Mary,

I'm embarrased by the fact that, until you brought the topic up, I had never really considered the fact that this forum is mostly male. (The same is true for other situations where one finds oneself in the majority.)

I only regularly participate in one other forum (a sea kayaking group), yet the subject matter tends to be similar - gear talk. Guys love to talk about how big their stick is. (I had one woman ask me once if sailboats were measered by the height of the mast.) It seems that the most popular (endless) discussions in this forum are about which boat is better, faster, lighter, etc. The topic matter just doesn't fit with what the women I know are looking for in a conversation.

I run an adventure travel business, and one of the statistics that I'm very familiar with is that nearly 70 percent of our business comes from women. Feedback from the "women only" trips is that there are many who don't feel comfortable jumping into a male dominated group (particularly if the discussions are like those often found on the "old forum").

While guiding trips, I spend a lot of time in the outdoors with groups of folks from all over the country. The guys seem to be more interested in the boats, constantly asking me about my kayak and the various bells and whistles hanging from my PFD. (Don't get me wrong, I'm a gearhead myself, but I just don't talk about it with my wife.) Women, on the other hand, usually ask about my kids, how I like living on Lake Champlain, or what kind of bird is soaring overhead. I like talking about that, too.

Unfortunately, I don't have any suggestions for how to bring women to this forum, except to say that gear talk and the kind of aggressive male posturing that often typified the old forum won't bring them in. While my wife and favorite sailing partner, Michele, is always game for adventure and a good challenge, she never accomanies me to the resin isle at West Marine and will unlikely be found posting on the catsailor forum.

Cheers,