Is the aquarium hobby more popular with males or females?

OK....advance warning of controversial question....

Several people here on this thread have mentioned the male to female employee ratio at the aquatic shops

Why do you think there appears to be more males than females in the business?

Is it cos aquatics shop owners and bosses do not actually encourage females to apply for jobs or is it still a case of the aquatics industry as a whole being in the dark ages still and working in the industry is seen as a male orientated profession?

 

Everyone except one person at my Petsmart is female. Meg and David are probably the most knowledgeable petsmart people I have ever met.

 

I guess there are a few ways to view this (as each one needs to disregard potential offences taken and just answer the question as posed and take it as it is: a simple question)

1: this forum
2: your assumption of the global hobby
3: your experience

My answers...

1: no idea. I take it to not assume the gender of anyone on here - I’ve been caught out before. Also a tribe members versus lurkers etc.

2: my honest assumption would be that there are more men in the hobby.

3: my experience is definitely male dominated. I can’t think of one LfS (I’ve got about 5 that I frequent regularly and have about 10 in general I visit) that has a senior female staff member/expert. when visiting - the customers tend to be predominantly male too.

It may also be cultural. I imagine there are cultures where aquarium keeping is preferred by one gender or the other...

 

OK....advance warning of controversial question....

Several people here on this thread have mentioned the male to female employee ratio at the aquatic shops

Why do you think there appears to be more males than females in the business?

Is it cos aquatics shop owners and bosses do not actually encourage females to apply for jobs or is it still a case of the aquatics industry as a whole being in the dark ages still and working in the industry is seen as a male orientated profession?

Hoo boy.
My guess would be that several decades ago the ratio was more skewed towards men, which gives you a higher number of male long-timers, who go on to run LFS's.

Industry gender ratios evening out *is* a relatively recent phenomenon, I'd imagine there's still some residual effects. Especially in a hobby trade that's not extremely public nor extremely pressured to make big changes in terms of who's running all the stores and other important functions of the hobby, or to employ an even amount of men and women in one store.

I don't think it's mainly the fault of the employers, but more of a matter of the kinds of interests people grew up with and were encouraged to have. I can see this changing with time though. A lot's changed in terms of what we expect of men n women.

Plus, what I've noticed is that fishkeeping doesn't skew its advertising to one or the other. It's either neutral, or makes an equal amount of stuff (themed tanks, decor, etc) aimed towards young boys AND girls. The industry isn't selling itself as a male-only thing, at least, and that's probably going to attract more women into that industry as time goes on.

 

I miss read the question and I put males because I read it as what gender of fish seems to be more popular... I put 50/50 after figuring it out. oops

 

I voted for 50/50, just because there seems to be a fairly decent balance (from what I can tell) on this forum.

 

I agree that the employees and the clientele (at least the serious buyers) at the LFS in my area tend to be male, especially in saltwater.
My feeling is that men are more likely to "DIY" to the level of geeking out on equipment, and this hobby can be as involved, complicated and expensive as one wants to make it. Between DIY stands made of every overkill material and light fixtures that should be lighting professional sports, reactors and diffusers ad all manner of techie do-not-expose-to-water gadgets.
I think women are less vocal about it on the whole and I don't disagree with the majority (not ALL) of women viewing an aquarium as a decoration. I fall into that somewhat myself:
One of the many reasons I opted for switching to freshwater from salt was I didn't like the Industrial Complex aesthetic that seems to go with a successful reef tank. My fish are my pets, and I love them and care for them as such, but I still want the aquarium to be part of my living room. Men will say "If they notice the equipment the tank must not be that great!" and women say "If the equipment looks like carp you must not care how the tank looks."
I guess that's not an answer as much as my observation of our aquatic gender roles. I'm not over here clutching my pearls or anything...

 

I'm female but I have always seen way more males into fish keeping than females. My uncle, my grandpa, every person that has taught me anything has been male.

 

I’ll say in reality more men than women. On the internet way more women than men! On here just some mean scary women who scare members into removing there threads!!! Ya big meanies!!! I think your husbands clean your tanks!!.

Just joking don’t send Seachem after me!!!!.

 

Another branch of this debate would be who designed some of the mass produced aquariums thinking it would be a good idea....

Hex aquariuns are definitely a male design.....bl**dy awkward, hard to keep clean and downright frustrating....not to mention stressfull, blood pressure increasing things that are stupidly high maintenance that really make you feel like lobbing the thing out of the window

Amd don't even get me started on sucker cups....they are DEFINITELY a male designed thing.....

 

Going by personal observations from meeting fish store owners, employees, and hobbyists, I voted male, though on Fishlore, the ratio seems to be more evenly distributed.

Why do you think there appears to be more males than females in the business?

Is it cos aquatics shop owners and bosses do not actually encourage females to apply for jobs or is it still a case of the aquatics industry as a whole being in the dark ages still and working in the industry is seen as a male orientated profession?

