If you frequent my blog, Cryptomundo and just about any other cryptozoology related blog you have noticed the discussion on sexism.

Apparently certain people thought that certain comments Loren Coleman made on c2c about women having pheromones that made them more likely to make contact with Bigfoot than a man, sounded a bit chauvinistic. They have never, to my knowledge, explained why a basic biological fact sounded chauvinistic to them, but I don’t want to get back into all of that.

Mostly I wanted to talk about women, men and sexism in esoteric fields. I am not saying that sexism in these fields doesn’t exist, but some people seem to want to use it as an excuse for why there aren’t more women in these fields, why books by women aren’t being published and many other things and I don’t believe that is the reason. Although, I won’t say sexism doesn’t exist, I will say that I have never experienced it from anyone who is an actual researcher. There have been certain people who are not researchers, but have blogs and will say anything that they think will cause controversy in order to attract people to their blog, those people do not count.

Let me get to the not being published part first. I know many writers and it is damn hard to get a book published these days, unless you are someone who has already published books that have sold. I truly don’t believe this has anything to do with what sex someone is.

I think there are many reasons for less women in these fields and I think sexism within the fields is a very small part. As far as keeping women out of these fields, I would say fear of being laughed at by outsiders is the #1 reason. The fact that women seem to be kept away from such subjects by fear of being laughed at, more than men, is about sexism, but not within these fields, rather sexism of the past that still effects women. It is the fear of being thought of as an irrational woman. For years that was part of the excuse of why women needed to just stay home and raise a family. Their hormones made them irrational and they needed a man around to tell them what to do. So yes, the fear of being thought of as irrational is probably much larger for a woman than a man. Even though many women, such as myself, have never really experienced this on the scale that our Grandmothers or Mothers did, it is always in the back of our minds and we fear it.

I grew up in a house full of nothing but women. I was never taught that there were things women could not do and I lived every day seeing women doing almost everything themselves. Still, my grandmother did grind into my head that there was a time when women did not only not do certain things, but were not allowed to do certain things. Well, they could do anything, but many things would have caused them to be thought of as irrational, crazy, and maybe downright dumb. You might even be locked in the nuthouse and given shock treatment if you did certain things that were not considered in the norm. My grandmother worked in a nuthouse during the depression, so she knew this first hand.

Most women realize the very few years there have been between being considered irrational creatures who weren’t fit to make their own decisions and now. So can you really blame women for not becoming involved in subjects that they think most of society considers to be wooish? You really can’t.

That said, we as women, should not be looking for sexism in any comment that happens to mention that men and women are different. We must always be on guard of the truly chauvinistic, but we must not consider every comment that refers to our femininity as being such.

Both sexes are chauvinistic in their own way. Women are more offended by it, because of history, but they are also chauvinists. We as women and for good reason, believe that all the wars and bad things in the world are caused mostly by men and their testosterone. It isn’t that women don’t have their own ways of getting even, it just wouldn’t likely be by dropping a bomb on someone. We would have a much smarter, subtler, more sinister ways of settling the score. We are not normally blatant with our power, but we can really fuck someone up, if need be. We have charm and grace, while men just have strength and remote control skills. We will never be able to flip through channels as fast as men, but they will never truly look good or be able to walk in 4 inch heels.

So there we are again. Men and women are different, women could very likely be better at making contact with Bigfoot, if they don’t take that as a chauvinistic remark and actually give it a try. Ladies, so far men have failed to prove the existence of Bigfoot, so it may be all up to you and your pheromones. You can be offended by that or you can give it a try.