Something I wanted to point out

LordotRings93

LordotRings93

Rohan
I don't want to come across as offensive or anything of the sort, but it seems like females mostly outnumber males on TORn. I always thought that males would be into LOTR more than females, and it seems like the females outnumber the males here.

Just wanted to point this out.
 
...mostly when we read criticisms of the New Line films that still postulate that Jackson's and Tolkien's core audience is teenage male game-players.

If you ever see a post announcing that it's time to revisit EI (Estrogen Island) I suggest you hide in the Reading Room for a day or two.

Unless of course you're female yourself. Your post isn't totally clear on that.

I am male, FYI. I find it refreshing and enjoyable to be in a majority female social group, but that's just me I guess.
 
Welcome to TORn.

Taking a closer look at Tolkien Fandom would surprise a lot of people at its actual make-up. It goes beyond all boundaries and stereotypes. It stretches beyond borders, beyond age, beyond gender, beyond backgrounds, beyond walks of life, beyond careeres-types, beyond decades, beyond lables. It is an amazing and mind-boggling thing.

My local Tolkien group looks quite similar. Out of about 15 regular people, one is a man... plus a husband or 2 that occsionally show to parties. There are a couple of men that are not so regular. Our ages range from sixty-something to lower twenties. From established careers to unemployed/freelance artists, to students, to sales people, teachers, a motorcycle lady, office workers, to Waikiki leaflet hawkers and others. Some of out members have spreaadout some, gone to the mainland, one is in Japan doign a smester in school. Some have been fans only sonce the moveis . . .. some since the sixties, some, like me about 10-15 years or so.

Every year, on January 3 at 9pm, Tolkien's birthday, people in different time zones all around the world "Toast to the Professor". We make an annual event out of it.

Now, here at TORn, I have the hardest time discernng gender, especially when it comes to nicks that could be either or a bit deceptive. I have gone yeaers assuming a memeber was one gender, to discover in blushign surprise taht person was of the other gender... leaving hoping I didn't say somethign stupid under that wrong assuption at some point. I find myself looking up people's profiles (clicking on theirr name) just to see waht their gender is; often being frustrated becasue they don't say.

The other thing I look up a lot to see is where on the globe they are, which frustratingly, yet understandably, a lot of people don't say. It safe to assume they aren't here in the middle of the Pacific, in most cases. So, I like to know at least what time zone they are in... since I am at the tail end of the day here.

Well, babbled enough. I hope you enjoy your time here. It is a great community and one can find great fellowship here.


DoN




 
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Or, to be more correct, both of your impressions.

Of course, I have no idea whether the majority of TORnsibs are men or women, but of those who I've seen refering to their gender directly, or those who have wrote posts intersting enough for me to look at their profiles - I think females are the majority.
Not really a bad thing; some people have commented that the tone of discussion in TORn is more civilised and friendly than on other internet forums. Could these two impressions be connected?

And as for usernames - I nearly took a female username, as it was my password to my bank account, and that was chosen when my second daughter (and third child) was born. So I chose her name for a password, and when I registered TORn, the first username I could think of was that.
But I gave it a second think, and ended up with my present one.
Just a funny story comcerning virtual biography.
 
.. there are for more women who are really into LOTR than there are men. Really. I mean really, really. Sometimes I even felt like an endangoured species...

So I imagine it would be the same around here. But as other people have mentioned, it can be very hard determining the gender by a nickname :-)
 
I have no doubt that pre-movie there were more males on TORn, and that while the films were coming out there was an influx of women due to some of the more attractive male members of the cast. And there is nothing wrong with that! However, that has died down considerably, and the people who have stuck around all have the same passion for Tolkien's work (and PJ's films) regardless of gender.

As others have pointed out, there are quite a few people here whose gender remains a mystery, which is totally fine with me! Some members nicks are obvious, while most (to me, anyhow) are not. If this were a dating site, then I would probably want to know. [;)]
 
when I found out Inferno was a woman, after years and years of thinking she was a man ;-D

That's one of the things I love about TORn: you can't tell about people's physical attributes: gender, age, race, nationality, etc are all invisible, leaving only the mind and soul to be seen. I've often thought Heaven must be a bit like this.
 
