Women and amateur radio

I cannot speak for the ham side of things, but on CB it is quite rare to hear women.   Usually when I hear or speak to ladies on air, they are in tow with their husbands.   Today I was pondering this.   I can speculate on a couple of reasons:


Image:  Probably a preconception held by many men as well as women, it's for lonely old men sat in their garden sheds.    It is seen by many as either dated or very nerdy or in some cases down right "weird".   I remember my then 13 year old girl cousin turning up at my nan's (where I lived at the time) who enquired "WHAT ARE you doing?" when she saw me putting my mast up in a tree.   I explained to her what CB radio was and in typical teenage fashion, she simply replied "you're weird!"  


Tradition:   Sadly, I think there are still many old fashioned precepts about the sorts of things men and women get involved in.   I work in IT and my current workplace is very diverse with many women at all levels, however in most places when I was contracting, it was mainly men.   I sometimes think that even today, a lot of girls are encouraged, sometimes unintentionally to be interested in "girly" things and sadly, any technical curiosity they have is not stimulated enough.   I am a firm believer that women are just as capable as men in all manner of things, minus certain physical differences.    However, I think certain preconceptions still exist in the minds of both sexes.

I can probably count on one hand the amount of women I have spoken to on CB, and never hear any women from the UK calling on 27.555, although one or two from the continent.  It always pleases me when John and Maxine put their daughter on the key during nets, hopefully they give her the bug!

So are there any regular ladies on the CB or ham bands in your area?    Do you get more ladies on the ham bands than what you do on CB?   Can you think of any other reasons than those I've speculated that more women don't get into radio?

hi my wife sarah and 2 other ladies as well we live in teesside  my  wife passed her foundation licence now has the callsign m6pii she operates on 2 meters and hf most days  she has a new ts 480 sat ok not as many ladies on ham radio but  many are members of bylara and sarah  joins in on the local net on 145.450 most days at 11.00 most mornings thanks for looking stay safe do radio 73s from sarah m6pii and me paul m0kbd

From my SWL of the HF Ham bands I can honestly say I have not heard even one woman in the last couple of years, so rabbi, great to hear, I will have to keep a listen out for your wife. Does she have a HF band she frequents more than others? I don’t currently have equipment to listen to vhf and uhf though, so not sure if any women use those around here.

Regarding CB, as I remember, there always used to be more men than women back in more popular times, but the balance was more evenly matched. A lot of families used, so often wives came on the mic and daughters too.

We had a local group that met in a pub function room regularly and it was close to a 50/50 mix of both sexes that turned up. Also had group outings.. including a bus load to a theme park which had a fair ratio mix too.

I actually met my wife for the first time via the radio way back then Her mother had a handle too and was on regularly. We used to go out mobile with a few other friends who had cars to local view points and do a little DX on Fri and Saturday nights as part of our other evening activities.. never thought of it as being nerdy at the time. Also became friends with a girl in Italy during a time when conditions were at their peak initially from a call out on the T5, spoke a good many times on the radio, then became pen pals for a while (pre internet).

Coming back to it now, my wife has zero interest. If anything it causes issues, like this morning she mentioned about buying some more lights for the garden and I expressed my displeasure as they make the radio unusable (you can guess how that convo panned out).

I don’t hear many locals on full stop, and none have been women. The locals I do hear are just a few that sound like they have been on for ever and know each other very well, the others seem to talk very Ham radioish about building antennas, winding coils etc, and I can see how that isn’t going to be a fun evening convo for people like my wife who just likes chatting with the women next door about "normal things". I guess I could suggest they all get CB walkie talkies, but they have their Facetime on their phones so I can’t see me winning any of them over to the air again any time soon

There a few Ladies on the HF bands if you listen.
Only one name comes to mind and that's Maria and she looks like to be around 20 or early 20's anyway from her picture on QRZ.
But i have had contact with 5 or 6 in the last few months but i am not on all the time.
Don't know about cb as nobody on round my location at all.

From seeing a few videos on YouTube I notice that a lot more Eastern Europe - Russian women seem to be a part of the hobby than over here which is fair enough, each to their own.

we need more young older ladies on the air its no longer a male hobby and to them that pass the foundation well done and a whole new freqs to use but if you started on the cb do not for get your roots still use the cb i do like my cb radio and i am into buying a 4m radio and a new antenna for the home and the car ,

We've got a few over here...mainly husband and wife "teams" but the ladies I know are advanced (full) calls and very accomplished operators in their own right.

It is very much a male dominated hobby though, as you say.