Why is ILM almost exclusively male?

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I'd say about 90 percent of posts are by men, maybe more. Now, I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, after all, posters are self-selecting, and I don't particularly detect hostility towards women. If there are gender-related behavioural differences in what types of boards men and women post on, then so be it. But that still doesn't answer why there are so few women on ILM, when women probably listen to just as much music.

― Jane Roseberry, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:06 (twenty years ago)

Most of them are on ILE, that's why, preferring to chat about life in general rather than music in particular.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:09 (twenty years ago)

Men are just more anal I suppose. The verdict I've jokingly reached from time spent on ILM is that men like making lists, ILM consists of lots of lists therefore it is attractive to men.

That and the willy waving over obscure B Sides and silly puns. God I love it.

― Kv_nol (Kv_nol), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:11 (twenty years ago)

Bless 'em.

(x-post)

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:12 (twenty years ago)

Are women as likely to channel their sexual frustration into obsessive list-making and hero worship?

― 86 HAVE YOU EVER NEEDED SOMEONE SO BAD DEF LEPPARD (deangulberry), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:14 (twenty years ago)

http://metropolis.japantoday.com/xmg/498/Thunderpants.jpg

― Frogm@n Henry, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:15 (twenty years ago)

"Are women as likely to channel their sexual frustration into obsessive list-making and hero worship?"

What? When there's all this housework to be done?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:16 (twenty years ago)

i wonder if the self-selecting part is that the women posters to ilm are sexually frustrated too and the figure you have arrived at of 90:10 is reflective that there are just more sexually frustrated men than women full stop.

― gem (trisk), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:18 (twenty years ago)

Aren't recordfair attendees 90% male or thereabouts too?

― A Viking of Some Note (Andrew Thames), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:19 (twenty years ago)

ILM isn't hostile to women. But the fact is that the whole structure of music criticism is overwhelmingly male - not just posters to Internet boards but the vast majority of music critics, writers for music magazines etc. This in turn means that the discourse has evolved in a way that is more suited to men than women.

― L.H.O.O.Q, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:19 (twenty years ago)

Also, when women do post on this board, we do have a slight tendency to start drooling, asking them to post pictures of themselves, and suggesting that they might like to send us some of their soiled underwear in exchange for a CDr of rare '70's Indonesian Thrash-Jazz b-sides which we've compiled fro our own extensive collections.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:28 (twenty years ago)

i used to post here a lot more, but the threads just started to get very samey after a while. i know that doesn't answer the more philosophical nature of the thread topic, but take it for whatever it's worth.

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:29 (twenty years ago)

i think there are a lot of women posters on ilm, they just tend to post less (in terms of overall volume).

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:31 (twenty years ago)

no one here has ever asked me to post pcitures of myself! or asked for my undies!! i feel a bit deprived. i don't post that much though. i do lurk a lot. (xpost!)

― gem (trisk), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:32 (twenty years ago)

i'll say this: ilm is a helluva lot more female than it was three years ago when i started posting here!

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:35 (twenty years ago)

I'm exclusively female. I tend to lurk more than i post here.

― leigh (leigh), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:38 (twenty years ago)

'Ullo darlin', d'you come 'ere often? What's a nice girl like you doin' on a board like this then, eh? Are you lost, are you? Want to come back to my place and 'ave a look at my rare '70's Indonesian Thrash-Jazz b-sides collection, eh?

(x-post but open to any reasonable offers)

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:39 (twenty years ago)

"No thanks, I have to wash my Sumatran Thrash-Jazz b-sides."

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:44 (twenty years ago)

Music love is pathology

― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:45 (twenty years ago)

Does said collection contain any etchings?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:45 (twenty years ago)

No, but I got some puppies.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:49 (twenty years ago)

And *whispers* andrex?

― Kv_nol (Kv_nol), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:51 (twenty years ago)

I think all in all, having music as a serious, almost obsessive hobby, instead of just, you know, listening to it, is a male thing to do. But it isn't with music only: with comic books, movies, toys, etc, most of the serious, anal enthusiasts are male too. I think it has to do with how different genders are socialized into the society: with males it is okay to be obsessive and anal, because you can grow up to be a specialist, whereas women are encouraged to take a more inclusive, less specialist view to the world (maybe because they're the ones who are supposed to look after the family).

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:55 (twenty years ago)

Wait a minute! Can we have a POX Indonesian Thrash-Jazz b-sides first?

