End Perfume Sexism - Should Basenotes Merge the Male and Female Sub-Forums?

I'm new, and I don't frequent the female forum at all to know the usage levels, but I guess that's part of the point from my perspective. I'm (so far) only interested in the male fragrances.

But, it *is* a valid use of forums: to only split them off when usage of a splintered topic warrants it.

I would be totally opposed to this idea.

The way I view it, the men's forum is primarily designed to discuss fragrances men use. The point is not how the fragrance is marketed, it's a forum for discussing how fragrances smell and act on men, and for sharing these experiences. The women's forum does the same for women.

I am (relatively) uninterested in reading about, or sifting through posts addressing, fragrances that are not worn by men. But if I wanted to do so, I'd hop on over to the women's forum and read those posts.

And the factual basis for the statement that women are "playing the role of marginalized minority" is lost on me. Women are welcome to post here, just as men are welcome to post on the female forum. The two forums are utterly open to anyone. The reason for the two forums has nothing to do with marginalization, just to segregate topic areas by interest. Seems pretty useful to me.

Andy, I disagree that women are marginalized here, or that BN creates an unwelcoming environment for us. I have no problem reading or joining the discussion on any of the boards here. I simply go to "New Posts" and select the topics that interest me. A quick check just now tells me that I spend more time on the men's board, and I've never been made to feel unwelcome there.

I think things are fine the way they are, if it is not broke don't try to fix it.

I like things the way they are. I get a thrill from posting on the Male forums too - that's nice ! The guys are always friendly.
I don't feel marginalized .

Keep things the same.

From a user perspective, it is easier to view threads/responses.

Yet another vote for keeping things the way they are...

"Female sub..." - what? :-)

I am opposed to the idea as well but for completely different reasons.

Firstly the atmosphere:
I myself have hopped over from time to time and found the females side more personal, more chatty (this is NOTmeant in a negative way!!!!) and overall just warmer. I am fairly sure this would soon change in a merged board as the guys are still more in numbers and posts and the level of communication can easier be de- than increased.

Secondly, boardercrossing, it's already happening:
Check the females board, there are several threads started by guys, I know a couple that post way more over there than here, for reasons I can only assume but I think the quality of the discussion, the tone of it and said atmosphere will be factors.

Thirdly, the level of discussion:
Due to the desire, that leads so many people here (including me at fist), which is finding that ultimate if not pantie-dropping secret holy grail, and due to the insane traffic of people joining, posting like mad for a few months and then, when they could actually be diving into the hobby and developing nose and experience (rather than a quick vacation affair), dropping it.
the mens board is IMHO very superficial and repetitive compared to the ladies board.
I'm not complaining, I read and post by choice but it does get tiring to always see topics reappearing that have been covered dozens of times. Sometimes there are almost identical threads on the front page of the forum for Heavens Sake, just because some people dont care to check the other threads but rather just want to dump teir questions on the rest and "get results".



So overall I am against merging and I dont think it would do the female part of BN much good either.
There are not only Mens and Womens board but lots of shared ones anyway.

Maybe it's a bad comparison but equalistion hasnt reached toilets yet either, there could be a reason


PS: sorry if this came across snide or sensitive, just my two cents.





EDIT: Alright, during the time it took me to compose this ramble there has been 'nuf said

I understand your concern, however I respectfully disagree.

1. The activity in the male forum greatly exceeds that of the female forum. If you wanted to discuss feminine fragrances, then it would be 4 male posts for every 1 female post. It wouldn't be optimal.

2. The male forum is probably TOO active. It would probably be best if the male forum were divided into sub-forums itself. So that way the lifespan of a topic is more than 36 hours. This topic could be completely gone in 2 days. By adding the feminine topics to it, it will be even more of a problem.

3. Even if gender is a social construct, it is largely accepted. Feminine perfume is marketed toward women. Masculine cologne is marketed toward men. Sure, some from either side can be unisex, but in our culture, gender associations are meaningful.

