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Why is Esperanto failing to attract females?

של fojo, 10 באוקטובר 2006

הודעות: 48

שפה: English

Tilino (הצגת פרופיל) 31 במרץ 2007, 20:20:16

Please, everyone...

Don't worry about numbers, or think that some places are better than others. We are all equal...don't give up on meeting great Esperanto speakers and learners of both genders from all parts of the world. There are many of us out there!

The beauty of learning something new is the whole new world of possibilty.
sal.gif

EL_NEBULOSO (הצגת פרופיל) 31 במרץ 2007, 21:47:47

Well, I think in most forums there are more men than women. One forum that I attend often is about home cinema and I guess only 1-3 % of members are women. In a Mac forum there are maybe 5-10 % women, so I guess here we find more women than in many other forums.

Well, then again, languages are rather a domain of women then technical issues (hope nobody thinks I'm a sexist), so one might expect more women here ...

Gerald

pastorant (הצגת פרופיל) 31 במרץ 2007, 21:58:58

EL_NEBULOSO:
Well, then again, languages are rather a domain of women then technical issues (hope nobody thinks I'm a sexist), so one might expect more women here ...

Gerald
You're absolutely right. But men by nature, tend to conquer things. Women just learn a language with out too much consideration about the 'why'.

DesertNaiad (הצגת פרופיל) 31 במרץ 2007, 23:54:13

pastorant:
Women just learn a language with out too much consideration about the 'why'.
Rather a sweeping statement, but in my case, true. I was interested in learning a language for fun, I didn't know anyone yet with whom I couldn't already communicate so there was no impetus to learn a specific language for that reason. I have a few words of high school German left (which I studied because at the time I had dreams of some day eating pastry in Vienna), and a few words left of Spanish from an old friend who was bilingual, which makes the warning signs at the pool intelligible. Esperanto just sounded like fun.

andreasvc (הצגת פרופיל) 5 באפריל 2007, 13:20:02

pastorant:
You're absolutely right. But men by nature, tend to conquer things. Women just learn a language with out too much consideration about the 'why'.
I think this a very bold statement. Though many eminent linguists might be male, this does not justify generalizing this statement. Does a couch potato also wonder more about the 'why', than a female?

I think the difference in distribution between the US and Europe is solely caused by the pluriformity (ok that's not English, I mean: multaformeco) of languages in Europe

Genna_StCloud (הצגת פרופיל) 27 בפברואר 2008, 03:43:11

I've always thought of it as an 'accessibility' issue rather than a gender issue. I live in California, but in this particular area, I'm looked at as odd because we encouraged my oldest son to take German and Japanese instead of the completely ubiquitous Mexican Spanish.

I'd tried learning Esperanto on my own from books twenty years ago, and gotten NOWHERE due to a total lack of other speakers to interact with. But when my younger son wasn't particularly interested in the usual languages, I talked Esperanto up as easy to *spell* and easy to learn. Then I agreed to study with him.

Mia filo lernas Esperanton, kaj mi lernas concerne lin. *G*

Senlando (הצגת פרופיל) 27 בפברואר 2008, 19:33:11

it seams like in general there are just more men on the internet then women, and all the women i know bacily use the internet for emailing, msn/yahoo messanger (where they more or less know the people they're talking to) and facebook type things. i think in general men don't have a problem (nothing against) learning a subject ( or language) on the internet, while women much rather take a real class with live people (that they can see)to interact with. even when i play WoW, i genarly assume that the person (even if the character is a female night elf) is most likely male, unless they say otherwise.

to sum up (what i think, but it may not be right)

men feel more comfortable communicating to others even though they can't see them

while women feel more comfortable if they can see the person they are communicating with

so i think it boils down to how men and women "rather" communicate and interact.

this might explain way the rations are different in eastren europe and na. because in northamerica we are fewer and more isolated and to learn eo, we usually have to learn by internet. but in eastren europe there is a much higher density therefore a eo class might not be far away.

eb.eric (הצגת פרופיל) 28 בפברואר 2008, 00:52:37

I'm going to do my part and teach a house of female university students to speak Esperanto. My girlfriend's buying a whiteboard and everything.

erinja (הצגת פרופיל) 28 בפברואר 2008, 01:18:46

I don't think it has anything to do with face to face vs online communication. I think that women, in general, *love* online communication. They tend to blog a lot more than men, and also do a ton of stuff with facebook.

More to the point, in situations where I have taught an in-person Esperanto class in the US, more men than women have been in attendance, at least in the first meeting. It tends to even out a little more at successive meetings, when the class reduces in size exponentially.

And as a tutor for Ana Pana, ..... actually I haven't ever counted my male vs female students from the US but I have always seen plenty of women in the course.

It might also be that American men are more interested in things that would help them hear about Esperanto (computers, science fiction). It might be a publicity thing more than anything else.

werechick (הצגת פרופיל) 10 במרץ 2008, 03:42:14

I only have one IRL friend who is also learning Esperanto, another language geek rather similar to me, except that he's male.

I hope, for my sake, there aren't too few female esperantists (since the idea is very appealing), because I think it would be beautiful to have and keep a girlfriend who I could speak with privately in a public place. ridulo.gif My friend, being gay, feels much the same but with the word "boyfriend" in it's place.

I think it's necessary to be a language geek to get into this, and, from what I've seen, more women than men are language geeks, and consequently, are more likely to hold interest. I do think the gap, if there is one in men's favor, exists because of the science fiction element as well that men are more likely than women, from what I've seen, to be interested in world history and come across this sort of things.

As for conventions: almost all conventions are male skewed. I'm not sure why this is, but my working theory has to do with mild autism.

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