― Die Emanzipation von Baaderonixx (redukt) (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:56 (twenty years ago)

"Indonesian Thrash-Jazz b-sides"

DON'T LOOK IN THE FRIDGE, DEAR, THERE'S A HEAD IN IT

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:58 (twenty years ago)

is it really "not okay" for women to be specialists (in a hobbyist sense)? that sort of sexism is something you see in the military, or with sports, but not really with intellectual pursuits.

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 08:59 (twenty years ago)

hum...not too sure about the music obesssion being mainly male. take any gigs, fan clubs etc. i'd say there are at least as many female as male there...

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:00 (twenty years ago)

Well, it is accepted, but women are not really encouraged to be specialists. What else would explain why in so many fields (music and film, for example) the gender ratio of "average" consumers is 50-50, but with "specialists" it's more like 90-10?

(x-post)

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:02 (twenty years ago)

Alex, I don't think members of fan clubs and active gig-goers are necessarily rated specialists. If some obsessive fan-club member would post here, he/she would probably be laughed at.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:03 (twenty years ago)

honor the fire!

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:05 (twenty years ago)

i believe many of the ilmers are fans/obsessive of some artists/bands...and many are known for it !
that doesn't invalidate what they have to say about other things...

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:12 (twenty years ago)

Women be obsessin' about Duran Duran

― Die Emanzipation von Baaderonixx (redukt) (Fabfunk), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:13 (twenty years ago)

fellahs, be obsessin' about R-Kelly !

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:16 (twenty years ago)

women be likin julie ruin

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:19 (twenty years ago)

are there ilmers who aren't fans ??

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:22 (twenty years ago)

Me, I scuttled away after 1) a regular poster went absolutely batshit insane with hostility, some of it personally directed at me long after I'd given up trying to post, on a thread about Patti Smith (look it up, it's extremely weird), and 2) someone else started a very unpleasant thread specifically to fuck with me -- paraphrasing several of my posts closely and unmistakably, without ever addressing me directly, in order to verbally stomp all over them -- because I'd been mega-irate (though not at all disrespectful of anyone here) about the forthcoming Gang of Four remixes on another thread, and was taking it all too seriously, or something. (Admittedly I'd also felt compelled to mention in almost every post on the subject that I'd been into them since 1981, by way of implying that I am therefore entitled to be ULTRA KVLT UBER NECRO GRIM about the whole thing, but still.) I continue to lurk on occasion since the writing can be hilarious and insightful and I've discovered some good music, but as far as dealing with some of these people, I ain't got time for that shit. No overarching theories on gender and internet posting behavior, though I suppose you might consider reluctance to deal with incredible hostility when not absolutely necessary a gender-based trait. Carry on.

― box of socks, Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:25 (twenty years ago)

Ooooooooooh. Get her!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:28 (twenty years ago)

I find ILM a little condescending sometimes.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:36 (twenty years ago)

but that doesn't have anything to do with a gender issue, does it ?

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:38 (twenty years ago)

i mean when it happens it's more between individuals over some issue than because of the gender of the persons, yes ?

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:39 (twenty years ago)

Absolutely.

You girls must try to understand that if some of us guys appear condescending at times, it's probably only because we're extremely pompous and filled with an over-inflated sense of our own importance.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:42 (twenty years ago)

Hmm, well I do think ILM can be condescending towards women specifically. I think women are viewed as being less objective, more hysterical, more likely to be blinded by outside factors when it comes to the music they like and dislike.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:43 (twenty years ago)

Most of them are on ILE, that's why, preferring to chat about life in general rather than music in particular

Weirdos

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:43 (twenty years ago)

Hmm, well I do think ILM can be condescending towards women specifically. I think women are viewed as being less objective, more hysterical

example?

― jody l'anti-vierge (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:45 (twenty years ago)

Ooooooooooh. Get her!

-- Stewart Osborne (stewart.osborn...), June 21st, 2005.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

"I think women are viewed as being less objective, more hysterical, more likely to be blinded by outside factors when it comes to the music they like and dislike."

This is especially true where lyrics relate to little fluffy kittens or where music is considered to have a good beat for performing step-areobics to.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

Like Throbbing Gristle and Laibach, you mean?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:48 (twenty years ago)

"Hmm, well I do think ILM can be condescending towards women specifically. I think women are viewed as being less objective, more hysterical"
"example?"

"Ooooooooooh. Get her!"

-- Stewart Osborne (stewart.osborn...), June 21st, 2005.

