I know it's a flawed chart for the purpose of this topic. I just wanted some kind of statistical graphic to get us started. Anecdotally, though, do you know women who frequent forums as opposed to other types of social networking sites?
*raises hand*
And I'm far from being the only one. Most of my girl friends were met on various forums (mostly gaming ones funnily). Also I'm an avid user of stackoverflow, read /. when I'm bored and have of course a github account.
Still you should edit your thread title by adding a [Flawed data] or something to indicate that people should be careful of their analysis
entremet
Member
I just don't get why everything must be equal in representation just because.
I do agree that many forums have a boy's club atmosphere and some just are misogynistic plain and simple, howevier, you're not going to perfect representation in gender, race, religion, etc. in every area of the Internet. It's just not going to happen.
I do agree that boards do need to get better a moderating misogynistic views or any insular views in general.
Pinterest is a good example. It's not anti men, but it mostly caters to women due to the higher presence of female users, more female users makes it easier for other female users to feel welcome. "Bird of a feather flock together"
And it's not controversial to say that some interests have a gender bias.
Where that gender bias comes from is another huge discussion, but I believe its sociological and not biology.
I do agree that many forums have a boy's club atmosphere and some just are misogynistic plain and simple, howevier, you're not going to perfect representation in gender, race, religion, etc. in every area of the Internet. It's just not going to happen.
I do agree that boards do need to get better a moderating misogynistic views or any insular views in general.
Pinterest is a good example. It's not anti men, but it mostly caters to women due to the higher presence of female users, more female users makes it easier for other female users to feel welcome. "Bird of a feather flock together"
And it's not controversial to say that some interests have a gender bias.
Where that gender bias comes from is another huge discussion, but I believe its sociological and not biology.
JimmyRustler
Member
Social networking is mainly about what people someone knows do, forums are mainly about specific topics discussed by people not knowing each other.
I see a huge difference here.
I see a huge difference here.
blame space
Banned
I love interests.
Wait, you mean you all aren't women here?
My fantasies...ruined...
EDIT: After looking at these further (AND I'M NOT MAKING ANY JUDGMENT, JUST AN OBSERVATION), as you go further down the graph you move from "Look at ME" to "Look at what I have to say on this other thing someone posted."
Pinterest - look at what I like
Goodreads - look at what I read
Blogger - look at what I wrote
Tagged - look at Me
Tumblr - look at these things I liked
MySpace - look at Me
Facebook - look at Me
Twitter - look at Me
WordPress - look at what I wrote
Yelp - look at My opinions on others' places/things
Flickr - look at Me and these things I did
Hi5 - look at Me
deviantART - look at what I made
StumbleUpon - (this is still a thing?) uhh...look at these things some algorithm found for Me?
LinkedIn - look at Me, professionally
LiveJournal - look at My thoughts
Last.fm - look at My favorite music
Quora - see My opinions on things others posted
Reddit - see My opinions on things others posted
Orkut - look at Me
Github - see My opinions on things others posted
Stack Overflow - see My opinions on things others posted
Hacker News - see My opinions on things others posted
Slashdot - see My opinions on things others posted
I suppose it's just more about <--sharing information-----------------------digesting information-->.
My fantasies...ruined...
EDIT: After looking at these further (AND I'M NOT MAKING ANY JUDGMENT, JUST AN OBSERVATION), as you go further down the graph you move from "Look at ME" to "Look at what I have to say on this other thing someone posted."
Pinterest - look at what I like
Goodreads - look at what I read
Blogger - look at what I wrote
Tagged - look at Me
Tumblr - look at these things I liked
MySpace - look at Me
Facebook - look at Me
Twitter - look at Me
WordPress - look at what I wrote
Yelp - look at My opinions on others' places/things
Flickr - look at Me and these things I did
Hi5 - look at Me
deviantART - look at what I made
StumbleUpon - (this is still a thing?) uhh...look at these things some algorithm found for Me?
LinkedIn - look at Me, professionally
LiveJournal - look at My thoughts
Last.fm - look at My favorite music
Quora - see My opinions on things others posted
Reddit - see My opinions on things others posted
Orkut - look at Me
Github - see My opinions on things others posted
Stack Overflow - see My opinions on things others posted
Hacker News - see My opinions on things others posted
Slashdot - see My opinions on things others posted
I suppose it's just more about <--sharing information-----------------------digesting information-->.
