I humbly submit that presumably the women have what they think is "a life", since I don't think this site is particularly macho. So I imagine they're having their hair and nails done and maybe a nip and tuck, or boob reduction/enhancement; or they're just watching the neighbours through the slit in the curtain (domestic politics is far more diverting than the real thing). Or perhaps they're grudgingly "giving out", as they say? It seems to me, in short, that the ladies are preoccupied with frivolities--which is a compliment since they're doing what they're supposed to. After all, oour culture is nothing if not frivolous.
Just as pertinent, is where are all the "young" people?
Well they have the illusion of a life too you see. It takes wisdom, and years, to be disillusioned (and apparently male genitalia).
It seems to me the ladies and the young folk have romantic notions to work out, and in the ladies' case their youth is spent before their romanticism. No wonder the age to suicide for the ladies is overwhelmingly in the fifties--disillusioned at last and too old to do anything else about it!
Of course I realise one shouldn't say such things--all the more reason to say them--and I'm no misogynist, but the ladies are busy getting hairdo's, boob jobs, and that elusive great sex they read about endlessly. Of course they have their little hobby horses--modest environmentailsm, the McGrath foundation etc., but these are more in the nature of accessories than anything they'd burn their bras for.
In the end, I suspect OLO's too dry for the ladies--too much reality, which always clashes with fake.

Yabby suggested that many females are happily engaged on facebook. I think he's right. But what about the women who maybe aspire to more articulate and informed forums? I know they're out there because recently I read loads of well-written articles and follow-up comments.

Squeers, no doubt, is correct in his assumption that many women are busy attempting to maintain and promote their sexuality in a society that provides much artificial stimulus to such ends. Many I think are happy enough in their own little first-world paradigms and don't give much thought to the bigger issues save for parroting the commentaries they glean between commercials on MSM.

But the men and women who entertained me recently during the controversy on feminism are capable of excellent commentary and stimulating and thought-provoking argument. And although they may have romance, sex or hair do's on their minds, they are not vacuous entities....but they don't come here.

Perhaps Lexi is right when she surmises that OLO is too conservative a forum for their likes.

The only other sites of this nature I frequent regularly, although rarely contributing are both run by ladies.

I find JoNova, & Jennifer Marohasy are both very interesting sites, but on both of them, there are few lady contributors. They both get contributors with high technical expertise, & following many of the references can involve some serious math at times.

If the net had been available when I was a kid,I doubt I'd ever have got round to flying jets of aircraft carriers, but I don't think it would have had much effect many of the women I know.

squeers, I'm no misogynist either, but if I'd said what you did I'd have been crucified as one.

One of the things I have deliberately set out to do on this site is to break up the cheer squads of avowedly-feminist women that tended to swamp any serious discussion with polemic and abuse, making it nearly impossible to have a coherent conversation.

At the risk of being immodest, I think I've managed that task reasonably well. It's to be hoped that the women who might look at contributing in future will offer something more substantial than a crow's chorus of approval for anything said by women and a sypmhony of raspberries for the things said by men.

Lexi, despite your obvious ability, you have a disturbing tendency to join the flock of crows when one starts to form and an irritating habit of speaking in platitudes. I enjoy your contributions when they're genuinely yours, not merely somebody else's recycled words or me-tooism.

Thanks Poirot for responding to my comments so serenely--and who could argue with them. I have to say however that most of the prose stylists I enjoy, both canonical and contemporary, are men, especially those with a socio-political bent. Apart from Camille Paglia, Judith Butler and Germaine Greer--who tend to be verbose, abstruse and polemical respectively--in the modern era, my favourite writers are men when it comes to politeloquence: Clive James, Alan Bennett, John Updike, Edward Said, Terry Eagleton and even Christopher Hitchens, to name a few. Can you point me towards one or two of these female prose stylists you allude to? I've no doubt they're out there and I'd love to swap allegiances.

Anti,
You're right you know. If you'd come out against the ladies the way I did I'm sure you'd have been unceremoniously disposed of, but then your agenda wants balance imho, whereas I tend to attack men just as vehemently. It's a banality that both sexes are biased in their own favour, indeed that nearly all political views uncannily reflect the interests of their exponents, whether they be grandiloquent or monosyllabic. I try to challenge my wonted biases, and I think the fairest positions are counter-intuitive. Whenever I get up people's noses I know I'm getting close to the money : )

Correction, above I meant to say "who could argue" with Poirot's comments in response.