If you're thinking women are less likely to apply because of the perception it's male dominated, I don't think that's it. I mean, I always viewed this hobby and related profession as gender neutral, unlike, say, firefighters or flight attendants. And unlike the aforementioned professions, there are no stereotypes of what a fishkeeper looks like, cause I really believe it's accessible and meant for everyone to enjoy. Most people have done it at some point: kids, boys, girls, nerds, gamers, adults, doctors, mechanics flight attendants, and firefighters, etc. So why aren't as many women as men applying for jobs related to the hobby, I don't know. Maybe our observations are just that--anecdotal and flawed. And realistically, there's never going to be an even distribution in everything. If people aren't interested, then they just aren't going to look.

 

I'm a bit late to the party because I just wasn't feeling a possible controversial topic. Seems it hasn't gotten out of hand so I'll bite.

I'll go by the % of aquarists I've met in person (not many), so it'll have to be more men. 2/3 men, 1/3 women. I wish I could meet more fish people in person but I'm not going to drive 2+ hrs to the auctions/conventions in the big cities because I'm a chicken and stranger danger puts me on edge if I were to go alone.

Little boys start early in life playing in the local creeks & ponds. As time goes by, they learn to bring the creek inside the house in the form of a fish tank.
Although I can think of a lot of girls who also liked the creeks & ponds as much as me, there were far more boys.
I'm going with 60% male fishkeepers to 40% female.

I was/still am one of those girls who plays in creeks and ponds. I find it absolutely facilitating to observe aquatic critters in their natural habitat. My sisters didn't seem like it as much as they didn't touch the slimy things, just the turtles.

 

I did fifty/fifty, surprisingly in my area mostly women keep aquariums. I think that's because 99% of the men here are dragging fish out of the lakes and rivers and chasing deer. I occasionally join in.

 

I wouldn't have a clue.
Unless you looked at every single profile - I'm sure the moderators or site owner(s) have that statistic.

Edit: @ Demeter - stranger danger, I like that expression.
Yes, socializing with complete strangers, even if you do share a similar interest can be nerve racking. I think there's a group in my city that meets very infrequently and I've never gone.

 

If I found a dude who loved giant goldfish as much as I do, I would defiantly marry him.

 

OK....advance warning of controversial question....

Several people here on this thread have mentioned the male to female employee ratio at the aquatic shops

Why do you think there appears to be more males than females in the business?

Is it cos aquatics shop owners and bosses do not actually encourage females to apply for jobs or is it still a case of the aquatics industry as a whole being in the dark ages still and working in the industry is seen as a male orientated profession?

The sky is blue here today.
The sky must be blue everywhere in the world today.

-------------------

One's localized experience doesn't dictate what happens in the next town/country or even continent.
I live in a city with a couple Petsmarts,PetValus,BigAls (chain stores) as well as 2 independent aquarium shops.

All of them have mostly female employees, with the exception of 2 of them. I think it's just whom happens to apply for the jobs at the time. Teens and early 20'something woman most of the time.

All I care about is knowledgeable staff and that, unfortunately is hard to find at chain stores. Just about all the stores I mentioned have employees that really don't know one fish from the next. But then again, they weren't hired for that reason. You have to catch the older, seasoned employees or owner(s) whom happen to be men.

That's been my experience.

 

How many members of this forum are male/female that should settle the matter! not that it matters.

 

the deuce Bigalow movie explain why exactly that happen.
This is a joke and doesn't must be taking seriously xD.

 

This is a biased question/poll. It doesn't matter about sex, ethnicity, age, religion, income, etc. The aquarium hobby is meant for everyone despite the list that I mentioned.

A biased type of question will probably yield some biased answers. I'm not joking, I'm being serious. For weeks I have been kept silenced. However, since this poll is shown up at the aquarium forum page and not taken down, I feel like I needed to speak up.

 

I understand. Oh here it is probably 50/50. Mostly only guys have fish rooms though (with the exception of Rachael O'Leary).

I have a small fishroom

I don't know how the genders are split in the hobby, but most of my fish friends have been male. Something I never understood bc I always thought gardens were a female thing. But that's not fair to say, I just mean I always thought the hobby should be more of a female thing or I couldn't figure out why more females weren't into it.

But as mentioned, maybe there are more females now (compared to 10 years ago, I still think there are more males and why I voted for more males.

I would also like to see a poll on how many male/female members we actually have, not a big deal, just for curiosity.

Oh and my mom kept the fish tank growing up and I never viewed it as 'gross'. But I used to play with spiders and snakes so.......

 

I say more males in the hobby I'm a female and it seems like everyone I meet in the hobby are guys the few girls that I've seen on the hobby are on fishlore and very knowledgeable in the hobby but seems like most girls don't wanna have to lift buckets of water and deal with fish food and stuff not all lol tho bc I know there's girls like me who have fish and reptiles

 

Both me and my fiancé both aspire a career in aquatics (ichthyologist & marine biologist) I focus more on cichlids as where she is more on the salty side!