The boys club

[Tsun Tzu]

120 students in first year, around 40 girls.

80 students in second year, about a dozen.

35 students in third year, 3 girls.

That's a loss of 85 males to 37 females.

There is a smaller class size in the program as the years go on. Some of the girls and guys didn't place but a lot just didn't return for various reasons.

Mm. Not sure why I had it in my head that it was X males to Y females, rather than total students.

Regardless, still a 48-37 differential.

And "various reasons" isn't really grounds to enact social change, dude.

If there is a need for better representation in areas where one gender or group is under-represented (e.g. women in tech, manual labour etc. Men in teaching, nursing etc.) the change needs to start with school. Encourage kids when they show an interest in a subject or field one wouldn't normally expect them to be interested in. No indoctrination, just don't hamper kids based on some silly expectations.

Right there with this. Encouragement is always good.

 

[Worgen]

I really think that this is going to be a long and painful process before this stops being a problem.

For some reason, some guys feel very weird about the fact that a woman is in their field and doing stuff with them. I understand that it's been a "boy's club" for a long time, but times have changed and they really need to stop making it harder on everyone.

I know for me, I'm really used to being the only girl in a tech crew for sound. I'm used to hearing dirty jokes that it really doesn't bother me anymore, and honestly I think a good chunk of them are funny. I mean, I'm not opposed to a good dick joke.

I know a few times I've been mistaken for the girlfriend of someone in the band, and then watch as they trip over themselves apologizing.

I don't think I'd call it the "last vestige of male productivity", but some times I think it is given how unwelcomed I've felt at gigs. It's really stupid. I have some horror stories.

That said, there are guys out there that do say something when someone is being a dick and saying some real sexist shit. Again, it's going to take some time, and it's going to be super painful. Also, I don't want for guys to interact with woman stiffly and feel like they have to censor themselves otherwise they get shit canned. If the woman on a job is okay with dirty jokes, tell them. If not, don't tell them when she's around. You know, common decency.

I view it as if someone doesn't like it when you smoke around them, you don't. It's also about not being a dick and for some reason it's "okay" when it's something like this. Unfortunately, I've had to work hard to get into the "boy's club", and it's dumb that I know I'm not the only one. I'd like to think that one day we'd all wake up and start treating each other with respect, but then again I'd also like to wake up one day and see a husky pouring a proper Guinness at my beck and call.

So yeah, it's slowly happening, but it's going to get worse before it gets any better. Thankfully, there are dudes that are trying to help out. So, yay!

Well, its not a husky but he poured you a beer.

 

[Erttheking]

Its interesting how this also goes over to media. Like look at the new mlp and the hate it got when it was getting popular. It wasn't because it was a kids show, if it was then no one would be this nostalgic over transformers. It was because it was a 'girl' show and everyone knows girls don't like good things. >.>

And let's not forget that when people did start liking it, they said things like "And they say that this show was for little girls." Uh, it was. It's a really good show for little girls, but it its target audience was for little girls. That seems to be the method. Girls only like crap things, and when they like good things, it's really for boys.

 

[Something Amyss]

Oh sure, there's a difference between harassment and humor, i guess the picture i had in my head was of people having a light-hearted but offensive joke to each other, and some sensitive newcomer overhearing it and getting offended. I guess it sometimes seems like some people want the whole world to have the same social dynamics, and i'm opposed to that concept, but i agree with the stuff you're saying. There's a difference between telling someone something they might not have realized was hurting you and taking offense to something that never involved you in any way and going straight to the managers or boss or whathaveyou without talking to the person.

But Brogan is right. A large portion of this "humour" is simply "lolhomoslur."

Kind of weird that we just had this thread where people complained about how offensive the word "cisgender" was and we're already back to the notion that women and minorities should take a joke, though. If someone were to be making jokes about "straight people humour," or "cis humour" I imagine there'd be a very, very different conversation going on.