Sure. There are a plethora of "mommy" forums, populated almost entirely by women. There's Gaia Online, which makes GAF look tiny, and it has a majority (probably supermajority) young female population. There is, I kid you not, a forum dedicated to purses and shoulder bags (I wonder if they have manufacturer wars...I bet they do). The health forums tend to have a heavy female userbase. Photography forums also have considerable female populations. DeviantArt and its attendant forums also has heavy female representation. And that's before you get to the more esoteric sites, like the long-hair forums, or the quilting forums.
Women are on forums (and likely in roughly the same numbers as men) all over the internet, but the internet allows us to create a bubble for ourselves, so unless we go looking, it's easy to assume that those sorts of forums don't exist.
Gentle Rodriguez
Member
Where did I even say or imply this?
Dice//
Banned
I hate this stat.
This is anecdotal (so take it for what it's worth) but...
Working at an EB Games for 3 years *most* of my customers were male. A lot of females that did come in were either (a) a mom buying for their son, or (b) a girl buying for their boyfriend.
The games girls DID play were often SIms or social-like titles or handhelds. That's not to say "they don't count".
But I really think hardcore, console girl gamers are still few and far between. At least compared to the amount more of fellas engaging in it.
Hah, I'd love to read those designer purse war threads. "Michael Kors is for casuals. The AAA purse manufacturer industry is going down the drain."
Great post, though. I am making a lot of assumptions based on my own experience online and interactions with women over the years. As many women as I've known, I can't say that I ever heard about them frequenting any forums. Most of the guys I know go to forums for their hobbies, though. Purely anecdotal, but that's the bubble I'm in.
Zen_Arcade
Banned
It's a disingenuous stat for this situation. Just because 45% of people who play games are women doesn't mean they're playing the types that are prominent on NeoGAF or care about games enough to come talk about them on a forum. Most of the 55% of the men who play video games aren't on GAF or other gaming forums either.
~Devil Trigger~
In favor of setting Muslim women on fire
some people are not on mainstream Social Medias i see
I was equally surprised by the purse forum, and by how high it was on the list of biggest forums. Then I was surprised there wasn't a show forum just as big.
I already knew about the "mommy" forums, which seem to break down into smaller, local forums, so they can exchange local information relevant for moms. Some of those are filled with serious high drama.
Not wanting to get banned has prevented me of positing things as well. Carry on.
Well, it's anecdotal unless we're talking about Cell phone games and a lot of women I know play cell phone games. A ton of them, even my older aunts playing Candy Crush.
What percent of women play COD, is not 45% probably.
I think I found the forum that you're talking about, and it's fascinating to read through! There are so many parallels to gamer enthusiast forums. I've come across debates over brands, unboxing pictures and video links, purse reviews... etc. It's pretty awesome. They also have a good number of subforums relating to other women's interests, which is pretty cool.
I even found a thread that mirrors the "Micheal Kors is casual" example that I joked about earlier:
http://forum.purseblog.com/michael-kors/michael-kors-not-a-premuim-designer-852288.html
You have to ask yourself why chatrooms stopped being female dominant? Lot's of guys have been harrassing women asking for pics or just outright sexual favors. Chatroom usage decreased because they felt chatrooms aren't a safe place to have a conversation.
I don't notice it here but I've seen on quite a few forums where members demand proof that another member is a woman. Sometimes I wonder if some of members get harrassed through PMs and this is one of the few reasons PMs have been limited (I'm sure other reasons like begging for game keys or harassing devs has been a past problem)
These are usually my go to answers but you brought up an interesting point.
Out of all those female dominated sites only blogger could arguably be looked as a topic driven venue but at the end of the day it still is about personal expression moreso than a overarching view about the topic they are blogging about.
Maybe that's the main reason there is a gender divide. I hope more studies come along to look at this.
I don't notice it here but I've seen on quite a few forums where members demand proof that another member is a woman. Sometimes I wonder if some of members get harrassed through PMs and this is one of the few reasons PMs have been limited (I'm sure other reasons like begging for game keys or harassing devs has been a past problem)
These are usually my go to answers but you brought up an interesting point.
Out of all those female dominated sites only blogger could arguably be looked as a topic driven venue but at the end of the day it still is about personal expression moreso than a overarching view about the topic they are blogging about.
