Gender Parity

[drplokta]

In view of the current debate about gender parity at SF conventions, there's something I didn't mention about the horse show yesterday. Eighteen classes (or thereabouts; it's a bit hard to count exactly, as some classes were merged or cancelled). Average of five entrants per class (approx.). Let's assume the average person entered 2.5 classes. That makes a total of 36 contestants, of whom two were male -- a bit over 5%. And of course since I'm writing about it because I was there, that actually biasses the sample in favour of male participation -- it would have been 1 in 35 without me.

This is a pretty typical state of affairs. And there seems to be no disquiet with or debate about this state of affairs -- it's simply accepted that that's how things are. When it's mentioned at all in horse magazines, it's nearly always "How can I get my significant other interested?", and doesn't address any wider issues of gender parity.

(At the highest levels of riding, the gender balance is much more even, which is of course also an interesting subject for debate.)

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

While an interesting sociological point, I think this may be n=missing the point wrt cons. While female riders might have problems getting their SOs interested, we already know that female fans are interested (they're at the cons) and, when we scratch the surface, we know that they have useful expertise and interesting things to say.

I was shocked, for example, that I was the first person to ever ask Aliette de Bodard to be on a panel discussing what she does as her day job, and there are many other examples.

To paraphrase into riding, the situation is as if you have a national-class male rider who rides at the school, is going to attend the show, but who was not asked to take part in the show.

[eleyan.livejournal.com]

Those proportions sound very like what you get in beadwork. But the proportion of men is way higher among the sellers of beads. They are, however, doing something different.

[flick.livejournal.com]

(To be fair, the other time male riders are mentioned in the magazines is when they send plaintive letters saying "please review some clothes that would fit me...".)