Ooh Andy, now I find I want to comment on something from your earlier thread, but I'll add it here to consolidate the discussion. You said that people raise the subject often enough, so you thought you'd ask what people thought of this idea...

People raise the subject of perfumes being (or not being) unisex, but they don't often raise the subject of how the boards are split up. They're not the same thing, and I think that's an important difference.

Just to be clear, I'm in the "wear what you want, perfume isn't gendered" camp. But I note that the character and tone of the discussion on women's forums is very different from that on men's forums. We mentioned MUA (overwhelmingly women) and you said you didn't like the format. I'm not sure it's the format that keeps men away, and so my concern is that if you combined the boards, one would eventually squeeze the other out, and then we would be left with less diversity, not more.

I like it here because there is that diversity. I want to learn about fragrances of all kinds, not just ones marketed to men or women. I can do that here, so I'm really happy with the current arrangement. Rather than looking at it as segregation, I see it as providing space for everyone.

I totally disagree. I think things are fine the way they are and more organized ... Changing this would not be a good idea.

I find it ironic that you have written this... though I agree with you. There is an epidemic of pointless threads, polls and redundant questions at the moment, many of which can be answered by using the search (or wardrobe!) function.

I am not sure how the ladies' are marginalized on the forum, can you explain?

I visit many different forums for other hobbies in my life, and every one has sub-forums which are incredibly active, and others where the activity level is just above a crawl.

Men can post in the female forum and vice versa!! The opinions of both sexes are appreciated!! There's no actual segregation in my eyes, if anything the msplit just helps keep things more topical!!

Neutral on this. Right now, even if the benefits of merging have been accurately, detailed and justifiably explained, still, the change would not be that significant.

I'm in the minority and much prefer a unified perfume discussion. I've never really understood why Basenotes separates fragrance discussion by gender; it seems an artificial construct to me. I wear scents marketed to men as well as to women, and most of the fragrances that interest me these days aren't marketed specifically to any gender. I suspect I'm typical of most women in perfume forums in this regard. The separation here has a kind of 1950s feel to me, or like one of those parties where the women hang out in one room and men in another.

That said, I don't feel women are marginalized here. Speaking just for myself, the only reason I don't post more here is because I find the weird split mildly annoying. It means I have to check two threads instead of one, and I like having discussion with men as well as women. So I tend to post more on other perfume forums that don't split things up.

I'm going to conjecture that fewer men feel comfortable wearing fragrances marketed to women than vice-versa (though of course there are exceptions), and that more men than women would therefore be interested in a segregated discussion forum. Because this is less applicable to women, we're more likely to post in a variety of perfume forums. That might also account for the lower number of women posting here; we're spread more thinly across the perfume blogosphere.

In any case, the gender segregation obviously works for lots of folks here. So carry on.

Ending sexism doesn't mean denying there are differences between men and women. Ending sexism means treating men and women equally. A forum for each is equal. Paying a man and a woman the same for doing the same job is equal. Equal means not assuming it's the man's job to pay on a date or that a woman has to play a subservient role. It means knowing that a woman is just as capable as a man in leadership roles, and knowing that a man has just as much of a duty in taking care of children or doing housework.

Sexism would be deleting the female fragrances forum entirely or merging it into a general discussion forum while leaving the male fragrances forum intact. That would be sexist because it would be unequal.

I do wonder why the female fragrances forum has less activity than the male side does. I assume the forums simply have more male participants, but like I said, I don't know why. Maybe many women interested in discussing fragrances are posting in other beauty related sites? Maybe, since there are so many more beauty products targeting women, basenotes doesn't come up as often in female-fragrance google searches, leading fewer women to find the forum. I don't know. Maybe there are fewer places for men to discuss fragrance online, so more of us end up on one of two sites (here or fragrantica).

This forum already has a lot of activity and merging forums would create more posts to sift through. I prefer topics to be categorized and would welcome subforums to more easliy find the information I am most interested in.

I should add that, for collectors and fumeheads, it probably wouldn't matter if the forums were combined. But for those of us who are less experienced, especially those inexperienced with niche houses, combining the forums would make things really difficult. There would be constant questions in threads about "is this a men's frag or a woman's?"