...as important a question to ask, I can't help but think this probably isn't the forum to be asking it, given we've already had the 'Women don't want certain jobs, it's not our fault' and 'It's only natural' arguments rear their ugly heads already. Good to see the usual excuses are trotted out despite a woman saying 'yeah it's a thing and it sucks' literally as the first reply.

It's even more baffling because if someone are "naturally inclined" to not take certain jobs, or just don't want them, why do so many women go into school or training for said jobs. Is it like the 80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, where they forgot they were turtles? Do people think they go into these courses, then some programming trips in their head and it's like "oh shit, I forgot, I'm a chick! I hate this stuff!"

Why do women have to be told so frequently what they "don't like" or "don't want" to do? I would think if there was a legitimate natural disinclination, or a legitimate disinterest, it wouldn't need to be so constantly and thoroughly reinforced. I'm reminded of a certain YouTube personality who claims men are naturally more assertive and aggressive, but has repeatedly said he and his girlfriend are trying to break her daughter of the habit of "bossing" people around. I mean, doesn't that little girl know she's naturally less assertive?

 

[s0denone]

Its interesting how this also goes over to media. Like look at the new mlp and the hate it got when it was getting popular. It wasn't because it was a kids show, if it was then no one would be this nostalgic over transformers. It was because it was a 'girl' show and everyone knows girls don't like good things. >.>

????

I'm pretty sure "the media" being shocked that MLP has a big 30-year-old-male audience is less about it being a bad show and more about it being a very childish, whimsical show about unicorns in shades of pink.

 

[Something Amyss]

Its interesting how this also goes over to media. Like look at the new mlp and the hate it got when it was getting popular. It wasn't because it was a kids show, if it was then no one would be this nostalgic over transformers. It was because it was a 'girl' show and everyone knows girls don't like good things. >.>

And let's not forget that when people did start liking it, they said things like "And they say that this show was for little girls." Uh, it was. It's a really good show for little girls, but it its target audience was for little girls. That seems to be the method. Girls only like crap things, and when they like good things, it's really for boys.

And boys who like it are called demeaning slurs because it's a show for little girls. And considering how many of those "demeaning" things are feminine/female....

 

[Worgen]

Its interesting how this also goes over to media. Like look at the new mlp and the hate it got when it was getting popular. It wasn't because it was a kids show, if it was then no one would be this nostalgic over transformers. It was because it was a 'girl' show and everyone knows girls don't like good things. >.>

????

I'm pretty sure "the media" being shocked that MLP has a big 30-year-old-male audience is less about it being a bad show and more about it being a very childish, whimsical show about unicorns in shades of pink.

Yeah, that's what I said, a show for girls. We don't see the media being surprised by 30 year olds liking transformers, which is pretty much aimed at the same age range. Because we as a culture tend view boys media as good media and girls media as throw away trash media.

 

[Zontar]

I'm pretty sure "the media" being shocked that MLP has a big 30-year-old-male audience is less about it being a bad show and more about it being a very childish, whimsical show about unicorns in shades of pink.

Plus the real hate came from not men liking the show but the way those men acted. No one would care if guys liked the show, it wouldn't be the first time a significant number of men liked a show targetted to women or vice versa, but the way those fans acted online made it one of the most hated fandoms for a reason.

Thankfully they've reigned it in, but the initial 6 months after the show got popular with guys was hell on image boards and social media.

 

[Zontar]

Yeah, that's what I said, a show for girls. We don't see the media being surprised by 30 year olds liking transformers, which is pretty much aimed at the same age range. Because we as a culture tend view boys media as good media and girls media as throw away trash media.

Transformers is a terrible example though, since 30 year olds are not only likely to watch such a show because the show has content aimed at boys, but because they likely watched one of the many previous series that have been made over the past 30 years.

 

[s0denone]

Plus the real hate came from not men liking the show but the way those men acted. No one would care if guys liked the show, it wouldn't be the first time a significant number of men liked a show targetted to women or vice versa, but the way those fans acted online made it one of the most hated fandoms for a reason.

Thankfully they've reigned it in, but the initial 6 months after the show got popular with guys was hell on image boards and social media.

