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/
hilde45
Thanks for the responses.

When scientists or engineers employ complex jargon folks can't follow, they stand back and respect the expert. When someone in the humanities does it, they're called an idiot and strung up. I know a lot of people who can easily parse the claims here and explain them in language an undergraduate could understand. Then, for them, the question is whether the claims are true or not. But they're not dismissed out of hand. 

Still, "it's a free country," so please -- go apesh*t.

Academics here couldn’t understand how and why the revolt to higher learning was being rejected out of hand by some in one particular group. It took a journalist to chime in and state that he was from a dirt poor part of the country, steeped in bigotry and harboring a hatred of the "others."

When he came back home after getting his degree he was met with disdain and rejection. He had explanations for the things that bothered them but the response he got was. "That’s your education talking."
They were so conditioned in their hate, that they rejected anything that would better their situation. They needed it. He then remembered why he left in the first place and left, for the last time.

All the best,
Nonoise
@nonoise 
Lisa Simpson's treatment, episode after episode, kind of captures it.