Lack of Female Representation

Who really cares if they're under-represented? If they want to be in the hobby/interest they already are or they will be. There's certainly nothing to stop them, and it wouldn't matter if it was considered a "man's" interest anyway. Women have appropriated everything masculine from baseball caps to boxer shorts.

The bigots are back. Yay. 

@au_lait

Yup. And the irony of this comment by Millercarbon:

So you want to attract more women, you got your work cut out for you. A public rebuke of the people who contributed to the rap threads will be a start.

is incalculably deep. He made numerous ignorant claims, chiefly that all rap music is profane and sexist, and challenged others to prove him wrong. Then, when examples were posted that demolished his ludicrously broad assertion, he disappeared from the thread.

And now, he has the audacity to argue that those who actually understand the rap genre, at least to some degree, and exposed his thinly veiled racist views, should receive a "public rebuke"!

To riff off of the name of a popular Jim Carrey film, it’s Sad and Sadder.

You have to go way back to understand this. We will start with one simple fact, men and women are different. They have different physiology and different instincts. Men have to be strong and powerful. They have to win or they are dead. This is the way we evolved. Men have to be strong and vicious. Vicious means loud and colorful. The idea is to scare the crap out of your enemy. Study ancient cultures. 
Women on the other hand being as a group smaller and weaker survive by being smart, quiet and good at hiding. Women hate noisy situations. They can not hear danger coming. They have to be up high so they can see danger coming. Just ask any women why they like SUVs and they will tell you they like being up higher, makes them feel safer. Men have to be powerful and loud. Not only do noisy situations make women feel uncomfortable but because their ear canals are smaller they are more sensitive to high pitch sounds and distortion. My wife is my favorite distortion meter. When things are nice and clean she will tolerate much higher volumes. When she complains about the volume if I switch to a BBC (Gundry) curve she is happier even if I do not change the volume. My daughters are the same way but my son in law is a true rocker, turn it up!  You also see differences in the music the sexes like. Women are more interested in emotional content, men in abstract music. Go to a King Crimson concert and you will see perhaps 10 women in the entire crowd.
Our need to be bigger, better and scarier is probably the force behind the need for ever better performance. Our problem is bigger and better is interpreted by expense. If I can buy more expensive gear it makes me bigger, better and scarier which makes us happy. Thus we buy ever more ridiculously priced equipment. Thank you Mark Levinson for figuring this out! On the other hand this makes for a healthy used market. 

my wife will join.