On: Thu, 5 Jan 95 18:49:20 -0800, bcombs at ednet1.osl.or.gov (Barbara J. Combs)
said:

>One reason there may be fewer female hotshot birders is that
>females are not defined as hotshot birders even when they know
>birds better than their male peers do.

>Yes, this is a little cynical, but I have found over and over again ...

I think your cynicism is healthy. I've been troubled by many of the
comments too. In particular, there has been a lot of "stereotyping"
that I found doesn't hold with my experiences. Oh, sure, I've observed
most of the various behaviors that everyone's posted. I just think
that for every "explanation" (sex, child raising, competitiveness, age,
x, y, z, ...) for a particular behavior, I suspect that there are many
counter-explanations and opposite-sex people who do those same behaviors
(I certainly found many characteristics of myself described in contexts
that the contributors were attributing to other "groups" or "classes"
of birders. So, am I odd-person out, or don't count, or go unnoticed
for being low-profile, or ignored, or "not defined," or ....?

It's fun to speculate, especially because the sociology and morality of
these gut-sense observations being posted are important hints of often-
serious problems, but I think it's really precarious to get very
close to any one or few of the many typifications being posted.

Hhmmm, does one of those "male" characteristics emerge here, --the
"scientific/analyze it/where's the data" type? ;>).

Peter