Yeah, that's what I said, a show for girls. We don't see the media being surprised by 30 year olds liking transformers, which is pretty much aimed at the same age range. Because we as a culture tend view boys media as good media and girls media as throw away trash media.

What!?

How on earth are you making this point? Rooted in what?

The fact that the media is rightfully surprised that 30-year-old men, the majority of which fall somewhere on some kind of dianogsis or spectrum, are fans of an extremely whimsical, girly show has nothing to do with dismissing "girl shows". It has to do with surprise... And as Zontar points out, with the behaviour of those fans themselves.

There might well be fanatical Transformers fans. I can't say that I've met or even seen any, but I have seen quite a few examples of the devoted "MLP" fandom. If the fans didn't act like they do, I doubt anyone would even know they existed - and even if everyone did know, nobody would care.

Again, it has less to do with it being a girls show, and more to do with the individual fans.

Why do YOU think that the overwhelming majority of these "MLP" fans are men?

 

[Zontar]

Well, I never really said that. I said that we cannot and should not consider a society perfectly egalitarian because they've had all of, what, a generation and a half of social programs aimed at advancing gender equality?

It's not so much advancing gender equality as much as the law making it be the practice, but the point is after a generation and a half of having that be the case it's odd that NOTHING has changed at all. Even if there where holdouts keeping the old ways in place, they would have to be the totality of the system for no change what-so-ever to be the case, which means the unchanged nature of things would mean that either socialization has nothing to do with it, or every single person in power is a holdout of the old ways.

And all the advances made towards gender equality were, of course, the result of some weird mutation in women that made them become naturally capable of things they were just not before. Different societal ideas about gender and how children were raised and every other bit of the vast web of influences on children had no bearing on this development.

I don't think you have an accurate image of how life was pre-suffrage if you have that impression of things. You do realize that democracy is a very new thing that in most places is younger then many of the people who partake in voting, right? I mean hell, the US was the first modern democracy and it didn't even get to a point where most free male adults could vote for decades after its foundation. That's to say nothing of the fact that the majority of men and women working on farms is also a very new thing.

So because you can't lop off boys' penises and tell them they're a girl without some issues showing up, men and women are just hard coded to enter and excel at different jobs? All based on a sample size of one fucked up situation; the epitome of science that is.

What I'm saying is it's odd that the experiment that started this whole debate was one which disproved its own hypothesis and that every single subsequent study into the matter has shown time and again that gender is nature, hard-coded into us, and yet somehow without a single shred of evidence to support it the nurture side of the debate persists to this day in the single most shocking case of an unsupported idea holding longevity in academia.

 

[Zontar]

Have you lived my life? are you even female? no? then don't try and tell me what I have and have not experienced.

Oh please, in this very thread I've had a woman do the same thing to me. Men and women make comments on things they see the other experience on a daily basis.

 

[Redryhno]

Its interesting how this also goes over to media. Like look at the new mlp and the hate it got when it was getting popular. It wasn't because it was a kids show, if it was then no one would be this nostalgic over transformers. It was because it was a 'girl' show and everyone knows girls don't like good things. >.>

????

I'm pretty sure "the media" being shocked that MLP has a big 30-year-old-male audience is less about it being a bad show and more about it being a very childish, whimsical show about unicorns in shades of pink.

Yeah, that's what I said, a show for girls. We don't see the media being surprised by 30 year olds liking transformers, which is pretty much aimed at the same age range. Because we as a culture tend view boys media as good media and girls media as throw away trash media.

More MLP was never considered good because it never really had good moments before FiM...Transformers had a wide range of terrible to decent, but always tried to have SOME kind of conflict going on that tugs on heartstrings. MLP largely was about pretty ponies being pretty ponies, I think the worst thing that happened was a hairbrush being lost and then being found behind the door the whole time.

And give me a fucking break, Wild Thornberries was considered a good thing, According to Ginger is still considered a good cartoon and it was largely aimed at girls, countless Shoujos have been considered amazing for twenty years. Don't do that "girls media is considered trash for no reason other than it's aimed at girls" junk when media aimed at guys years ago has largely the same problems with the exception of a few like Transformers. And alot of what makes Transformers popular I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't because of mecha anime.

