How many female members now?

Hi everyone,
I heard on some other forums some female members saying theybfelt they had to hide when they join a watch community, due to the large numbers of men.

I wonder if any are in hiding- and how many we now have in plain sight. There weren’t so many when I joined it seems, we’ve seen @connieseamaster @NYCwatchgal and @melanieux, maybe @Melanieds?, and now a lady watchmaker hobbyist @sheepdoll has joined the membership.

Anyone else ? Come out and be welcomed, this is a friendly place. 😀

Best regards to all,
S

@MissDee and there are a few others that I remember but forget the names of. My partner Marielle is around a bit and helping us with some artwork that might appear on https://stories.Omegaforums.net eventually too.

I do wish we had a more reasonable balance of active male and female members because we know from our traffic data that 17% of our viewers are women yet the site hasn’t welcoming to them and that’s in my and Trev’s view the biggest failure of OF thus far.

Yes, I recall a number of new members asking for advice in buying a gift, but I generally don't expect them to become regular participants.

That’s interesting, curious how you determine 17% are women. and I wonder why you think the site hasn’t been more welcoming.

Do you think it has to do with some people putting them off by being abrasive with newcomers asking questions?

PS edit/ add, I recall @connieseamaster deploring very sexist comments in a long running thread (250 pages on a LE Snoopy anniversary edition) - but I haven’t read thre thread and I wonder why no one reported those comments for moderation. The rules do prohibit sexist comments.

The Constellation and Seamaster vintage lines are pretty perfect ladies watches based on their size and versatility despite working for men as well and the modern Omega lineup does have a huge ladies selection, so there’s definitely plenty of reason for them to come here.

The 17% is Google analytics data which tends to be fairly accurate with a dataset as large as ours.

In terms of why it’s not welcoming I think the abrasiveness with which some treat new people asking for help is a part of it, some of the comments and discussions belong more in a frat house than a watch community and the general sausage party vibe that a place gets when the vast majority of membership are blokes to the extent that they think it’s just them all contributes.

One thing I’m sure which can easily get on women’s nerves are all those locker room rants about wives.
Many of these would definitely make women, wives or girlfriends feel out of place, ie intruders and unwelcome. It takes being uniquely adaptable and curious about exotic environments to adjust.

And as we speak, on another thread, a regular member is joking about what a woman would say about how it would look if he put a watch down his pants. 🤦

Can you report it and we’ll deal with it? There’s never any harm in just hitting the report button so its brought to our attention.

Edit: never mind, found it and removed it.

Only 1women ever had issues that I am aware of.

But let’s be honest more then a few of us saw the issues coming by her 5th post. Turns out many of us predicted the complete future of her interactions on the forums all the way to her banning.

Are ypu talking about Megan Fox? we’re talking about 17% of persons comprising the traffic here and yet not participating.

Some women may also be worried about cyberstalking. I once sold an item on a different forum, and the buyer asked me not to use her name if I left her a review in the buyers/sellers thread because she had been stalked and was trying to keep a low profile with a new username. It made me feel very sad for her that she felt so unsafe.

I wasn’t pointing fingers.

I don’t see that there has been any actively negative outcomes or members towards women.

I think it’s a subject that heavily skews to one group. Similar reasons why Hermes forums skew in the opposite direction.

there is little discussion of midsize or womens marketed watches here, just like there are few conversations on Hermes forums about mens focused products.

Yes, Mens watches and vintage pieces are worn by women more and more but the interest doesn’t skew that way. I know when I’m at the local high end mall there tend to be only men in the watch shops while the shoe stores that have moths Mens and womens shoes still skews female.

I’ve managed communities that are traditionally actively toxic towards women and worked hard to change and reverse them. I doesn’t 20 years in the game industry fighting against masculine toxicity. I stood up for every women involved in Gamergate except one I knew personally and was just a horrible person that loves attention including negative attention and brought it all down on herself, and took active measures to make things worse so she could be the center of attention. (Think calling press conferences months after things died down just to reignite the flames, or taking insane stances on unrelated things to get her name in the news and people to attack her again)

I just don’t see toxicity here on a regular basis and when it does rear it’s head it’s more insensitivity then toxicity. And then normally stamped out.

the questions is how do you bring more women in? Are they focused on the nuance of the different constellation variants? Or the production numbers of a sib model with an orange hand? These are things that men tend towards enjoying… is it something biological? Or are women edged out and want to participate at that level but feel they can’t? I don’t know I’ve never heard that complaint before.

idk I’m just rambling and trying my best to be an ally.

Fir your information, my finger-pointing friend, the line I used was a take off of this:

“Is That a Gun in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Glad to See Me?”

Do you know who said that? Mae West. A woman.

I know the [obscure] reference. Your comment was still offensive IMO. Read the room (in 2022).

Part of this could be why I have not really felt like participating in forums like this for the last 18 years. I was on a well known tech microconroller forum where some members (who claim to be from the middle east.) where out rite abusive, and did what the could to ge me and others like me banned. I liked that forum a lot. But the company was sold and the new company simply did not care. There was not even a way to contact the company to even try and get the ban reversed.

I personally do not think it is biological. More of a socieo economic thing. Like social darwinisim. Something that has become ingrained, because that is the way it has always been done.

I sometimes blame my madness that when I was little Our TV caught fire. (I kept watching it and visited on the side of the house.) Prefered books anyway (BTW the the castaways ever get off Gilligan's island?) The real deal breaker was when they canceled the Thurber inspired "My world and welcome to it." (Thurber is more macabre than his associate Charlie Addams. But then he was a legally blind cartoonist.) This is not to say I did not watch TV, but I learned to see the superficiality of it.

So social media takes this a step further. That products sell best if we are told what we want and when we want it. Even my beloved books indicate how one is to behave or else. And do not think click bait advertising is new. I have original Dickens, and they are full of sketchy advertisements. He was also a victim of a 'Nigeran prince type scam." Which he parodied in his books. Specifically Mrs Jelleybe and her children who wrote such letters requesting help for starting the wonderful economic operations of Tea plantations in Africa.

In 'Our mutual friend' When Mr Boffin inherits his millions, he has do hire a full time secritary to deal with the 'dismal swamp' of letters, Usually written on fine paper in a well schooled feminine hand.

I will not create a Facebook account because of these sorts of attitudes. I did get a bad review at a company once and I was told I needed to watch more TV and not hang out at the 'Renaissance faire.' Guess I did not behave predictably the the fictional archtypes on shows like 'Friends' or Seinfeld. Where all problems are solved in 42 minutes. (Or we were stuck with those castaways on that Island for 52 minutes, forced to watch timex adverts.) It really becomes Groundhog day.

Not sure there is any way to change this. Or even if it should be changed. Could be how we have evolved for survival over the last 5 centuries.

I think one has to find a niche that they enjoy and make the best of it.

I was going to post the following photograph in it's own thread. Perhaps here (this thread is void of images) I went through and sorted those drawers. Was surprised how many ladies movements I had. I further sorted them into what I call coffin movements from tank and oval movements. Have also bee searching online sites for chronograph cases.

In some ways perhaps it is a good thing there is low interest, as it does keep the prices down (at least for the tiny movements.) Not so much for the chronographs. The hardest part is that the cases probably went to the fiery furnace for scrap. Which does make for a challenge. Still I found one or two that might have potential. Whom ever had this stuff seemed to have liked Bulova and Elgin.

Good names in their day, Perhaps their time will come again.



Perhaps we need a 'vintage ladies watch section' in the forums. I see my favorite Youtube watch restoration is doing the rolex version of the saffette.

-j