Personal View site logo
Make sure to join PV on Telegram or Facebook! Perfect to keep up with community on your smartphone.
Please, support PV!
It allows to keep PV going, with more focus towards AI, but keeping be one of the few truly independent places.
Waiting patiently
  • Panasonic said typically about 75% of SLR customers are male, but nearly 70% of the buyers of its mirrorless cameras are female.

    Where are they all?

    Via: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304444604577342094118995830.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews

  • 23 Replies sorted by
  • Does that mean your hacking a girl's camera?

  • @kavadni

    Two last ones - GF2 and GF3 are mostly girls oriented, yep.

    But I fail to see all this girls on our forum. It could be fun to have few smart ones.

  • it's weird when you think about it... Though I'm sure there are many great women cinematographers etc out there, how come women are not synonymous with forums? sth in the way they are wired perhaps?... If there are any women reading this thread, chime in!

  • yikes, 'fun?'

  • Man like messing with their toys, women don't.

  • You rarely see women on forums, they all at the coffee shop gasbagging in real time.

  • In Japan, GF3 showroom is right next to women's apparels showroom. Ladies can shop their dresses/shoes/accessories matching to GF3. No I'm not kidding. Ladies pwn m43!!!

  • @csync Hopefully just a regional difference. It's easy for people to misinterpret things.

    I think most of the people on here welcome diversity, whether in gender, ethnicity, religion or otherwise. The last thing anyone wants is to alienate the very person that discovers how to make Sedna span on every card, every time... or something. :)

    One of my colleagues was asking the other day about how much it would cost her to get a Nokton 25mm f0.95 and we got to talking about this site. She had asked if there were women on this site, and I said I didn't know of any specifically. But I also said that it wasn't like everyone on the site declared their gender either.

    Then I realized that out of the several forums I read for cameras, I had only run into one poster in the last few weeks that had identified herself as a women, and that was on RedUser.net.

    So far, the tone of Personal-View has not struck me as excessively male-centric and I honestly feel comfortable referring the women I work with here. I have every reason to believe that will continue to be the case and hope that some of them will eventually choose to post as well. Their differing perspectives are a constant asset to me in my work (and I assume would be to others as well).

  • While volunteering aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel the Bob Barker for the last two years, I have seen more Olympus Pen and PL (and some Pany GF) cameras in the hands of women, who come tour our ship when we are in port, than any other camera. Mind you we only dock in Australia and NZ currently. While working in NYC before that, I saw a lot of G1 and GH1s in the hands of men touring the streets of Manhattan. In Australia, most every camera shop has several M4/3 cameras on display in their front windows. Only been back in the states for two days, so cannot say what its like here currently.

  • Hopefully the reason they're not here is because they're in the kitchen making their men supper!! A woman's place ain't in the interwebs, it's in the kitchen!! :P

    Seriously though, can't say I'm surprised in the lack of women on forums dedicated to things like bitrate, quantitization, low Gop, etc...

    Ultimately women aren't driven in this area the way men are. Then the women who do have that male drive ususally apply it elsewhere, business, medicine, law, etc...

    I learned a lot of the basics reading her site, though she doesn't post much video specific posts for health and other personal reasons. Her back posts of video topics are must read though.

  • @CRFilms - I couldn't disagree more, I've noticed no difference at all in 'how women are driven' when it comes to any of those subjects, if anything it's cultures that expect men to excel at math and women at arts that discourage younger women from participating. I mean, if you're given a dress to mend as a girl and a radio to fix as a boy, twenty years later you'll be affected by those decisions.

  • @csync ...no.... the differences between men and women are primarily BIOLOGICAL, genetic, not cultural or upbringing.

    There was a article once about twins and the one twin's circumcision was botched and they decided it was better to do a gender reassignment than try to fix his penis. They raised him as a girl and...things didn't turn out well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

    The more I hear about stuff like this...the more I believe that 70% of who we are is genetics. We're born one way or another. The rest can be adjusted by proper upbringing up 20-25% or or improper upbringing down 20-25%.

    Either born with it or not. If not then you'll have to work alittle(or a lot) harder to get what you want.

  • @CRFilms - That article seems to be entirely unrelated,.

