Homebrewing Needs a Woman's Touch

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progmac said:
homebrewdad -- i completely agree with all of the points in your post, and this is probably what i like least about the hobby as well. one can make the argument, 'hey, i love my boys' club!' but saying 'there is no bias' is incredibly naive -- just read through this thread.
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Fart.
 
progmac said:
homebrewdad -- i completely agree with all of the points in your post, and this is probably what i like least about the hobby as well. one can make the argument, 'hey, i love my boys' club!' but saying 'there is no bias' is incredibly naive -- just read through this thread.
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You are doing sarcasm wrong.
 
I disagree that there is overt sexism in the homebrewing community, what I think people are seeing is the universal sexism/stereotyping in our culture, and how it comes through in everything we do.

Good example: just a few posts ago in this very thread someone was making the point that men often get kicked out of the house when homebrewing because they make a mess of the kitchen, and that is OK because men like standing over their hot, noisy burners and the woman is happy because the men are out of the kitchen.

Stereotype city: even years later we are stuck in this rut that the woman's place is still in the kitchen and the house is her domain and a man's is outside staring into the fire with other men, seeing whose d*ck is longer...right?

Another example: I've come to notice that when a particular woman is described, many times one of the attributes that is mentioned is her looks. How many times have you heard a man looks referenced in that way?

Another one that gets me is when a woman's children are mentioned when she is mention/introduced by someone else in a professional setting...

Anyway, that is my take on it. Its not homebrewing, its just us.
 
Sorry to not respond individually to every post - this thing has blown up in a MAJOR way. Most stuff I link gets a handful of comments, if that... I wasn't prepared to, er, "borrow" enough company time to respond properly.

Thanks to everyone for the conversation, whether you agree, disagree, or think I'm a lunatic. Regardless, we've had a pretty good discussion here so far, which I find to be very cool.

Yes, I'm married, will be 20 years this June. Six kids (not that it's really pertinent to this discussion).

Please do bear in mind - I'm not pointing fingers at any one person. I'm sure that some areas are way more open than others.

I do find it funny that I've seen responses (both here and on reddit) that range from "GIVE ME A BREAK, THIS NEVER HAPPENS" to "OMG, THANKS FOR POSTING THIS, I SEE THIS ALL THE TIME". Both extremes - and everywhere in between - likely have validity.

More than anything else, I was hoping to kick off a dialogue, so... mission accomplished? I do think that it would be great to see more women involved in brewing, and I don't apologize for that.
 
sudbuddy said:
Please, elaborate. How are any of us on this thread being biased? We have been nothing but supportive of women in brewing. Maybe you should go back and actually read the comments.
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I just wrote a post one one that happened a few posts back, there were more in this thread. I agree with progmac, but as I said I universal, not just here. It just seems like there is more here because there are more dudes here.
 
homebrewdad said:
I do think that it would be great to see more women involved in brewing, and I don't apologize for that.
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Sure, that WOULD be great. Show me a woman that is saying, "I'd like to learn how to brew beer, but...it's just such a boys club." I don't think there are any.
 
homebrewdad said:
Sorry to not respond individually to every post - this thing has blown up in a MAJOR way. Most stuff I link gets a handful of comments, if that... I wasn't prepared to, er, "borrow" enough company time to respond properly.

Thanks to everyone for the conversation, whether you agree, disagree, or think I'm a lunatic. Regardless, we've had a pretty good discussion here so far, which I find to be very cool.

Yes, I'm married, will be 20 years this June. Six kids (not that it's really pertinent to this discussion).

Please do bear in mind - I'm not pointing fingers at any one person. I'm sure that some areas are way more open than others.

I do find it funny that I've seen responses (both here and on reddit) that range from "GIVE ME A BREAK, THIS NEVER HAPPENS" to "OMG, THANKS FOR POSTING THIS, I SEE THIS ALL THE TIME". Both extremes - and everywhere in between - likely have validity.

More than anything else, I was hoping to kick off a dialogue, so... mission accomplished? I do think that it would be great to see more women involved in brewing, and I don't apologize for that.
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How many times did you get called a White Knight Beta on reddit for posting this little gem?

That's like, the worst place ever.
 