As it is now, the scents being discussed in the men's fragrances forum are either men's scents or women's scents men can easily wear. If it weren't that way, the forum would be more intimidating to new users and more confusing overall.

...I do wish more women posted in the men's forum though

Sexism in perfumes would mean the disapproval of one sex wearing a fragrance for the other, and I don't think the merging would eliminated this, as rare as it already is! I like things the way they are.

I totally concur.

When people discuss "fragrances that are not worn by men", this seems too nebulous and appears to coincide with the whole concept of marketing. My view is that marketing is only a nuisance to the realm of fragrances and is irrelevant -- with that being said, how can there be anything that men do not wear? This is purely personal taste, choice, and opinion of the user and it has absolutely no relevance to the decisions a living being may make. How can anyone say "this" or "that" is what men do and do not wear?

When you say that these sub-forums should be the way they are right now to talk about the way they "smell and act on men," or women, then why does the feel of the forum right now seem to be clearly divided not by this rationale but by the gender marketing of fragrance in the first place? Of course, there will be outliers and exceptions to this rule, but one has to see that this general rule is true.

Simply, I think we are all used to the style of Basenotes the way it is. We are programmed at this point to go beyond the marketing stereotypes that may be present into psychologically telling people what and what not to wear. A reformatting would ideally, IMO, benefit and help disintegrate the gender stereotypes present.

No!

To extrapolate, we should also merge the "Just Starting Out" forum because it marginalizes newbies. No thanks. There is a reason we have subfora: to reduce carpal tunnel syndrome from excessive scrolling. While I am not against wearing fragrances marketed to women, I am against carpal tunnel syndrome.

I don't think women are marginalized on basenotes. I happily post in both the male & the female fragrance discussion sections and I feel welcome in both :-)

Viva le diffeence!

I wholeheartedly support the idea of this site (and any other relevant communication medium) helping to put an end to the immature, stoopid notion that any fragrance is somehow inherently "masculine" or "feminine". I'm not sure if rearranging the forums would be the best way to go about it though.

i voted no. the reasons are obvious. also, this thread is as useful as a chandelier in an out house. in the time it took to type that last sentence i came up with another though- if this forum merged mens and womens fragrances i wouldnt come here anymore. it would scatter posts that i will never be interested in throughout posts that would interest me. id have to read through much more than i want to get to the stuff i come here for. and, why do you have a problem with feminine/masculine? should these descriptive terms not exist? maybe they dont apply to you. i dont know, but masculine/feminine applies to fragrances without a doubt. put a few squirts of flowerbomb by victor&rolf. ? put a few squirts of kouros on...? see?

Agreed! And also with what Kagey said. Very much.

I think the OP has good intentions, but I think we would have to moderate the whole board at the same standard that the women's board is moderated at, right now, if we were to retain our ladies. They're not going to tolerate a toga party in the middle of their poetry reading, to be blunt. But I prefer the way Kagey looks at it. Collaborative diversity has benefits. The fact that we can spend time in either place freely is a real feature of BN.

Candide-LOL! I am not a fan of Star Wars but man, that was a horrible ending to that movie! The funniest, worst 'noooooooo!' ever, LOL. Nooooooooooooo! Haha.

The forums, they are cool they way they are. Ya, there's less traffic on the female forums, maybe we should just make basenotes pink, pretty and fluffy looking? With pics of feathers, perfume, long hair chihuahuas and chocolates. LOL.

My adobe is on a different comp..otherwise..a photoshop pic would have been inserted here! LOL.

I already hang out with the boys in real life, so I guess virtually is a natural extension I've never felt anything other than welcome in the male fragrance forum. And since a lot of what I wear is unisex or male, keeping the forums separate actually helps keep it easier to browse.

bingo- keeping the forums seperate makes it easier to browse. well said, windblown.

I agreed with 30 Roses. The women's scents would too easily be bumped to pages 3 and 4.

