由于是母亲节的周末,我认为讨论我内心深处的话题是很有趣的:爱好中女性的相对缺乏。虽然礁石已经存在了大约30年,而且进步使更多的业余爱好者比以往任何时候都获得了成功的礁石水族馆,但业余爱好中女性的百分比并未大大增加。Sure we see wives and girlfriends being good sports getting dragged to frag swaps and shows, but the number of women in the hobby has been small from the start of the hobby and is still relatively low.
在1990年代初期,水族馆系统委托进行了一项调查,发现当时约有95%的业余爱好者是保存盐水坦克的人。同样,本世纪初在德国进行了一项调查,他们发现保留礁石坦克的男人的比例为90%。我最近在一个经常访问的盐水网站上在线看到的一项民意调查发现,保留礁石坦克的女性人数已攀升至15%。虽然在过去的20年里,女人的百分比en in the hobby has climbed slightly, the difference in numbers between men and women in the hobby is still significant.
This is interesting in that if you look at dog or cat ownership the percentages are almost equal, but if you look at individuals keeping exotic birds, the numbers are almost reversed.也就是说,大多数鸟类狂热者都是女性。我开玩笑地向杰克建议,下一个颗粒应该与其异国情调的鸟类同等地举行,结果我们最终将在表演中获得同等数量的两性。对于异国情调的宠物主人来说,这将是一种大学混音器。
因此,问题是:为什么爱好中有这么多男人比女人多?回到我的发展心理学课程之一,我可能找到了部分原因。If you take newborn babies and present them with various stimuli you can readily see which ones are pleasing to the newborn. Female babies are pleased the most when presented with pictures of smiling faces or cuddly looking animals.另一方面,男性婴儿在出现明亮的闪亮物体或闪烁的灯光时感到非常高兴。So since our tanks are full of bright shiny things and all of the new technology provides lots of flashing lights, maybe this at least in part accounts for why more men are drawn to the hobby than women.
可能产生一定影响的另一个方面是保留坦克的一些事情。研究表明,女性的嗅觉比男性要好得多。有时,我们都知道可以有一些纳斯特y smelling aspects of this hobby.In my own instance my ex constantly complained about the smells emanating from my tank whether it was ozone, the smell of a dead coral when it was removed, the smell of the food I was feeding the tank, or just the general smell from the tank.
在我自己的辩护中,当她抱怨时,我真的没有真正闻到任何东西。但是,当我让她离开时,当我让她从坦克上拉大量的Xenia时,这可能并没有使她成为爱好。It also probably was not funny to her when I asked her to smell the Astrea shell to see if it was dead.我知道这类似于“拉我的手指”技巧,但是当时我认为这很有趣。So it may be that the “smelliness” of the hobby keeps some ladies from pursuing it.
Since I realize all of this is conjecture I decided to ask some of the ladies I know in the hobby for their insight as to why there are so few of them in the hobby. While I know this is not a scientific survey it did provide some insight into why such a large disparity exists. First, almost all of the ladies I spoke with got into the hobby on their own.They were not pushed into it by a father, brother, husband or boyfriend who had a tank, which I found interesting.So for women it is the same as for men, in that for the most part it is a hobby that you can pursue on your own.Most of the women I surveyed have been in the hobby for at least 5 years, this may be author bias as most of the women I surveyed I have known for a while and have multiple tanks.这令人鼓舞的是,很高兴看到业余爱好中的女性与男人的长期成功。
The most interesting responses I got though, were why they thought there were so few women in the hobby.Some felt there was a bit of intimidation, at least at first, because there are so many more men in the hobby.So until they proved themselves some thought their expertise and abilities to “understand” things were questioned.即使他们去了礁店,有些人也有这种感觉。一个人形容它类似于彭妮(Penny)进入漫画时的感受book店铺。有些人认为,今天仍然存在的学校缺乏科学和数学背景使一些女性脱离了爱好。
But the most frequent reason given was cost.Almost all made a reference to how expensive the hobby is.对于许多人多余的钱to spend on an expensive hobby like this one is not possible in that if they have extra cash they often spend it on their kids.Or when both partners work they are often the one without多余的钱对于这样的爱好。In addition to their belief that cost is keeping many women out of the hobby many also felt that lack of free time was a contributing factor as well.Many of my friends are working women with kids and as a result in addition to their jobs they also have to manage their kids and home and let’s face it this hobby does take up some time.So the lack of time is keeping more ladies from joining our ranks.
我与我交谈的所有女士几乎都喜欢爱好的各个方面,并且与男性同行一样大。All of them are drawn to the diversity, beauty and coloration in their tanks.Several also garden, and one felt it was like gardening on steroids.All of them had long-term goals in the hobby and none of them looked at reefkeeping as a short term project.They also enjoy the shows and frag swaps and felt once people knew them that they really enjoyed the friendliness and camaraderie that are the hallmarks of the hobby.
我要感谢我所有的女性朋友回答了我的许多问题,以帮助我写这篇文章。And since it is Mother’s Day weekend, I would also like to thank all the mothers out there for encouraging their children in the hobby and especially my mother for putting up with the countless water accidents, baby fish bowls, and constant trips to the fish store that she took me to when I was a kid.而且,我还可能建议,如果您要让妻子,母亲或女友作为母亲节的礼物,那就是您给她一个纳米坦克而不是花或巧克力。我说的是,即使在母亲节之后,与妈妈一起享受的事情可能会更好?