    Your earlier claim was that women are biologically driven differently than men when it comes to things like 'bit rate, quantization, low GOP, etc' - that certainly isn't what I've observed. I have many talented friends, both men and women, and I've never noticed any gender or sex related differences when it comes to their interests or talents. I have noticed, in general, that there are fewer women in the sciences, and if anything that's most certainly because of fewer opportunities for women, and how women are encouraged with activities from an early age. The same is certainly true in business as well and clearly explains why we have fewer women CEO's, even though women perform just as well if not better at that level.

    Since I asked you for citations, I'll offer a few of my own. Every study I've ever seen shows that women are as capable as men are with mathematics (the realm of bit rate & quantization). The gender gap in maths and other subjects also isn't found in every country and seems to differ based on where a woman is raised, independent of her ethnicity.

    I strongly suggest you read: Cross-national patterns of gender differences in mathematics: A meta-analysis. Their conclusion? After looking at over a million students, there are no significant differences in the mathematical abilities of women contrasted with men. The largest predictor for how large a gender gap would be? School enrollment percentages and how many women represent a nation's citizens in government.

  • Olivia shoots with a GH2. I wish she'd come here and play. She's hot and knows a lot of stuff. http://oliviatech.com/

  • @CRFilms
    @csync

    Keep boundaries, please.

  • @CRFilms and @csync - these things have been discussed in depth many times... nature vs. nurture and that whole can of worms. Arguing for no difference in gender abilities is an interesting thing to do, but even if it were true it doesn't answer the OP's question: why are there (essentially) no women on this forum? And I think that's a question that most forums could ask - regardless of topic.

    It has nothing to do with gender "equality" or equal math abilities or whatever. We all get that and have a lot of respect for the prettier half of the world (or at least we should).

    Maybe it's a language issue - attributing differences to being "wired" or "pre-dispositioned" is just too prescriptive. It sucks. But the ugly truth rears its head... why aren't there any women on this forum?

    @csync says: "I've never noticed any gender or sex related differences when it comes to their interests or talents."

    Though it seems sincere - that's a pretty incredible statement. Never? Any? Difference?

    My wife is a smart, progressive, techy lady - MS in Geography, teaches at the local University... but as far as I know, she's not a member of ANY forum (I'll ask her and report back). It's not a matter of access or math ability. Sheesh, she could probably start her own PV on GIS mapping systems if she wanted to - but it's not about knowledge base or ability. It's a combo of the "wired" or "pre-dispositioned" thing, along with gender specific preferences for how we engage/communicate with others. Gasbagging in a cafe vs. geeking out on a forum. I chafe at that idea as much as the next human, but frankly, there's a biological component to the explanation of why women aren't hacking GH2s.

    And sorry @csync, but the quaint notion that it's because "boys were given radios to fix" when they were growing up may have held water in the 1970's but it don't anymore. The whole feminist movement is way past trying to prove that men's/women's brains are blank slates at birth. There's just too much data saying otherwise. It's not all in the wiring - but a lot of it is.

    So if you're single - you're in the wrong place. But you already knew that.

  • Internet forum full of men shocker!!!!

  • @tjnavyblue - I just don't buy it - the science on that subject is minimal, and I think it's a bit misplaced to try to railroad this conversation into 'nature v nurture' territory. I think it's fine to wave hands and point to some mysterious realm when it comes to individual talents (not to say we shouldn't try to figure out why some excel when others don't), but there's a danger in saying that gender differences are unavoidable or pre-wired.

    But what's the danger? It excuses the way the world is. Pay differences, fewer women in the sciences, fewer representation in government. If privileged men think that it's because of how women are wired, there's no need for action on their part. The same argument was made to explain in the US why certain ethnicities weren't excelling and it's been completely smashed to pieces by the hard science on the issue. One of the biggest predictors for the number of women in the higher sciences? How many women are in parliament/higher government. The same underlying structural changes in those societies also allow women greater freedom in choosing scientific courses of study.