Many of us wear scents of the other gender, but it's easy to categorise using the men's and women's scents.

I actually don't know how to categorize many scents I enjoy as men's vs. women's, which makes it hard sometimes to know which forum to read. Where would one put New Haarlem? Borneo 1834? Encens Flamboyant? Idole? L'Air du Desert Marocain? Bois Blond? Coromandel? Black Vetyver Cafe? Etc. Most of the people I know who wear these are women, but I see them discussed often here.

So I end up going to the women's forum when I want to see what women think of a fragrance, and to the men's forum when I want to find out what men think. It's goofy.

I like the idea someone mentioned of just pulling up threads by most recent rather than by forum. I'll give that a try.

Yes, Twitchly, the easiest way is to pull up new posts. Then you can read and reply to whatever interests you.

I posted on the other thread (which Primrose alluded to) but I voted to keep them separate. I don't want to have to look for a slow-moving thread on page 10 of a combined forum, when it might be at the bottom of page 1, or maybe page 2, on the Female forum.

I also love it when the gents visit us.

Everything he ^^^ said!

Well said.

its two different topics, and if you want to go into the female discusion thread its a click away

I agree with this - timaru - I can see your point about the repetition on the men's boards as well..

andylama, good question to ask here though, thanks!

I like the current setup personally. At times I wish there was a board geared to the abundant unisex fragrances out there. I would love to see more post with the female/male view on those.

To me, the two boards are very different in various aspects and that's exactly what makes Basenotes so lively, interesting and also entertaining, I'd vote to keep it that way. One can always read and post on both boards, or not - however one prefers.

I am new here, but this sounds like unnecessary tampering to me.

I'm personally not interested in feminine fragrances, or in learning about the effect of unisex fragrances on women...

Call me selfish, but I mostly like reading about scents that I can relate to and think that I would enjoy wearing myself. As a result, I don't browse or post on the women's forum. Maybe it is my loss...

I can see the utility of a unisex forum, perhaps, but if a man wants to discuss a unisex fragrance you can always just address that in the masculine or feminine forum or both.

I don't think there is much benefit to merging the forums. A lot of good threads would probably be lost in the increased volume...

LOL... Great analogy. So, yes, I prefer the status quo. But also enjoy being able to "visit" back and forth.

I don't feel any marginalization from having two boards. I visit everywhere and enjoy it. But I do pick the threads I am visiting with some care. In all honesty (whispers) some of you guys get really heated up and snarky in your threads with each other. While on the female side, as timaru noted, we're apt to be more chatty about personal things and likely to shower hugs on everyone.
As far as our "less activity" that's because many many many threads on the men's side are asking for lists or top rated or worst rated or why you hate or adore, this brand or that brand. I mean no offense to anyone but some guys just don't seem happy unless their ranking things - cars, bands, sports teams and scents. We rarely have those kinds of threads on the female forum,

In my opinion, I would not find it as relaxing or have fun to have to wade through all that on a merged board,

But I do thank you andylama ( and your bad ass rollers) for worrying about the equality of the boards and taking the initiative to poll he question. How else will we find the pulse of the board unless we discuss?

Why is it then that you have chosen to post this particular thread only in the Male subforum?

ditto?

I've thought about this issue a lot since recently joining as well. A lot of the diehards seem to be on the men's, but you also seem to suffer from the most spaminess. If more threads that could apply to anyone would be posted in "General Discussion," that'd be great. I see polls and top tens and mostly gender-neutral niche houses discussed on the male forum often and think more women would notice it on the general. Maybe the tagline of General Discussion, seeming to be about "the industry" discourages posters from being as free there?

The simple fact of the matter is, men and women tend to do critical thinking about the arts in different ways. This is why although most of the fashion industry and its products are geared towards women, you see more professional male designers and critics. Women aren't being "outnumbered" by men on Basenotes, or any other situation like this, they just dont assess their beauty products (or many other topics) via forums. From my experience they prefer to localize with people they know on these topics rather than broadcast them to the world. There are plenty of things that men are just the opposite about as well.

