You'll notice that I said that most of my female friends. many of whom would make wonderful contributions here. won't do so because of the level of vituperation. As far as I am concerned, that's pretty much a fact. One of my friends who runs a dojo looked at the posts the other day and said she couldn't believe that amount of what she called "mud slinging". She has no interest in participating yet she would actually be wonderful to have posting.

How many women do you see here? Not many proportionally. While most of my senior male friends won't post either, for the same basic reasons... they feel it takes too much time to wade through all the BS just to get to the good stuff, if you look, there are at least a few senior men who post and NO really senior women. Where as you will find Henry Ellis, a Chuck Clark, a Toby Threadgill or Howard Popkin posting here, you will nowhere find a Mary Heiny, Linda Holiday, Pat Hendricks, Kayla Feder, etc. That's all I meant.

It's not meant to be patronizing and in no way means that I think it's nice that some "little woman" can keep up with the guys. Quite the opposite. I appreciate that a woman is willing to put up with the often "low tone" of the discussions and not only not leave but dish it out when she feels like it. The fact that most women have no time for the kinds of shenanigans that go on in the forums is our loss, not their gain, as far as I am concerned. This stuff can be such a boys club a lot of the time. It's only recently that we have had the number of women posting that we do... it used to be worse. It would be great if some really senior women could be persuaded to post but none of the ones I am friends with want any part of the aggressive back and forth that goes on. I know for a fact that a number of them read these discussions occasionally but they won't post.

So, yes, I am happy when the some of the women don't get put off and will participate in the give and take and not just shake their heads and go away thinking "Boys, boys. boys..."