why don't more women read anandtech?

[Kadarin]

Originally posted by: jonks
I'm sure there's a manicurist forum somwhere asking why they don't have more men on it.

This.

I just don't see that many random women coming to a website called "anandtech.com", even if they wanted to visit forums.

 

[cherrytwist]

their version of ATOT is Perezhilton

 

[waggy]

my wife reads teh forums all the time. she would post more but she sees the "pics" "ttwwp" "boobies" bullshit and has no desire to put up with it.

its not that its to tech inclined (she likes OT and L&R) just some posters freak out if they find out a female is posting.

she used to post at err some other forum all the time (well often) but it went under ( was a ATOT member hosting it)

 

[zinfamous]

AT is a computer tech site......

.....

 

[zinfamous]

Originally posted by: jonks
I'm sure there's a manicurist forum somwhere asking why they don't have more men on it.

:thumbsup:

 

[Nitemare]

same reason, no straight man watches Oxygen or Lifetime TV

 

[buck]

Well the only woman we have in our IT department only goes to cat/British tv shows/female forums. My SO who is not IT savvy wouldn't like the forums because thats not what she is into, same with my other female friends. Very good article and points.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: DerekWilson

Originally posted by: EKKC
i was going to start a new thread, but then again it's not worth the trouble for a parody-thread:

why wont more men use makeup and nail polish?

lame ...

makeup and nail polish are a preference and identity thing ...

computer hardware directly impacts people's quality of life in that it allows them to accomplish more things more efficiently or to entertain themselves in ways not possible in the absence of the technology.

if you want to ague it to death, you could say that because of the constructs of society, women benefit from make up by gaining opportunity through better emulating what society thinks of as attractive in order to better exploit opportunities ... but the same social constructs would tend to be a detriment to men whose make up use is obvious.

it is not the same no matter how you slice it -- women can benefit from technology and do benefit from technology. women are just as interested in men in getting what they pay for. understanding the technology and what it can do for them is an important factor in making a purchasing decision ... so why don't more women read anandtech?

other reasons. i talk about some in my blog post linked in the OP ...

but what i would love to see are ways that i can better reach women to show them that all the crap i write about is relevant and useful to them ...

That's a very male point of view. No matter how practical technical knowledge is, a large portion of women just don't care why they need to update drivers or flash their BIOS to support a new processor. They don't care what makes this RAM better than that RAM. They don't care how many I/O's per second their hard drive is capable of.

Males are more apt to take up computers and technology as a hobby than women, the same way women are more apt to take up gardening than males. That's not to say there are no males who garden as a hobby or females who fiddle with computers as a hobby... but in general, you'll find this to be true.

 

[paulxcook]

None of my female friends have any interest in technology and would thus have no reason to come to Anandtech. I doubt targetting women would help bring in new readers, further doubt they would stick, and in the process you'd probably alienate your current readers.

 

[alexvorn2]

such stupid question , sorry :S

 

[MmmSkyscraper]

Originally posted by: thomsbrain
If the aesthetics of the writing were neither interesting nor professional, why would they read it?

Fixed.

 

[lupi]

the problem starts with Casio and ends with Tech.

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: DerekWilson
i'd love it if you guys could read it and give me feedback

Well here's the problem, you're addressing the male crowd.

 

[T9D]

...

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: v1001
It comes down to the make up of women and men. The men will always be more of the technical thinkers. Women are more about feelings and emotion. They are more people oriented. This will NEVER change. It's the same reason why the majority of the scientists, engineers, etc are men. The two sexes are just different. It's how it is and how it will always be. Sure there are a few that cross over and have an interest. But the basics will remain forever.

pretty much.

 

[0roo0roo]

not enough men read fashion magazines...

 

[Rubycon]

Since the OP addresses female readers rather than forum participants I have to add that I'm a member of the non reader crowd honestly. Occasionally I will skim through stuff and sometimes find myself spending more time reading the comments than anything else. It's a people thing.

EDIT:

Oh and I would suppose I'm very much a member of the Tomboy crowd although I don't have much interest in cars (outside of some of the mechanical things such as climate controls, ECU, etc.)

 

[AmberClad]

Mmm cars. Expensive hobby, that. Much more so than computers.

:heart: the look of the Lancer EVO X though. But I can just imagine the stack of reckless driving tickets piling up . Best to leave such fantasies to the NFS games / Fast & Furious movies...

 

[0roo0roo]

this is all a bad path. is this why they wanted a "change in culture" on atot? they thought they could get more chick readers? aka more advertising revenue?
if you dumb down your articles people are going to jump ship fast. there are too many other very good competing tech websites out there.

as for stuff like 3d. the motivation for most geeks is games. women desire games less despite rigged statistics that include everything including solitaire and flash games to boost female gaming numbers. its not very complicated.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: God Mode
Because most geeks are ugly and have bad social skills.

