[Helinophoto]

In the darkroom classes I took at the Danforth Museum School in Framingham, MA in the late 90s/early '00s, the women outnumbered the men in every class (I think I took about 10-12 sessions). In a couple of sessions, the only male was the instructor. In some, there were no males. In a class I took at RISD (also darkroom), there was one guy and 4 women, taught by a woman.

I can't say I'm completely not into gear, but the end result of the photo is not as dependent on the nitty gritty details of the film/developer combo to me. I see a large number of posts on every photo forum discussing little tiny differences between images that the VAST majority of observers would never notice or care about. I sorta see these things as the "guy" things of photography (I'll admit, I could be wrong).

I'll give some credit if English isn't the first language of the poster, but this sounds EXTREMELY condescending to me. Yeah, I do like technical stuff and I know women are not usually encouraged to do so and to enjoy science, but it has much more of a cultural basis than anything related to true intelligence or the ability to do any of these things.

BS biology, MS forensic science, 14 years in a casework crime lab (7 in charge of the trace analysis unit) - I am a woman and I like science. I also scored perfect on the GRE logic section.

Well, you are hardly representing all women are you?

I wasn't trying to be condescending, I was pointing out that the interest in logical and technical aspects DID NOT have anything to do with intelligence, how on earth can that be condescending??

I know loads of young women, in all ages, that started/starts out "shooting" but gives up the whole thing when they need to learn how to use a flash and balance it to ambient light, using theoretical principles we all use, like shutter-speed, aperture, ISO and light metering.

They give up, or they shoot "only using natural light", which is chickening out in my book.
I've held courses for 40-50 year old professional female photographers who didn't even know how to use a flash, some bought one for the course, professionals.

Sure, there are lots of female professional photographers who know everything there is to know about photography, great!
I'm saying that a lot of women give it up when it's time to actually focus and learn the gadgets and theory.

Women working in photo-related jobs, like running studios, running a store etc are also not photographers, now are they, they are basically store clerks and managers who deals with totally different areas.

Women are (and please read this) IMO just as capable as men in the technical areas, but they have rarely that interest, their interest (my experience) lies in the creative aspect and they are put off by the logical and theoretical aspects of photography.