drbarney193 posts11-28-2020 11:10amNeuro-scientists are still researching cognitive differences XY vs XX causes in the brain. So far, there is great overlap in any Gaussian bell curves of what they quantify. This makes a concept of gender too weak for me to ascribe this difference in interest in audio equipment to genetic differences between men and women. I think it is caused by environmental differences in what roles are assigned to males and females and these roles are purely arbitrary. Many women are engineers notwithstanding gender expectations. The same could happen to audio given the right social environmental conditions.
Audiophiles are, by definition, on the extreme end of any bell curve. That two bell curves have 'great overlap' in no way indicates there will be a similar number of observations at the extremes or tails of the bell curves. Take something we're all intuitively familiar with--height. Men are, obviously, taller than women on average. But there is also, obviously, great overlap between the bell curves. It is not at all unusual to find a woman who is taller than a man. It is completely unremarkable. But what about at the extremes? Compare the number of 7' or taller males to the number of 7' or taller females. A quick internet search indicates there might be roughly 70 men in the US 7' or taller alive today...and that there might be only 1 female in the US this tall. The specifics of this example are not important...it is the point that 'overlapping' bell curves are in no way a good indicator of what's going on at the extremes. That is the nature of bell curves. I think about this often as I am in an industry dominated by males (perhaps similar to many audiophiles). An important takeaway of bell curves is that they are often great at describing populations of data, but useless for describing an individual observation. So while men dominate--by numbers--my profession, I always remain cognizant that this in no way should prejudice your professional opinion of the woman or man walking through the door for an interview, etc.
Audiophiles are, in some ways, 7' tall people. Yes there are women audiophiles, just as there are 7' tall women. And, just like 7' tall people in general, audiophiles are rare (although obviously nowhere near as rare as my extreme height example). Yes it is nature not nurture. No it is not because females are in some way being treated differently or not being encouraged in the same way as young people. Let's just stop trying to make everyone the same. I can remember disassembling a speaker down to the voice coil for the first time. I was so incredibly curious where the sound was coming from. We had a broken stereo and I begged my parents to let me 'look at it' as I would say. I was probably 5 years old. My father (or mother) had absolutely no interest in any of it. Nobody encouraged me, I just was innately, incredibly fascinated by it. Other people are fascinated by other things...and that is OK.
