Yesterday was International Women’s day, and while lying in bed last night, I had a thought about all the times I’ve seen women at my local radio clubs….

1. WA0FYA had a female treasurer, a female secretary, and the secretary’s daughter would frequently attend, and that was it.
2. Occasionally a female would show up to W0EEE events and/or meetings, usually a friend of one of the male members, but we never had a solid attendance or interest by females
3. At SLSRC, the current president’s wife is on a number of committee chairs, and the secretary is female, and about 10% of the 200 or so members are women, usually there are one or two per meeting
4. At one particular club meeting, a twenty-something non-licensed woman showed up, and was hounded at the end of the meeting by a few club members lambasting about how there aren’t enough “YLs in ham radio” and that this person should help us figure out why… he didn’t realize he was a part of the problem, and the impetus for this post.

And that’s about it. Every hamfest, convention, meeting, field day, contest, and contact I’ve made, I’ve always seen a massive disparity in female involvement and inclusion. I won’t explain why here, just because STEM think tanks have beaten that horse nearly dead [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Ham radio is a STEM hobby after all, and shares a lot of characteristics with the industry.

Instead, I want to explain in some simple terms how to be more engaging and welcoming to young women in ham radio. This applies mainly to young women coming into ham radio for the first time, but can also generally apply to women of any age.

We know ham radio is a male dominated hobby. There aren’t good numbers on it, but one ARRL article mentioned women represent 15% of the US ham population, with N8RMA’s 2017 State of Amateur Radio survey showing the average ham has had a license for 32 years!! (also go take this year’s if you haven’t already!)

This is the first barrier to interest from both young people, and women. Why would any young person, woman or not, want to spend their time with a bunch of snoring geriatrics[1]?

Ham radio has some work to do to help take on the in induction of women into STEM (now that parents are becoming less like their parents and so on, encouraging and exposing their daughters to do traditionally boyish, nerdy, and sciencey things, and that schools and governments are heavily pushing STEM initiatives to the current generation), so here’s a list of things what we as ham radio leaders should avoid, and should do.

How to Attract & Retain Women in Ham Radio

Don’ts:

1. Avoid divisive behavior
   1. Reduce or remove the use of the terms YL and XYL when speaking to women (or anyone), especially to newcomers[2]
   2. Don’t call attention to the fact she is a woman in a room full of men
      1. This is seconded by Jesten (my fiancée)…seriously, women already know they’re in the minority, so avoid mentioning that.
   3. Don’t assume that a woman joining your club will be immediately interested in driving for other female membership
   4. Avoid sexist humor in public groups on the internet
2. Rescind traditional gender expectations and stereotypes
   1. Understand and avoid the double bind stereotype – the stereotype that women are nice, kind and compassionate, which are contrarian to tough and decisive stereotypes about leadership. We think as female leaders are controlling, aggressive, and mean, whilst male leaders are ambitious and strong.
   2. As leaders, have zero tolerance of stereotypes from membership

Dos:

1. Be welcoming and friendly to all newcomers
2. Be a storyteller
   1. Anecdotal evidence points to women having a strong interest in the connections between engineering (ham radio) and how it helps the world, so talk about how ham radio saves lives and how hams invented today’s wifi and cellular systems.
   2. All astronauts are strongly encouraged (maybe even required) to get amateur radio licenses, including female astronauts. This makes a good talking point.
3. Introduce the Young Ladies’ Radio League and talk about history of women in ham radio
4. Start a female focus group or committee within your club

On the note of celebrating women, big round of applause for Val Hotzfeld NV9L for achieving the Hamvention Ham of the Year award!

Resources & Links

• Young Ladies Radio League
• Amateur Radio Wiki – Women in Amateur Radio
• Sisterhood of Amateur Radio
• The First Female Ham Radio Operators
• Reddit /r/amateurradio discussion between female hams, and how to make it better for women
• Ham Radio’s Technical Culture (book) by Kristen Haring – a good read on the gender biases of ham radio
• Canadian Ladies Amateur Radio Association
• My Other Posts on Women in Ham Radio

footnotes:

[1] I attended a meeting recently where someone was snoring during the presentation, and nobody did anything about it since it’s apparently how they’ve always attended every meeting…wtf?

[2] This has been getting a lot of flak in some groups, with the counterargument that “YL just means Young Lady, what’s wrong with that?” What’s wrong is 1) that it’s jargon, which should always be avoided with new people, and 2) it minimizes and ostracizes women, with the definition of young lady being a being woman not far advanced with life aka girls. Additionally, IMO, anything that portrays delineation or divisive attention to females should be avoided.

Author: N0SSC

Twenty-something year old amateur radio operator. I love everything about ham radio. Trying to learn CW and contest more, and doing my best to promote youth involvement and retention in this rapidly aging hobby. View all posts by N0SSC