    It's fine to explain away something as a "quaint notion," but this isn't in the past, it's still currently happening. Go to a toy store some time. Things are getting better, certainly, but it takes a lot of effort and time to reverse, well, just look at what CRFilms said earlier, "Hopefully the reason they're not here is because they're in the kitchen making their men supper!! A woman's place ain't in the interwebs, it's in the kitchen!! :P"

    Obviously he's joking, as signified by the :P at the end, but that sort of boring 'back room humor' is certainly discouraging, not just to women, but to anyone who might have a good sense of humor (sorry).

    There aren't any easy solutions to this, and I don't think it's possible to offer "that's just the way things are" and to forget about it, not after you've opened your eyes to how women, in general and on average, are given fewer opportunities to excel in certain fields - but the ones who were given equal opportunity or encouraged? I don't notice any gender differences in the way they think about science or how intelligent or applied they are. In my own personal life, and maybe I'm just surrounded with the people I like to surround myself with, I couldn't imagine someone saying that significant biological differences between men and women are responsible for fewer women being represented in the sciences. It sounds preposterous to me, which is why I'm happy to be exposed to other opinions and to have to justify my own, that's certainly healthy. You'd think that if there were biological differences that were more important than any social treatment, that women wouldn't be as represented as men in the sciences in some countries, and not in others, you'd expect it to be uniform and repeated according to the fundamental differences, but that's not at all what we see, we see it completely follow a model describing those differences as differences of opportunity, time after time.

    So why aren't there women on this board? One good reason is: there are a bunch of men. I bet if it was 'seeded' with women at some point, there would be more in the future. A statistic I don't have at hand right now was that most lurkers for tech forums like this one are women, they visit proportionate to the number of women:men interested in a subject, but they lurk disproportionately - heck, I would too if half the stuff on these boards about women applied directly to me.

    Sometimes it seems like someone can't post a video with a female in it without a gaggle of men saying rude things about her, or offering winks and nudges. Whether or not that's a good behavior isn't important to me, what is important is: does that make it more or less likely for a woman reading that to want to post?

  • Just face it .. we all have cutesy girly cameras and we've all got small sensors. It's my sister's fault for making me play Barbie and Ken with her

  • @csync - good points. I agree that women have been under-represented, and that this has a measurable impact on opportunity. And I'm all for complete gender equity every time - so we're totally on the same page on that. And, I'm playing a bit of the devil's advocate on this... I've taken your side before.

    I guess what I'm not sure of is that the reasons for under-representation in the sciences is parallel to under-representation on this forum. It seems like under-representation on this forum is more indicative of actual gender preferences rather than opportunity/access issues. In the OP, it's clear that access to GH2's is not the issue (70% of consumers are women). Neither is access to this forum from a logistical perspective - if you're buying a GH2, you probably have access to the internet, and thus PV.

    So - are there a bunch of women lurkers here? Maybe. But I don't think so. BTW, why do we sense that most of us are not female? I've never seen someone self-identify - "I'm a man, and I'm using Sanity 5 and I love it". But it seems pretty obvious... I wonder why. And that's not loaded - just a simple why.

    I feel like it's okay that men's and women's brains would tend towards behavioral differences. I don't mean for that to be prescriptive, just an observation. It's not sexist, and it has nothing to do with gender equality. It's not an excuse or "just the way things are". For me, it's the honest, if not PC, conclusion.

  • @csync

    I'll say you horrible thing. Woman are vastly different, not emotionally, but physically.
    Really like movement for equality ideas, but we already have many issues because of it.
    Suppose they are almost exactly the same. But they need to feed and raise chindren. Function that in many modern countries are performed either by hired unofficial immigrants or by almost same people in kindergarden. And if woman are really up to raise 2-3 childrens as it supposed to be, I do not know how she could compete in real fair competition.

  • We can't beat Pentax. It's not the body. It's the bag. Always the pink bag.

    1335173882_1335173638_01.jpg
    800 x 600 - 118K
  • One early review of the Lumix GH1 called it " a delicate flower"

    Arnold Schwarzenegger to Shane Hurlbut: Hey, Shane! I vant you and your elite team to shoot my new moovee! NO! I don't need no stinkin' 5D's. Too Damn Fuzzy! I vant you to use dat girlieman cam. Da one with the Japanese Technology, Russian Mojo and British presets. Yah, GH2! With dat one and an Austrian actor we have a winner!!