Maybe that's the main reason there is a gender divide. I hope more studies come along to look at this.
D
Deleted member 22576
Unconfirmed Member
The types of social networks in the OP are still relatively new. At the most, the oldest one of them is ~10years old. I've always thought forums were a "new" version of BBSs. I'm not sure why that contributes to the boy/girl ratio, bt I've always had the impression that forums are a relic of the past and wouldn't make sense to anyone who came online after 2004. Forums are from an era where net access wasn't universal, so I guess it's no surprise only the most tuned in people show up on them? Which unfortunately was/is mostly guys?
Though now that I think about it my buddies wife posts on a message board like gaf called BHM. I've ready it a few times and it's great.
Though now that I think about it my buddies wife posts on a message board like gaf called BHM. I've ready it a few times and it's great.
The Smoking Bun
Banned
We could all be women pretending to be men on the internet
Bobby Roberts
Banned
This seems a pretty succinct sum-up of the major reasons.
And yeah, forums/messageboards are absolutely social networks. We just didn't think to call them that when they first sprang out of the internet's primordial ooze.
There's fundamentally zero difference between having an account at GAF, or Something Awful or Reddit, and having a twitter or facebook or pinterest account.
In fact, it's much more likely someone is going to actually pay attention to you on twitter/facebook/pinterest/tumblr than they will on a forum, which is ostensibly all about the conversations.
Well, one major difference is that on social networking sites like Facebook and Pinterest you get to choose who gets to see your content and interact with you. On a forum, all of the content that you provide is open to everyone to see and subsequently respond to. It's definitely a different kind of communication.
Forums are a community by design, however, so I'd still consider them to be a social network of sorts.
I think it is inaccurate to assume that a person who plays a free game or 99 cent game for their phone (even if they play it for hundreds of hours) are the same people and target audience for console gaming.
I don't see people who play candy crush and farmville buying a 400-500 dollar system and spending 60 dollars for each video game they play on top of paying 50-60 dollars a year to play online. They just aren't the same audience.
I think it's safe to say video gaming is more mainstream, but PC and console gaming's target audience has not changed with the advent of smartphone games. If anything it might have made console gaming even more hardcore and male oriented now that casuals have cheap easy alternatives to get their gaming fix.
The Albatross
Member
I'm assuming the chart considered more than just programming and gadget forums when looking for the male/female breakdown?
Pinterest vs. Stackoverflow?
It's no surprise that stackoverflow has a disproportionate amount of male users vs. female, there are a disproportionate amount of male programmers to female programmers.
Few other issues I have:
- Forums are social networking, just as much as Tumblr or Instagram are.
- Forums are out dated and old. My girlfriend has said to me "that website you go to .. neogaf .. it just looks like shit how do you even use it?" To her, looking like a forum or newsgroup = looks like shit.
Pinterest vs. Stackoverflow?
It's no surprise that stackoverflow has a disproportionate amount of male users vs. female, there are a disproportionate amount of male programmers to female programmers.
Few other issues I have:
- Forums are social networking, just as much as Tumblr or Instagram are.
- Forums are out dated and old. My girlfriend has said to me "that website you go to .. neogaf .. it just looks like shit how do you even use it?" To her, looking like a forum or newsgroup = looks like shit.
But then again there is the question how many more concerned gamers are buying their games in an EB Games store to begin with. I guess the percentage of people primarily only interested in Call of Duty is also much more represented in the EB Games Store clientele than it is in general or on GAF.
She's trying to tell you something. I see a vow renewal in your near future.
We just got married so I hope not.
I've checked the site out. A lot of women just complaining about their boyfriends/fiances/husbands.
Hcoregamer00
The 'H' stands for hentai.
Not all forums are the same, anime, manga, and cosplay forums have heavy female representation. Cosplay.com is more than 90% female,
Finaika
Member
Aren't there more female cosplayers than male in general?
If you type in "cosplay" in Google, 99% of them is showing female cosplayers.
They...kind of are though aren't they? They were social networks before social networks even existed.
It's actually pretty relevant for the sake of this discussion because smartphone-only gamers are far less likely to be on game forums (could be wrong, it just seems logical).
That might not even be that wrong. Wikipedia also happens to be incredibly male dominated.
The Librarian
Banned
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