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Why aren't there more women on audiophile forums?

I've seen this question bandied about on forums frequently. Here's a long analysis of the subject matter.  For those going to the beach and needing a read, the whole dissertation is available for download.

"Masculinity and gear fetishism in audio technology community discourse"
Annetts, Alex (2015)
Doctoral thesis, Anglia Ruskin University.

"This thesis is a study of audio technology community discourse and its historical features. I contend that the audio technology domain is fundamentally exclusive and hierarchically stratified, based on discursively inscribed prerequisites to participation and enunciation, notably a hegemonic masculine performance, gear fetishism and the articulation of technical knowledge.

I show that communities organised around audio technology, socially construct and perpetuate these features as components of their respective discourses. I expose all three elements to be rooted in culturally embedded gender stereotypes, dating back to a nineteenth century dichotomy of public and private space.

I present a deconstruction of the complex discursive performances of masculinity and offer opportunities for privileged masculine recordists to critically reflect upon their dominance and homogeneity within the domain as an original contribution to knowledge. In this endeavour, I investigate the emergence and development of exclusive tropes as components of audio technology culture, and demonstrate how they continue to be perpetuated in the face of both social and technological developments that offer possibilities to destratify the community hierarchy and enunciative function.

My methodology is based on a comparative discourse analysis of industry and academic texts, as well as the communities that surround and influence the construction of modern audio technology discourse. Case studies are conducted of two leading industry publications: Tape Op and Sound On Sound, and supplemented by an exploration of Women's Audio Mission. I combine these sources with interview material gathered from relevant industry professionals. In doing so, I observe how the audio technology community has maintained barriers to participation, often in the face of technological progress that offers supposed opportunities for democratisation. My work presents an argument against this notion, exposing the supposed democratisation as an illusion of accessibility and thus as mere massification."

https://arro.anglia.ac.uk/id/eprint/702044/
128x128hilde45
hickamore
659 posts
 
MC, nonoise,

nonoise: Hobbes's Leviathan is the state, not the church. And I capitalize "Colossus" only for emphasis. Although both Latin and Roman, the word has no special meaning with reference to the Church of Rome. That I know of.

MC: But you are perfectly describing classical liberalism! The progressive left embraces life, liberty, property, privacy, etc. -- they simply understand the unfairness of laissez-faire capitalism, and seek to moderate its harsher consequences. Don't buy the Right media trick of pretending that something idiotic done on campus bespeaks an embrace of tribalism on the progressive left. We're historically aware enough to grasp that identitarianism is a cyclical thing which crosses political bounds. Our age happens to be suffering an outbreak at the moment. But liberalism will allow this tribalist foolishness to play out to its absurd logical end, as we know it shall and must, while gently stressing the universalist themes of cosmopolitanism, tolerance, human rights, and human equality before the law. 
nonoise's avatar
nonoise
10,830 posts
 
@hickamore,
Thanks for the clarification and jogging of my memory (which seems to have found it's rabbits hole). 

And, thanks for pointing out how MC uses the language of the left in his attempts to use it against them, portraying himself as the holder of those values. He does that. A lot.

I wish I could agree with you that this tribalism will play itself out, but current events point to something else.

All the best,
Nonoise
twoleftears's avatar
twoleftears
5,318 posts
 
Overlooking its tedious Derridean framing, what the dissertation "finds" is nothing more than what most here know perfectly well and could better express in a few short plain English paragraphs. It simply exemplifies the current format for credentialing in sociology, a silly academic hoop to be jumped through, posing no threat to the larger culture.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon is far from limited to academic sociology.  It pervades the humanities and social sciences.  I wonder how many doctoral dissertations there are on shoe fetishism.
tomrk
72 posts
 
Very thought provoking.    It would be useful to understand the field of study to see if this is a degree I could achieve this weekend.
hickamore
659 posts
 
Nonoise,

I say tribalism will play itself out because that is what happened after both World Wars. Tribalism caused the wars, and the wars showed the logical consequence of tribalism. Only 20 years passed between the Armistice and Hitler's wholesale invasions. We're now 76 years out from 1945, so it was inevitable that tribalism would recur. The difference -- we strongly believe -- is that since a WWIII would be unthinkable, universalism will necessarily prevail over its sole alternative: human self-annihilation.
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