Picking up from some comments on the "How old are you" thread. Why do you think ther are no girls here ?
Mr personal opinion is that the lack of females using this site seems to be consistent with he lack of females that are involved in reggae in general.
The male population seems to represent about 95+ percent of the reggae industy.
If you look down the years the number of female artists, producers, label and studio owners in reggae are totally dwarfed by the male involvement.
Reggae music to me seems to be totally male dominant apart from the odd few female singers and fewer producers.
I think this factor is linked to the lack of female interest as a listener and participator on such reggae forums.
Back in the eighties, from my own experiences of being there, it was the nearly always the guys who went to the sound systems to hear the music and the woman went more to be with their man.
Now watch the woman come out the woodwork and prove me wrong
My girlfriend and the majority of girls i know just wanna hit the club/pop scene,to busy worrying about the latest fashion/shoes and hair style.
There to busy loving Robbie Wiliiams,Take That,Sugar Babes,the latest hit and all that other bubble gum junk.
So to see them getting into dub/roots sounds is very unlikley.I`m from the East Coast,Durban City,S.Africa and i`m a surfer,the only girls that i`ve known get into reggae sounds are surfer chicks wich are laid back and hippy style.
Sad case but people are changing with the times except I and I plus other rasta,we still hold on to our roots and music.
Imho, the stereotype about women, that the majority are only into 'shallow' pop music ('junk'), is a good example of one reason why there are few women in the reggae scene/heavily into reggae - remember that your expectations will shape the people around you, and therefore shape your experience. If you look at other non-mainstream music scenes, women are a lot more involved.
But it makes sense that in roots reggae there aren't. Roots reggae (from the classical period) is almost entirely performed by males (yes, I know there are a few exceptions to this, hence the 'almost'), and a lot of it's based on Biblical theology which has never been what you'd call female-friendly.
Militant music is also likely to attract more males than females, given the cultural acceptability of militancy for males as opposed to females. Rasta culture, while it's changed over time, hasn't been and very often still isn't accepting of females as equals, and indeed is often quite misogynistic. In my experience, at least, in comparison to other scenes the reggae scene is not very accepting of any form of difference except race (for primary examples, gender and sexuality), and men are more attracted to that kind of exclusivity than women.
Finally, men make up a huge majority of the people who are heavily into *any* specific type of music, either in terms of being record collectors, DJs, what have you. That isn't something that's specific to reggae, but combined with the factors mentioned above it leads to the situation we have. I'd speculate that men are more into collecting, categorisation and competition (and that this is for socio-cultural, not biological/evolutionary, reasons) but whatever the explanation, it certainly seems to be the case.
My sister is very much into reggae but doesnt look at it like me. Generally im not sure girls are so into the specific things that males are when it comes to records.. I've yet to meet a girl who will look at a record in the same way i do. But then thats a bit of a sexist thing for me to say, im sure they are out there.
I find really, if to settle for someone who will enjoy the music i like, a surfer chic or a hippie girl is about as near as you'll get in the UK as there are few true girls who love reggae specifically..
But then thats all just my experience, its an incredibly hard thing to talk about because i have only met a tiny proportion of the populus and therefore im unaware of the full scale of female reggae lovers..
I used to do a night down in Newbury, wiltshire, evey month and id get a bunch of girls come down every week, loving the herb and the music though they sure wernt rasta.
I just rambled on, my sentences arnt making sense tonight to take what i've said as you will..
I think you have to consider that the "collector's fury" that most users of this forum are personnally experiencing for reggae music is rarer for girls. I mean that, not concerning reggae specifically, women seems to be much less (and who can say they're wrong) monomaniacs than men can be.
Add this to the strong machism that has taken place in reggae area, that can eventually discourage collector-candidates women, and you'll maybe have half the answer.