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...), June 21st, 2005 11:47 AM. (later)

And her, the bitch!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:49 (twenty years ago)

Don't tell me, Osborne, I was asking for it, right?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:49 (twenty years ago)

Step aerobics and Laibach seem like an especially snug fit

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 21 June 2005 09:50 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 571 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

some sophisticated debate going on here

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 07:34 (twenty years ago)

marcello you have been cracking me up on this thread

― gem (trisk), Friday, 24 June 2005 08:23 (twenty years ago)

As Joe Orton once said to Kenneth Williams: "It's as big as my hat!"

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 08:54 (twenty years ago)

Ooooh no! Stop messing about!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 09:59 (twenty years ago)

"Oh yes! I could see you getting up to all your surreptitious little tricks there! Putting in bits of business and ad-libbing!"

"You wouldn't have said that to Barri Chatt!"

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 10:47 (twenty years ago)

I don't wish to know that. Kindly leave the stage!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 10:59 (twenty years ago)

Hello! My name is Emily and I am a lady. This is my first posting on ILM so be kind to me, s'il vous plait.

My post is about being a lady, as that is what I am. I press flowers and wear dresses and hats. I like to buy ladies' things such as ladies' dresses, gloves, makeup, petticoats and beautiful jewellery.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/theguide/archives/blog%20pic.jpg

― Emily Howard (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

ahahahaaaa that's a corker. you ARE a laaaaadie emily

― gem (trisk), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

That's right, I am a lady.

My name is Emily Howard. It's a lady's name because that's what I am, a lady.

I like doing lady things like smelling flowers and stroking kittens and going for quick little dips in the water with dresses on.

I am into music you know: ballet, opera, perfume, handbags! Oh I'm just so ladylike....

― Emily Howard (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:14 (twenty years ago)

WOOLLY WOOFTAH!

― Chingford Tor Ascender (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:15 (twenty years ago)

No, no, I am a lady, it's very different.

― Emily Howard (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:16 (twenty years ago)

this thread has taken a turn for the awesome

― gem (trisk), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:19 (twenty years ago)

Are you a lady Gem? Would you care to discuss lady things?

― Emily Howard (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:21 (twenty years ago)

no alas i'm completely unladylike, it's been a terrible disappointment to my mother. i definitely aspire to lady things though. i might go out immediately and buy myself a girdle and some knitting needles!

― gem (trisk), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:24 (twenty years ago)

fackin emily my arse your a fackin POOFY PEDO PONCE. you fackin scum should be locked up and kept away from MY KIDDIES YOU NANCY NONCE, just like them junkys and socalled asylum seekahs!

― Chingford Tor Ascender (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:26 (twenty years ago)

Those are rude and horrid things to say to a lady - and that is what I am, a lady.

Are there no gentlemen here to leap to the defence of a lady in distress?

― Emily Howard (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:29 (twenty years ago)

You're a fackin TRANNIE CUNT and you'll be in serious fackin distress if I catch you wearing MY SHORRAN'S DRESSES CUNTING CUNT!

― Chingford Tor Ascender (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:34 (twenty years ago)

Well, it's no wonder no ladies like myself want to post here, if this is the reception we get, that's all I can say.

You are all quite vile and horrid.

Cheerybye!

― Emily Howard (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:35 (twenty years ago)

SHOW US YER KNICKERS DOLL OH NO YOU AIN'T GOT NONE IT'S FACKIN Y FRONTS INNIT GET YOUR ANDS ORF ME YOU FACKIN JACKO PEDO POOFTAH WOOFTAH CAAHHHHNNNTTTTT!!!!!

fackin coldplay. bunch of fackin saddo student poofy ponces. they'd fackin travel at the speed of sound if they were on the wrong end of my fackin boot!!

― Chingford Tor Ascender (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:47 (twenty years ago)

No I will not show you my knickers young man! That would not be at all ladylike behaviour and after all, I am a lady.

I must agree with you most heartily about Coldplay 'though.

What that nice Gwyneth Paltrow (she's a lady too you know) sees in that horrid Christopher Martin I have absolutely no idea.

I certainly don't fancy the whiny little twat - and I'm a lady after all!

― Emily Howard (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

GET YER FACKIN TITS OUT IF YOU'V FACKIN GOT ANY YOU FACKIN NELLIE!!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 12:07 (twenty years ago)

er sorry that was supposed to be a chingford tor ascender post

*goes away to shoot oneself*

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 24 June 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

If it's any consolation Marcello, your regular inadvertant slips into those deeply ingrained habits of impeccable spelling, grammar and punctuation gave you away long before your failure to logout and log back on as Chingford Tor Ascender.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 24 June 2005 12:24 (twenty years ago)

It was precisely those posts that chaki posted where i got trounced for holding that opinion (that it wasn't ok to save chats--HE posts them all the time). So no I'm not a hypocrite. The rest is out of context.