Hello said:
In fact, the only real rejection I faced as a home brewer was when I met someone, went out on a few dates, he asked about hobbies so I indulged him and the next day I was called a drunk with serious issues if I needed that much beer around me. The times I had seen him I consumed a total of 2 beers to his many...clearly he was all sorts of justified. So that has nothing to do with gender and everything to do with a weird stigma people still seem to attach to this hobby.
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Hello said:
I nearly spit my water out! haha!
And this is why I love this site.
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Wait... you drink water? I thought home brewers only drink beer :drunk:
 
homebrewdad said:
I do think that it would be great to see more women involved in brewing, and I don't apologize for that.
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Not sure how you are going to "see" more women involved through a text forum. But, if you look into the profiles of the user base here I expect you will be surprised to see how many are women. Kind of hard to pick out gender when everyone is Arial 12 unless their words or username offer some clue.
 
It's really fairly easy. Just treat everyone with respect. (Most already do.) Don't post anything you wouldn't want you spouse or kids or parents to read.

This goes for other media as well - FaceBook, Twitter, other special-interest/hobby forums, etc.
 
I'm not seeing any clear connection in the blog post between home brewing culture being sexist and lack of female presence. You mention that craft beer popularity is much higher among men, which is probably the single most important factor to look at. A couple of suppliers having sexist advertising does not make an overall trend.

There are a lot of occupations and/or hobbies that seem to be dominated by men or women. Sometimes I think we blindly look at a lopsided male:female ratio and immediately assume sexism is involved without looking deeper at the roots of the lopsidedness. This is not to say that NO occupations/hobbies have been kept exclusive because of sexism, because I am sure there are plenty. I would think societal and cultural norms helped develop the male-heavy popularity of beer over the last century or so, some likely related to sexism. But in the present I think the norms are changing, and I think you need to reference more than just a low-level of female participation (and a small # of chauvinistic examples) to make a judgment on culture as a whole.

I also think people shouldn't strive to force an occupation or hobby into being more equitably split in terms of sex. Remove stigmas & roadblocks, and let the chips fall as they will. I personally have never witnessed homebrewing sexism and I think more women will participate if they want to.
 
GilaMinumBeer said:
Not sure how you are going to "see" more women involved through a text forum. But, if you look into the profiles of the user base here I expect you will be surprised to see how many are women. Kind of hard to pick out gender when everyone is Arial 12 unless their words or username offer some clue.
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Right on brother!
 
broadbill said:
I disagree that there is overt sexism in the homebrewing community, what I think people are seeing is the universal sexism/stereotyping in our culture, and how it comes through in everything we do.
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Absolutely. I think in the homebrewing community, like any gender-slanted community, our culture's tendency towards sexism just goes unchecked.

I don't have much else to add to the discussion and I regret the somewhat confrontational tone of my last post. But I do sincerely hope for a day when the homebrewing community mirrors in gender the overall beer-drinking population.
 
progmac said:
homebrewdad -- i completely agree with all of the points in your post, and this is probably what i like least about the hobby as well. one can make the argument, 'hey, i love my boys' club!' but saying 'there is no bias' is incredibly naive -- just read through this thread.
Click to expand...

Where are you seeing bias?

15767532.jpg


:tank:
 
progmac said:
Absolutely. I think in the homebrewing community, like any gender-slanted community, our culture's tendency towards sexism just goes unchecked.
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I do agree with this, but I dont think we see sexism in home brewing way less often than we do in every day life. And in that context, home brewing is making progress on societies age old issues.
 
GilaMinumBeer said:
Not sure how you are going to "see" more women involved through a text forum. But, if you look into the profiles of the user base here I expect you will be surprised to see how many are women. Kind of hard to pick out gender when everyone is Arial 12 unless their words or username offer some clue.
Click to expand...

Not only that, but since the profile info defaults to "single female", there are users on here that I operated under a long assumption that they were female until they casually mentioned something to reveal otherwise.

I can't think of a single occasion on here where I saw an openly-female user bullied or had her knowledge questioned simply because of her gender. As far as use of SWMBO, I know I've seen a few uses of KOTC (King of the Castle) as the male equivalent. Even when things devolve into bathroom humor around here, the women seem to give it back as well as the men.
 
To those who are concerned about "forum sexism": It appears you're saying the forum should be more politically correct in general. It seems you are referring to "unchecked" joking lol. Is it really horrible to have a few laughs in any direction?

If anything, I think we see much more bias towards southern brewers and drinkers on the forum. See all of the bubba and hill-billy references in the "Funny Things You've Heard About Beer" thread- https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/funny-things-youve-overheard-about-beer-346883/
 
I think the funniest thing about this thread is seeing the "similar threads" at the bottom! I looked at the one which suggests that women like different beers than men. My wife is apparently the exception to this "rule." We went to the store the other day to pick out beer. We each set out to find a pack for ourselves. I chose Victory Storm King RIS, and she picked Green Flash Double Stout! Funny how some drinks have a gender attached to them. I don't think it's a problem in home brewers though. As mentioned several times already, it's just the way we are as a society.
 
