"..." and more generally, (women) are not as respected in the juggling community."
How did you draw this conclusion?"
Personal experience through a decade and a half in the community. Hundreds of conversations with women in the community. Comparative analysis of our collective anecdotes with everything I have read from every single other field of study that gender has actually been studied.
music,
http://feministing.com/2015/01/22/bjork-talks-sexism-in-the-music-industry/
computers,
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/03/05/ellen_pao_trial_revealing_details_of_how_gender_discrimination_happens_in.html
theater,
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/dec/10/women-in-theatre-glass-ceiling
comedy,
http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/feb/11/women-arent-funny-why-do-people-believe-this
busking
http://www.buskersadvocates.org/womenstreetperformers.html
sports,
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/low_female_sports_coverage_in_media_due_to_gender_bias-149671
STEM,
https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~srugheimer/Women_in_STEM_Resources.html
teachers in academia,
https://news.ncsu.edu/2014/12/macnell-gender-2014/
students in academia,
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~lopez.513/Letter/Letter_to_NY_Times.html
politics
https://youtu.be/SOPsxpMzYw4
and among nearly every single occupation on the planet
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/01/business/20090301_WageGap.html
"And, are you taking in account, when you say that female jugglers get less appearances in festival shows, that there are generally less female jugglers available? That specifically at juggling conventions it is those with high technique who thrive (unlike at circus/theatre festivals or other stages), and that women are not so well represented in this genre of juggling?"
Which comes first, chicken or the egg?
With no females to represent ourselves as capable, talented authorities on juggling how do we expect more females to represent themselves at festivals. (many festivals do have huge numbers of women at them, specifically at French festivals where I took my preliminary observational data from).
"I personally feel like female jugglers have an advantage over male jugglers in shows. They are rare and unique, and wanted."
This one job isn't well representative. Much of what women experience is "tokenism" as in, they have a female juggler and they think that it represents well. Unfortunately, it's not equality or fair minded.
What about the possibility that on average girls are less interested in juggling?
I mean it is possible, however, there was hundreds of years where men were told that they "throw like a girl" and have often discouraged women from playing ball sports. On the other side, there was a huge marketing campaign for hula hoops stating they were "girls toys" and women don't seem to mind being prop manipulators at all... So why the divide? I would expect it has to do with being discouraged for centuries...
All in all, data is data. This is preliminary data and I doubt it will answer questions. Let me know if you read/watch/interact with any of those links above. It's really interesting stuff.
by DawnDreams, in response to this post 2016-01-14 18:22:03