How can you tell who is female or male?
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/
"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/
106 responses
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Well, let's take a look at the way some people respond to other members posts on this forum. They're may be some ladies who read this forum but don't comment based on the responses they might receive. Stuff like this: "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" Certainly isn't going to get them to come running. |
Whenever things are not going the way I'd like and I mutter some foul obscenity under my breath, my wife always hears it.Women have very sensitive hearing, especially in the higher frequencies and many of them are simply uncomfortable with "hi fi".I just dropped an obscene amount of money on a Hegel Mohican { truly, ironically,one of the last of the Mohicans] and my wife actually sat through the entire Mahler 10th. { Rattle }. Maybe a breakthrough. |
god bless the author of that wall of text. that said, the females i know, many of whom have abundant musical talents to make me envious, are to a person, capable of doing a thing i can't- namely they can listen through lousy recordings, through a welter of noises, to hear the whole performance including nuances that escape my attention due to the distracting foreground and background noise. they literally can tune out noise. lordy i wish i could do that. they have enviably powerful brains at least with this task. they can appreciate high end audio but don't really need it to hear the important stuff. |
Anglia Ruskin University is ranked 301 in World University Rankings by Times Higher Education and has an overall score of 4.0 stars, according to student reviews on Studyportals, the best place to find out how students rate their study and living experience at universities from all over the world....in answer to... Is this the same Anglia whose predictive modelling said there would be no ice on the North Pole by 2015? No, that was East Anglia and not Anglia Ruskin. Please, by all means, continue. All the best, Nonoise |
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Listening to sexists arguing they're not sexist is like listening to a racist arguing they're not racist. This is most entertaining. How many here lead that Walter Mitty existence where they use the keyboard as their escape mechanism from that straight line they try to toe so hard all day? All the best, Nonoise |
"Gear fetishism"? How does this focus on electronics in audio differ from the pioneering work accomplished by my great grandmother Edith Dohan (1877-1943) who had a "fetish" about archeological artifacts (many of which I inherited)? She was one of the most famous archeologists that has ever lived, and was editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Archeology for decades. I am a retired professor from a medical school, and I find the abstract of this thesis to constitute academic rubbish. The OP needs to learn more about animal behavior before pushing sexist polarization - we are animals and behave as males and females behave in other species (yes, even bonobo monkeys, who comprise a maternalistic species). Let's welcome everyone on these forums, but these forums are focused on a hobby we all enjoy (even the arguments). Please do not inject politics, religion or sex into these threads. |
The majority of the women I know are adept at multi-tasking. They enjoy listening to music but do so while involved in several other things at the same time which is contrary to being an audiophile. Multi-tasking to most of us men is listening to music while sitting down. Add the sipping of a favorite beverage and we’re pretty much mentally overwhelmed. Still, I’m convinced there are thousands of female audiophiles of one level or another but as to why there are so few on these forums, I would venture to say that in all probability they find both us and our conversation as boring as this paragraph. |
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 |
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. |
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's intellectually self conscious as these types of studies were done all the time back when serious analysis was done on a somewhat regular basis. God, how I miss those days. All the antics gong on now merely reflect the hatred and rejection of the mental science based analysis for the sake of convenient memes and angles to play. If one is shown to more neurotic than usual, then it needs to be pointed out lest others take them seriously. All the best, Nonoise |
A more pertinent question might be, why exactly does this matter? You mean to tell me you don't know? You think this is funny? Are you daft? This is a DOCTORAL THESIS. This is an ACCEPTED doctoral thesis! Do you not read this stuff? ARE YOU DAFT?!?!?! This is what passes for serious thought at university level. Yes it would be a joke if written by any one of you. Problem is, any one of you could have written it! Because this same Neo-Marxist ideology permeates from up there to down here. You just don’t realize it because you don’t use quite as many of the same pedantic stifled code words. But you do all use them. So, guess what that means? The joke’s on you. |
You lost me well before we got to deconstruction [Derrida=bane of modern academia]. The summary is a perfect example of gobbledygook. In fact, I half-suspect an exercise in parody. Further reading:
Deconstruction, Identity and the Dying Art of Criticism - WSJ
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Apart from basic lack of interest most of them may have better things to do. Things that may be of a far higher priority than discussing cables online. For example: Hair Nails ClothesChat / Facebook etcKidsShoppingCleaningWorkWatch TV/YouTubeHelp with grandchildren One possibly unexpected result of the so-called feminist movement has been, despite the introduction of all mod cons, the reduction of free time for many women compared to previous generations. Ah, such is life in the 21st century... In fact even as I write this my wife is watching YouTube on her phone and my daughter, taking a break from her studies, is posting on Instagram. I could suggest posting on this forum to them, err no, on second thoughts, I couldn't! A more pertinent question might be, why exactly does this matter? And to whom? Somebody's lame attempt at an out of touch doctoral thesis is nothing to go on. |