Over everything else, I do not want this forum to change one bit. I like the relaxed vibe, I like the freedom we seem to have as members, and I like interacting with nearly every member I interact with.

jrowland74 said:
Wait... you drink water? I thought home brewers only drink beer :drunk:
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Yeah, I'm just that ******* who does things differently sometimes.
GilaMinumBeer said:
Not sure how you are going to "see" more women involved through a text forum. But, if you look into the profiles of the user base here I expect you will be surprised to see how many are women. Kind of hard to pick out gender when everyone is Arial 12 unless their words or username offer some clue.
Click to expand...
I fixed any confusion some may have under my user name.

Psylocide said:
Right on brother!
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Comic Sans should be banned no matter the gender.
 
jrowland74 said:
I think the funniest thing about this thread is seeing the "similar threads" at the bottom! I looked at the one which suggests that women like different beers than men. My wife is apparently the exception to this "rule." We went to the store the other day to pick out beer. We each set out to find a pack for ourselves. I chose Victory Storm King RIS, and she picked Green Flash Double Stout! Funny how some drinks have a gender attached to them. I don't think it's a problem in home brewers though. As mentioned several times already, it's just the way we are as a society.
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I'm not sure about the percentages but many women prefer different beers than the typical home brewer. My ex-gf only drinks very fruity beers and hard cider. Anything as "bitter" as a Blue Moon was "undrinkable". It could be that men get more peer pressure to try less fruity beers? Imagine what would happen to a guy who said that Blue Moon was "way too bitter!".
 
techbiker said:
To those who are concerned about "forum sexism": It appears you're saying the forum should be more politically correct in general. It seems you are referring to "unchecked" joking lol. Is it really horrible to have a few laughs in any direction?
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You know the old schtick where someone has a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other? The devil still says whatever and the angel still says whatever, but each call the other on their bulls**t.

Imagine how that schtick would run with only the devil or only the angel. Lame.
 
techbiker said:
I'm not sure about the percentages but many women enjoy different beers than the typical home brewer. My ex-gf only drinks very fruity beers and hard cider. Anything as "bitter" as a Blue Moon was "undrinkable". It could be that men get more peer pressure to try less fruity beers? Imagine what would happen to a guy who said that Blue Moon was "way too bitter!".
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The same could be said of men. I know a lot of men who drink fruity beers exclusively for the same reasons some women do.
 
This thread cracks me up! Im going to say:
NOBODY-GIVES-A-FLYING-F*CK-IF-YOUR-A-GIRL.If you brew you brew.
YOUR making a big deal out of nothing.Is your neighbor Al Sharpton? Creating problems where they don't exist.
 
jrowland74 said:
The same could be said of men. I know a lot of men who drink fruity beers exclusively for the same reasons some women do.
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Of course those men exist. As far as I know, most men still aspire to a "manly" persona. Think "Pumping Iron" with Arny and Lou. What about the growing safety razor movement? The image of dapper men sitting down to a pint with cigars in a smokey bar?

Do you think most women want to be as pumped as Mr. Universe? Or have a collection of 20+ rare safety razors and straight blades, brushes, etc? Or look like they spend their weekends in dusty bars in suits smoking cigars?

Many women aspire to a different set of ideas. I'm not saying that one is better than the other but the two sexes are different.
 
JONNYROTTEN said:
This thread cracks me up! Im going to say:
NOBODY-GIVES-A-FLYING-F*CK-IF-YOUR-A-GIRL.If you brew you brew.
YOUR making a big deal out of nothing.Is your neighbor Al Sharpton? Creating problems where they don't exist.
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Stop yelling at me! You hurt my soul! Next thing you'll do is tell me my user name makes me look fat.


I am, but you don't have to tell me!
 
I've seen exactly this conversation countless times but instead of homebrewing it was about engineering, or computer science, or video gaming, or golf, or myriad other male-dominated communities.

It always amuses me when people can so vehemently argue that just because they haven't noticed a problem it doesn't exist.

NOTE: I'm not saying whether or not there is a problem with sexism on this site, I'm talking in general

Here's something that I find useful to refer to when this sort of subject comes up:

http://amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/

Generally the last one is the most appropriate: "46. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege"
 
Yeah... white males are so privileged, we get everything handed to us and hardly have to work for anything.
 
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