Edit: as a sidenote, FiM is how you do a reboot for a new generation, not the Ghostbusters junk we've got right now.

 

[the December King]

I'll admit that I have worked in post/FX for over 20 years and the number of women working as matte artists, compositors and FX artists, that I worked with, was almost none. On the other hand, almost all of the clients/client reps I've met, and most of middle management on the production teams I was a part of, including accounting, production managing and office managing, have been women.

I have begun to see those women (and a few men) as more able to access better jobs and opportunities than comp artists, especially given the volatile nature of long term employment in the Maritimes- it seems to be a smart way to approach film and television here. I attribute this to them having studied to be in the roles they were in, as opposed to me, who really just laterally moved into compositing from illustration straight out of college, off of some natural talent and a lot of luck.

In fact, very few comp artists I have worked with are illustrators/traditional artists at all, though they are all artistic to some degree, of course.

So what am I trying to say? It got muddy, but I don't see it as a boy's club exactly, more that I just see it as though people gravitated to their personal strengths in the production setting, or were moved to positions that better assisted the production if they had multiple skill sets.

 

[CaitSeith]

Can you link to the studies, please? Numbers are nice, but without knowing how they got them, they aren't helpful.

 

[Worgen]

Yeah, that's what I said, a show for girls. We don't see the media being surprised by 30 year olds liking transformers, which is pretty much aimed at the same age range. Because we as a culture tend view boys media as good media and girls media as throw away trash media.

Transformers is a terrible example though, since 30 year olds are not only likely to watch such a show because the show has content aimed at boys, but because they likely watched one of the many previous series that have been made over the past 30 years.

Actually the original tv movie thing for mlp was decent and I heard it got an ok number of male fans too before the tv series went into standard girl territory of which men fear to tread.

 

[Worgen]

Plus the real hate came from not men liking the show but the way those men acted. No one would care if guys liked the show, it wouldn't be the first time a significant number of men liked a show targetted to women or vice versa, but the way those fans acted online made it one of the most hated fandoms for a reason.

Thankfully they've reigned it in, but the initial 6 months after the show got popular with guys was hell on image boards and social media.

Yeah, that's what I said, a show for girls. We don't see the media being surprised by 30 year olds liking transformers, which is pretty much aimed at the same age range. Because we as a culture tend view boys media as good media and girls media as throw away trash media.

What!?

How on earth are you making this point? Rooted in what?

The fact that the media is rightfully surprised that 30-year-old men, the majority of which fall somewhere on some kind of dianogsis or spectrum, are fans of an extremely whimsical, girly show has nothing to do with dismissing "girl shows". It has to do with surprise... And as Zontar points out, with the behaviour of those fans themselves.

There might well be fanatical Transformers fans. I can't say that I've met or even seen any, but I have seen quite a few examples of the devoted "MLP" fandom. If the fans didn't act like they do, I doubt anyone would even know they existed - and even if everyone did know, nobody would care.

Again, it has less to do with it being a girls show, and more to do with the individual fans.

Why do YOU think that the overwhelming majority of these "MLP" fans are men?

Your kinda making my point for me. Men liking something 'girly' seems to set off a natural aggression for you. So you justify it as there "being something wrong with them".

Dude, there are fanatical fans for everything. I don't see how you missed all the forum posts and vids about Michel Bay ruining peoples childhoods over the new transformers and ninja turtle movies. If you need proof of transformer fans then just look at this vid. there are lots of these out there.

I don't think the overwhelming number of mlp fans are men, I think they just get all the attention since as I said before, its men liking something for women which makes people take note.

 

[s0denone]

I don't think the overwhelming number of mlp fans are men, I think they just get all the attention since as I said before, its men liking something for women which makes people take note.

No. It is grown men being rabid, obsessed fans of something specifically directed at very young girls that is making "people take note".