I remember the press predicting that the movies would flop because only teenage boys would go see them. Meanwhile, us old ladies who had loved the books for decades, and had crushes on Aragorn and Faramir when we were girls, were laughing up our sleeves. Actually, in all the years I was growing up, the only Tolkien fans I knew were girls, with the exception of one gay boy. My brother could never get through LotR, even though he loved other heroic fantasy like the stories of Fritz Lieber. (He's currently a big Terry Pratchett fan, and has still never read LotR, or seen the movies.) The person who got me started on Tolkien when we were twelve was a girl, and my sister loved LotR, and so did my best college friend, who was also a girl. So I never figured out where that stereotype about teenage boys came from.
 
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I thought the story of my nearly chosing a female name was amusing, not considering the fact that eight months ago my bank password (long since changed) was connected to the name of a daughter of mine problematic.
But one of the admins contacted me, suggesting I should delete this, and offering his (her?) assistance.
And then I noticed I didn't mention the fact the password was long out of use!
So:
  1. I'm afraid this information won't help anyone to enter my account, even those of you who know my kids' names.
  2. If by any chance you manage to, and find there any money - please let me know! I've been looking for money for a long time.
But most important:
  • Three cheers to the admins!
 
That surprises me (see my post below.) But of course I'm going from my own little sample of friends and relations. In RL, almost all the Tolkien fans I knew before the movies came out were female.
 
NL and the press all thought that a movie full of sword fighting and nasty orcs would appeal only to males and put off females? They seem not to have expected females to love dirty, scruffy rangers. And of course, not enough of a romance. It's the only one explanation I could ever come up with.

For the record - I know of *one* male who knows and at least likes the book. All others are female, and it was a female who got me to finally read it.
 
I didn't think it was a perfect novel (and I don't think LeGuin does) but the concept is thought provoking about how paradigms shift when we can't attribute gender to individuals. I read it years ago. I really should revisit it someday.
 
I don't know where you get this; did you check the profiles? Often not even that truly helps, after all.

Anyway, assuming gender because of nicks can be a dangerous thing. In my old board e.g. we had two members whose nicks were the nicks of a male literature character. So automatically everyone believed them to be males. But I found out pretty soon that one of these was a female when we talked on IM. A few others knew, too, and we kept our mouths shut about that. Then my friend and I joked a bit if the other one could be female, too - their names came from the same character, after all, and that got us guessing in earnest. I think we have dissected every post from this one for months looking for clues, until I more or less said it to her face, and we were right - she was a female, too.

It proved tremendous fun, admittedly - trying to avoid the 'he' or 'she' as much as possible when posting, and watching how others were so convinced about their gender and overlooking every obvious or not so obvious hint to the truth was rather entertaining. Once these two were in the board chatroom with two others, and one of them complained that 'there are always only males' in the chatroom. The poor guy didn't know that he was talking nearly exclusively with females [evil]

Anyway, this taught me to *never* assume any gender save people tell clearly if they are male or female!
 
The boards were also a bit more rougher then as well. A lot of the guys left saying they felt that the boards had gotten too "fluffy" (their word) after the movies came out and TPTB instituted the current system of admins. I do have to agree that the boards are (IMHO) the most civil on the net. That's not a bad thing.
 
Just those words make me go weak in the knees :-)

Time to repeat a story I've often told here: After I bought a standee of Aragorn, my husband asked me "What do you see in that guy?" My son answered "It's obvious: she likes grouchy, hairy men." (a good description of both my husband and my son). I must confess, it's true.
 
Didn't know the story, but love it! Thanks for sharing!

And honestly, I always prefered the scruffy ranger to the clean, elegant, freshly shaved king!
 
for the fact that women tend to be 'community builders.' It's always been my experience that men go-it-alone and women go-it-together. Almost all of the gatherings I've been to over the years were instituted by women. Whether it's just a few friends going to the lake, a line party, or our Costumer's Guild in town. There's usually a woman at the heart of it. I guess my point is that while there are, I believe, plenty of male Tolkien fans to be found, they're still wandering around the internet refusing to ask directions while the women play here at TORn [cool]
 
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