1/14/14

Witches and Wizards: The Skewed Balance

Witches and wizards! Genders! Babies! Today we're talking about all that yummy good stuff, and speculating ever-so-slightly on the why it occurs and exists as it does currently. But before we go further.... SPOILER TIME! Okay, so I don't go to the common room as much as I used to, so I'm basing this slightly off of my own personal experience, and if you notice a bit of evidence that skews towards the beta period that's why.
Now for the full article, it's here after the break!

Pottermore is seemingly VERY skewed when it comes to gender, though this is rather difficult to measure properly, by taking a casual look around, its possible to get a *rough* idea of the main audience and demographic Pottermore appeals to, and oddly enough, it flies in the face of one of the main rules of the internet: "There are no girls(women) on the internet, and all children are FBI agents." While it's a bit of a laughable rule, on Pottermore it makes gender bias a bit entertaining to watch, as occasionally people assume gender based on name, or based on language used on the site. I myself often was mistaken for a girl, because quite frankly, I talked a lot and apparently I sounded moderately intelligent. However, it's an interesting note that at this time, and possibly still, Pottermore is primarily made up of women. This was especially true of beta, and the early period after where I noticed that mothers seemed to be a fairly active user base, and to some extent, I think most of the current users are still female for the most part, and has become my active assumption. In Slytherin, there were only 2-3 males I actively knew of including myself in the early eras of the site, and it was to a point where we would often celebrate finding a new male, and just celebrate that we actually existed. Beyond that point, there were a few other males we knew of, but by far the most male dominated house seems to be Gryffindor for the most part (again just going off on experience here). Slytherin seems to possibly be the second most male dominated, though I still have difficulty naming off many prominent male members, while there were quite a few prominent women, and it seems to persist.

Now why this came to be is an interesting question, and we can attempt to break down the female demographic by the following: Mothers, Fans, and Role Players. Mothers seem to be there partially to scout for their children, and I've seen examples where mothers take movements towards fixing moderation as a result. Fans seem to be similar to the average user,  but the primary difference from the mothering group is simply a lack of children or children that were old enough not to need the scouting, this group seems to exist like most fans in general, being there simply because they like Harry Potter, and you can see that in what they do and how they act around others, helping others and taking steps to assist people in doing things for the house. Then there are the role players which are slightly more... odd. This seems to be a more free-wheeling group, and primarily the source of "drama" and well... general strangeness. I can't say I understand it completely, though this seems to be the part that enjoys acting out their own stories (and this can be something I try and discuss later, though it will probably be a giant .gif of me smashing my head into a wall and shouting why! But I digress).

Now why the surplus of women and seeming absence of men? Well I have a few answers for that...
1) Males are more prone to video game binging and thus would play on pottermore for a bit, and then leave till something new came back.
2)Fathers may not be joining pottermore in the same number that mothers do (I know there are some fathers that do what mothers do on pottermore)
3)FAIRY GODPARENTS!!!!

So, please, share your experience, your thoughts. Tell me, do you think I'm right in claiming Pottermore has a mostly female audience, did I miss something? And as always... I live off of feedback and suggestions. Feel free to comment on this/any other posts here ^^

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