The ancient, 16-month-old poll,
Are you male or female?, recently made a comeback over in the Polls sub-forum... and it got me thinking. Are you ready to think? You might have to read a bit. OK, let's get schooled, children.
Profile statistics say about 30% of ATRL members that browse the site on a regular basis are female. That's
305 girls. Given these statistics, I'll take a shot in the dark and assume at least 40% of guests on ATRL are female. But the "male or female" poll says we only got
10 girls here, and let's be honest, even some of those are debatable.
What accounts for this difference? Here's my theory:
A lot of girls don't make themselves "known" on web sites where guys appear to be in charge. That doesn't mean girls aren't browsing--they definitely are. They just don't speak up, and they
especially don't want to go out of their way to say that they're female.
But why? Because it's a seemingly male-dominated site, and they don't want the attention. They don't want to be the next girl for everyone to fawn over. "OMG it's a girl!" They won't have any part of that nonsense. They'll remain as lurker-ish posters who only come out of the woodwork rarely, and no one ever really gets to know them, and no one even knows that they're girls. Perhaps even more likely, they'll never post at all.
Only those girls who can handle it (or, in some cases, those girls who seek the attention) will speak up on sites that appear to be male-dominated. Right off the bat, that means about 3/4 of the potential female members are out of the running. They aren't gonna jump in and contribute anything.
So, where
do girls come out of the woodwork? Simple: At sites where they
know a lot of other girls are there. That's why Facebook is reportedly 60% female. Girls know all their friends are there. Sites
run by girls or women will bring out active female contributors, as well, because girls know that a girl is running the show. They'll feel more comfortable there.
Now, to tie it all back to ATRL, get this. Parts of this message board used to be operated by "TRL by Sarah" back in 2001. As you might guess, a girl named Sarah ran the site. It was very obvious that a girl was in charge, and guess what? Approximately half of the active contributors back then were girls. Sarah went away in 2002. We always had trouble getting a decent amount of female members after that.
We're not alone. ATRL has plenty of company in this arena. Just look at any generic-ish message board that
doesn't tell you a girl is at the helm, and you'll see the same exact thing.
That's my theory. What do you all think?
