Where are the women.

[Ceri Jones]

Originally Posted by Hodgelett

Archery is dominated by geeks, and the male-female geek ratio is pretty similar.

Saying that, both my uni club and my home club have fairly high female proportions, as well as a huge junior section in the latter. But yes one method is getting one of the kids interested, then their siblings, then the parents...this is not a tried and tested method, honestly.
It's just interesting to see what they shoot. Most of the ladies shoot recurve, we have one ladies longbow and one junior (so she wouldn't beat her bro), one compound due to back injury, and of course I'm barebow. The men seem more diverse - quite a few longbows and compounds.


And yes, I'll readily admit I'm a geek.

My uni clubs the same, wonder if its like this in all uni clubs???

Funny thing is almost all the 2nd/3rd years have a not shooting partner, so a lot of single 1st years in ours.

Originally Posted by Little Miss Purple

Just lock the kids in a cupboard when you go to shoot... and the hubby too if he's a problem

Hahaha.

[Hodgelett]

Originally Posted by Ceri Jones

My uni clubs the same, wonder if its like this in all uni clubs???

Actually I was talking about my home club mainly. Last year my uni club was 3 female recurves, about 4 male recurves, lots of novice recurves, one male compound...and me. Yeah...small and select.

[Ceri Jones]

Originally Posted by Hodgelett

Actually I was talking about my home club mainly. Last year my uni club was 3 female recurves, about 4 male recurves, lots of novice recurves, one male compound...and me. Yeah...small and select.

Ahhh, we have 15 seniors, 5 male 10 female and about 50-60 paid novice members mostly female.
Freshers week is usually chaos as our hall is too small to cope with the "invasion" of ppl wanting to give it a go.

[speed]

Well every year I keep trying to get my other half to take up the sport and last year on holiday finally she had a go, but it is really hard work.

I have resigned myself to the fact that if she is ever going to take up this sport it will be after my daughter starts ( which will probably annoy both her older brothers immensly ! now ain't sibling rivalry great?).

More women need encouraging into sport and school age through to uni students is the time to influence them.

[Hodgelett]

'hall' bwahahaha.

Try 'tunnel' for us. We have to run have-a-go sessions for a fortnight with no more than 5 people at a time.
It's crazy, we can't recruit because we don't have enough shooting space, we don't have enough shooting space cos we don't get much money (and no-one wants to rent out to us), we don't get much money cos we don't have enough members.

Anyway...enough of the [/hijack]

[grimsby archer]

Originally Posted by Deemon

Seriously though because we all share a common 'obsession' I don't really think that gender is an issue.

Contrarywise, I think gender is very much an issue (from one perspective)
With only some 15% of women and girls taking part in regular sport (compared to 50% of men and boys) that is a massive untapped potential of new membership for clubs and archery as a whole [non pc statement warning](not to mention making the place look nicer)[/non pc statement warning]

[not dead yet]

Originally Posted by Hodgelett

Ok I should rephrase to student archers tend to be geeks. At all the competitions I've been to pretty much 99% of the students have been scientists, with a smattering of war studies and history buffs. When I say I'm doing law they look at me strangely.
Remembering 'geek' doesn't necessarily mean computers.

Of the older archers I know, they all seem pretty diverse, although carpenters seem to prefer longbow for some reason!

So your a law student and you've already called all archers GEEKs,(too late to change your mind ), Law suit on its way.
stupid boy
pmsl
pete

[Hodgelett]

*cough* girl *cough*

Plus I'm in Sweden right now, and their freedom of expression laws are crazy. They have a whole constitution on it! So I am perfectly within my rights to call you a geek.
The Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression - Riksdagen

[Big Bird]

Originally Posted by Old Bloke

A very good question..why aren't there more women in sport generally?

Concerning archery, I have asked many a woman who follow their men folk around and most say *O'h I couldn't do that!* When persuing this a little further they then state that they are surpressed from doing such things by their men folk with further comments such as *O'h he wouldn't approve* or *he is worried that I might be better at it than him*. Maybe it is because of men's attitudes that there are less women in sport and this includes archery.
As a footnote, how much womens participation sport do you see on T.V.? Very, very little.

Thats why I must be single!! Archery is my life and NO-ONE will get in the way of that!!

[Insanity-Rocks]

Originally Posted by KINGYROO COMETH

Ha do i detect ill feeling towards female archers!

No, as I'm one myself!

Originally Posted by grimsby archer

Question for the Ladies:

What attracted you to the sport of archery?

We are trying to put together a campaign to attract more ladies to our club. In a membership of 60 we only have 3 ladies.
We have identified some "barriers to participation" as they say, but even with those negative "barriers" removed, ladies must "want" to take part, so what makes ladies want to take up our sport?

One thing that attracted me to the sport is that it's supposedly a mans sport, with Robin Hood and all that. So it's in my stubburn nature to give it a try