What would happen if both forums were collapse into one? Well, you bet there would be a male only thread and that would be the only one the majority of Basenotes users would actually view.

Yep.

"This is why although most of the fashion industry and its products are geared towards women, you see more professional male designers and critics." Uh, that would be the glass ceiling. Fashion and beauty being fairly old-fashioned fields that depend on inheritence/family business, who you know, and devoting every minute of the day to toil--not as much room for mothers historically and in spite of Chanel and Quant and all, women had to fight harder to get involved in the higher up positions.

Who says women prefer to discuss beauty locally? It varies for lots of us. Let's not go inferring causality where none exists here. Who says women aren't fiendish obsessors, too? Maybe it's less of an imperative for us due to cultural dictates, since we women don't have to rationalize our every hobby and are expected to shop and consume, but the passion I see in men's and women's threads is all the same. Basically, the separate boards help organize things a little better, otherwise I'd wish we could merge all. If not merging means I have to see less posts from the males that cling to outdated gender stereotypes, then fine.

Well said knit, l agree!

Word.

Yeah, another argument for keeping the forums apart. I wouldn't want to act in a context where I have to think 1000 times about verbalisations that might affect touchy females and their balanced, "correct" and state-of-the-art relation to their own species. You simply can't talk with women about them, because they - or at least some of their specimens - regularly achieve that you recoil in horror. I prefer just talking/speculating about them, and retaining my own opinions keeps me from becoming the misogynist that posts like the quoted one provoke.

Keep them separate. I am more interested in wearing "male" and unisex fragrances than I am in "female" fragrances. If I want to browse female fragrances, I already know where to go.

Seriously Candide, I was only disagreeing with the poster and stating my case. I do not think people have to act or believe a certain way or whatever. Your reasoning reeks of lazy misogyny, though I certainly did not "provoke" you--what is this...the "asking for it" line. If you're comfortable with your views fine, if you're so uncomfortable with mine, they're not exactly popular, so you can go celebrate that you're winning "best of all possible worlds" indeed. I'm simply not so comfortable with the status quo, but perfume boards aren't exactly the place to discuss that intelligently.

Completely agree - the tagline on General discussion, if changed, could open up a great unisex, multisex, beyondsex (or gen-durrr if one must) space. Then all of us who don't care a fig about segregation (rather than the 'sexism' mentioned by the original post, which I think is limited to individuals and not to the categories themselves) and just prefer discussing perfume as perfume could post there.

Up until now (and I speak as a newbie) I've not really let the male/female headings trouble me too much in my selection of what I read and contribute to. I agree with others that everyone should feel welcome to post to either regardless of what shapes one's jolly bits come in.

A problem arises, though, if I were to want to start a thread - then I'd probably be a bit uncomfortable addressing it only to the male discussion forum. So if BN could aim for maximum comfort and accommodate all shades, that would be the best option for me.

I voted yes with utopia, cause I'm also interested in hearing women's opinions on that subject, which is perfume and perfume only in that case here, however I guess it would be really hard to keep it clean that way. Keeping this rationally on perfume talk only will be very hard as some internal conflicts will emerge for sure, from both sides.

Let's say some people will manage to do it (some already have and it's a pleasure to read) but many won't.
If too many threads end up with an argument trying to show who will have the last word for their respective gender's sake, it will be a pain in the ass to read just to find some info and valid opinions on the fragrance you're interested in for example. (Or let's just see how this one thread might turn out lol)
Then logistic might require more good moderators work as well if people can't behave properly...

My speculations can be dead wrong and I'd really like to see that it'll all play well here in fact,

I say it deserves to give it a try and see what happens.


For the OP, I don't really see women being marginalized minority and all that on basenotes,

For Candide, who do you think might win the argument? lol



I vote yes cause I just want to read more informations, opinions and experience on fragrances from anybody, that's it.

Regroup for information purposes.

Will it be practical? Honestly I don't know lol



Come on Basenotes, make it happen, save the world, at least you can try!