― Orbit (Orbit), Saturday, 25 June 2005 01:56 (twenty years ago)

Frankly, I rather agree with Dian Hanson that, aside from their usefulness as 'sperminators', men are lacking on most other departments, and to some degree, know it, and so they obsess over rare Small Faces B sides or become Karl Rove or what have you. (The entire 'religious Right' thing in the US is, I believe, about regaining sperm dominance, and not much else.)

I recall one month when my two fave bands, RAMMS+EIN and Low were both playing the same month here in NYC. My fiancee loces both bands--but actually owns, like, two Low CDs and no RAMMS+EIN (seeing as we live together, taht would be redundant, as I own every noise the band has ever emitted.)

Anyway, we see both bands, and, of course, they're both superb.
Her reaction: She listened to "Secret Name" for a few days and got back to the business of being human.

Me, I played "Mein herz brentt" over and over, replaying the images in my head from the show, *clinging* to them, as I have with various musics since puberty and that was a long time ago.

Weird--I just recalled a line from "Pet Sematary"--the book, not the Ramones song that RAMMS+EIN performed that night with Marky and Johnny (and a couple Misfits to boot.) Something like, "The soil of a man's heart is shallow-bedrock's near. A man plants what he can--and he tends it."

― Ian in Brooklyn, Saturday, 25 June 2005 04:38 (twenty years ago)

http://myspace-073.vo.llnwd.net/00140/37/07/140497073_l.jpg

― THE JAMES DEAN OF THE OLD TESTAMENT (ex machina), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:18 (twenty years ago)

Ian that was a great post--I'm sad it ended.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 27 June 2005 00:22 (twenty years ago)

http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~susan/sf/films/trecall/head.jpg

― charleston charge (chaki), Monday, 27 June 2005 02:33 (twenty years ago)

Chaki-Is this the start of a thinly-veiled harrassment? If so can you please stop it?

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 27 June 2005 03:21 (twenty years ago)

superman, NOOOOOOOOO

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

three years pass...

651 answers! I don't know if i can be arsed reading it all, was there ever a conclusion everyone agreed on?

― Pfunkboy in blood drenched rabbit suit jamming in the woods (Herman G. Neuname), Tuesday, 24 March 2009 20:30 (sixteen years ago)

Only got through the first half. Most commonly voiced opinion by the female posters was that they don't post when threads don't interest them, and aren't too into pissing matches, name calling, and list making.

― unexpected item in bagging area (sarahel), Tuesday, 24 March 2009 23:45 (sixteen years ago)

Name - I Love Music Description - pissing matches, name calling, and list making

― now is the time to winterize your manscape (will), Wednesday, 25 March 2009 00:16 (sixteen years ago)

Name - I Love Music
Description - pissing matches, name calling, and list making

― now is the time to winterize your manscape (will), Wednesday, 25 March 2009 00:16 (sixteen years ago)

ha.

― now is the time to winterize your manscape (will), Wednesday, 25 March 2009 00:16 (sixteen years ago)

music is something males love, women love baseball

― CaptainLorax, Wednesday, 25 March 2009 02:29 (sixteen years ago)

Apropos of nothing I am incredibly delighted/amuseed by Kogan's story about David Nicholls' stint at Smash Hits above. I loved the Black Type column and must have been square on that time of readership - I wouldve been about 14 I think? I'd completely forgotten about it, ha!

― one art, please (Trayce), Wednesday, 25 March 2009 02:36 (sixteen years ago)

i wish i still had the blacky badge he sent me :(

― Bad, Bad Memories of a Good Time (electricsound), Wednesday, 25 March 2009 02:40 (sixteen years ago)

I think I still have a pile of 'Hits from the early-mid 80s in my parents garage somewhere.

― one art, please (Trayce), Wednesday, 25 March 2009 02:51 (sixteen years ago)

dude is now a lecturer in urban planning

― Bad, Bad Memories of a Good Time (electricsound), Wednesday, 25 March 2009 02:54 (sixteen years ago)

six months pass...

trayce did you ever find your magazines?

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Friday, 2 October 2009 18:29 (sixteen years ago)

eleven months pass...