Re: Men vs Women on Conlang

<snip>
>
> As for gender and conlanging, I think that more men in 1990 had access to
> computers, but as that changes we'll see how many more women are drawn to a
> public display of their inventions.  As for Jeff Henning's statistics, aired
> a few days ago (showing how many invented languages were known to the
> world), it seems so completely obvious to me that the great number of
> conlangs he reports appearing in public after 1990 is directly due to the
> formation of the Internet listservs.  When we didn't have that, how could
> such a uniquely private art get aired except through novels or special
> interest groups that happened to get some publicity?  (This observation is
> in my on-line article)  So the five or the seven known conlangs that he
> reports in this or that pre-nineties year may be no indication whatsoever
> that private language invention was rare.  Even Tolkien met a fellow
> "conlanger" in the army: "I think I shall express the accusative with a
> prefix!"  He just couldn't get him to speak to him about it.  If JRRT bumped
> elbows with another language inventor, then I can imagine the lonely pursuit
> of this hobby in droves.  I started mine in the sixties.  I also drew
> complicated maps of imaginary cities, and complicated floorplans of
> imaginary palaces and houses.  The fact that SimCity was such a hit
> indicates that a basic aspect of the human imagination is to imagine
> familiar things unfamiliarly, and to engage in miniature or innovative
> representations of them.  I have since spoken to people entirely unaware of
> CONLANG who have admitted to me that they made up languages.  One was a
> visiting professor a few years ago.  I would not be surprised to learn that
> lots and LOTS of women engage in this rare art.  But women have been brought
> up in a culture that even now encourages them to keep their private games to
> themselves--especially if they can't be turned to domestic or public use.
> Only recently have women wanted to go on-line and talk about their fantasy
> inventions to mostly men.  Mau, Camilla, Heather, Nicole, Mia, Irina, go for
> it.  Times are a-changin'.
>
> Sally Caves
<snip>

Glad to see this topic up again.  I'm back after a few years break.  The
statistics don't surprise me--now I'm trying to dig out my assumptions as to
why I am not surprised.  I've come across several women who cotton to having
created (and still use) what are most often characterized as "secret"
languages.  One friend's is elaborated to the point of a conlang.  But they
were only prompted to communicate about it on the basis of my having 'come
out" with Glide.  So there's that aspect for sure, but nothing to generalize
about.

Tis a deep topic, methinks.

Diana