I have no idea what is going on in some of the tangents to this thread!
But just wanted to note that being female and in the minority is not exclusive to the GH community, unless the forum itself is a female centric theme. It seems to be that way just about everywhere online and generally has been that way since I can remember. I was, at least compared to mainstream, one of the earlier participants in the whole "forum community" thing in general, since I was big into the music sharing since the days of napster and audiogalaxy. (I remember when aol got big and most of the intelligent conversation disappeared.)
Still though, since I could give a **** about most of the female centric themes other than health issues (and I concur about the not doing the baby birthing thing. I was temporarily pregnant for only a couple weeks and didn't care for the extremely unpleasant sensation one bit - I cannot imagine feeling anything like THAT for nine months - like something literally draining the life out of me- let alone actual birth. I don't think mothering is in my future unless I adopt), but most forums that I participate in are mostly male contributors and generally I am assumed to be male wherever I post, at least until something pops up that corrects that notion (like being connected to my facebook page). But when it pops up it can be something as simple as a pronoun, though. I am not often referred to in third-person in online communities (or if I am, I suppose just not where I am likely to "overhear"), but I will usually correct the assumption that I am a "he/him" if I happen to be replying. (Unless there is a specific reason for incognito, I suppose. But I don't think, though, that I have ever had such a reason other than curiousity or to see if someone would end up eating their own foot if I didn't volunteer the information immediately. Even so, I don't ever "pose" as male except when playing guitar hero online with a male avatar.)
But this brings up the idea "what is a 'female centric theme'?" That is generally prescribed by our cultural norms and societal values, which however slowly, do evolve, but for now seem to hold mostly to the stereotypically traditional gender roles. For example Home Depot offers workshops on the weekends which are marketed at women, but I have found them disappointing; rather than being geared towards home improvement or actual DIY handy-work, they tend to be more "craft" and "decor" type froufrou stuff designed to sell Martha Stewart products like sparkly paint and stencils. I would prefer something that teaches me how to use a table saw without injury, or which of the myriad steel files would be the proper ones to use to sharpen my lawn mower blades. I could use some tips on different irrigation systems for my garden as well as which annuals to plant in it, you know? But at least they have noticed that women do shop there. (I guess that's something, but I could really use one of those stupid rewards/loyalty cards for that store instead of CVS or Vons! I actually do more shopping there than at the supermarket!)
But I am still an unusual woman. As was my mother, who decided that we would paint the house ourselves and install our automatic garage door opener ourselves when I was just a pre-teen and it was just her and me. And I went to an all-girls school that made for my own education not being biased towards the boys in math and sciences. (But even there, programming was not a popular subject, although it was still the mid-eighties when I attended.)
There has been some brain research which indicates that men are predominately left-brained, and women predominantly right-brained in terms of the number of neural pathways laid out in each hemisphere. This was discovered in a research project that was intended to determine if the size of the brain had any correlation to intelligence which also found that generally men had larger brains, but that it was actually the number of pathways that mattered. Einstein's brain was actually smaller than the average male's, but had twice the average number of pathways, and also, unlike most, an equal number of pathways on both sides. Now since pathways are established as we develop, it can also be aruged that nurture has as much to do with the gender bias of brain hemisphere as nature, but either way, if women are more often right-brain oriented, it could explain the lack of females in the engineering and programming fields. (But there is a really fascinating talk given
here concerning the two halves which may key into the nurturing nature of women too...[video]http://video.ted.com/talk/stream/2008/Blank/JillBolteTaylor_2008-320k.mp4[/video]