And the welcoming response to the forums is usually, "OMG TITS OR GTFO. I mean, hi!"

It's the same with engineering. I've got 6 engineering classes this semester. The sex ratio in the classes, depending on how it's written, is either zero, or undefined. I think our college renamed the SWE to be the Society of a Woman Engineer.

It's also probably the continuing view that IT and engineering and the like are "man jobs." Women do social, artsy stuff. That's the tradition, and a lot of people like to simply stick to traditions, for whatever reasons, which I may never understand. I never liked this: "Why are we doing this?" answered with, "Because it's tradition!" as though that's the only justification it needs. It's a good thing that all of life isn't like that, or we'd still be living in trees or caves.

 

[ConstipatedVigilante]

Originally posted by: meltdown75

Originally posted by: jjones
Anandtech doesn't cater to women. It's a tech site which means predominately male readership and unless you start posting articles like "How To Color Coordinate Your PC" and "10 Tips On How To Get Your Man To Love A Mac" it's just not going to happen.

Seriously though, you should get a focus group together and get some feedback on how the site might better appeal to women; although I will say that by making such changes you may very well alienate your base readership.

not if he gets the female uber geeks to agree to post pics...

Remember, there are things you can't un-see.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
I think our college renamed the SWE to be the Society of a Woman Engineer.

Ouch.

Back in college (Virginia), we actually had a pretty substantial SWE. The ACM-W was a bit smaller, of course, being a subset of the people in SWE, but had enough of a membership to hold tea parties (don't laugh...it's a southern thing).

As I recall, it went approximately like this:

(fewer women ---> more women)
[mechanical engineering] -> [electrical engineering] -> [computer engineering] -> [computer science] (yours truly) -> [civil engineering] / [systems engineering]

 

[eakers]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
this is all a bad path. is this why they wanted a "change in culture" on atot? they thought they could get more chick readers? aka more advertising revenue?
if you dumb down your articles people are going to jump ship fast. there are too many other very good competing tech websites out there.

as for stuff like 3d. the motivation for most geeks is games. women desire games less despite rigged statistics that include everything including solitaire and flash games to boost female gaming numbers. its not very complicated.

oh because dumbing down the articles will bring more women here? :roll:

Like others have said, the problem mostly stems from the lack of women in IT.

Anyway, I don't really like coming here any more because I don't really get the community like I used to (and maybe that is the result of not coming here as often, idk).

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: eakers

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
this is all a bad path. is this why they wanted a "change in culture" on atot? they thought they could get more chick readers? aka more advertising revenue?
if you dumb down your articles people are going to jump ship fast. there are too many other very good competing tech websites out there.

as for stuff like 3d. the motivation for most geeks is games. women desire games less despite rigged statistics that include everything including solitaire and flash games to boost female gaming numbers. its not very complicated.

oh because dumbing down the articles will bring more women here? :roll:

Like others have said, the problem mostly stems from the lack of women in IT.

Anyway, I don't really like coming here any more because I don't really get the community like I used to (and maybe that is the result of not coming here as often, idk).

thats what the article implied, not me. and i was just pointing out that was INSULTING. if you didn't get the drift....

um no.....women in IT have nothing to do with anything. you think most gamers are in IT? most gamers start way before they are anywhere near college..let alone a career path.
when do geeks have the most time to obsess over the new cpu/gpu? yes..their TEENS.

besides, this article assumes these things are far more important than they are. knowing what gpu is fastest is not important in life for the vast majority of people. it has no relevance. and with the economy the way it is, a 500 dollar video card is really really irrelevant for most. let alone a new one every 6 months. most of this stuff is geek trivia. a fountain of useless if interesting knowledge for the hobbiest.

 

[moshquerade]

Originally posted by: Jeff7

Originally posted by: God Mode
Because most geeks are ugly and have bad social skills.

And the welcoming response to the forums is usually, "OMG TITS OR GTFO. I mean, hi!"

It's the same with engineering. I've got 6 engineering classes this semester. The sex ratio in the classes, depending on how it's written, is either zero, or undefined. I think our college renamed the SWE to be the Society of a Woman Engineer.

It's also probably the continuing view that IT and engineering and the like are "man jobs." Women do social, artsy stuff. That's the tradition, and a lot of people like to simply stick to traditions, for whatever reasons, which I may never understand. I never liked this: "Why are we doing this?" answered with, "Because it's tradition!" as though that's the only justification it needs. It's a good thing that all of life isn't like that, or we'd still be living in trees or caves.

Eh, you're wrong about the welcoming response to the forums usually being, "OMG TITS OR GTFO". There isn't that much propositioning going on here, if any.