I guess that there are a lot more male students who study/finish RTK. I am only assuming. What led me to this assumption are mainly three point:
1. The pictures from the RTK get together.
2. Majority of the names in the forum.
3. Plain feeling
I hope this doesn't go in the "pointless" category because I am truely interested.

I have the same impression. Maybe there is something about Japan and its culture that is more attractive to men than women. The tendency of Japanese men to treat women like 2nd-class citizens, for example.

Indubitably, I would say. In fact I considered starting a post on this very topic many times, the only thing that stopped me was I was unsure why I believed this.
It should be said from the outset that there are certainly more gaijin men than women in Japan, and more men than women planning to come here in the future. The reasons are various, but I guess they would include that Japan probably offers a little more of interest to the male of the species: manga, maid cafes, kendo etc. A gross generalisation, I know, but not without a kernal of truth.
So naturally the numbers should already be stacked in favour of the men, but I also believe that the essence of the RTK system is more compatible with males then females.
Firstly, completing RTK is a rather lonely pursuit involving countless hours of studying with only the walls for company. I believes females may be more inclined to study in a group environment. I used to play chess with a top player in Australia who made a similar argument as to why the top ranks of chess players were dominated by men. Simply, that many women were put off by the solitude that is the constant adjunct of such a hobby. This is not in any way to suggest that women cannot use this method, but simply that they would be more likely to choose another method.
Secondly, I think that Heisig's method of shocking the mind with graphic stories may not endear the method to some women. Just as men are far more likely to enjoy mindless violence in an action movie, so too would they be attracted to stories such as Heisig uses to remember "lake". Similarly, I think it has been noted several times that the more violent or sexually explicit a story, the easier it is to remember, a characteristic that may once again not be viewed favorably by some women.
I am quite sure that men make up a large majority of members on this site, although there are obviously also many women. I would be interested in hearing their opinion on this matter.

Hmm... I'm female, but when it comes to forums, I'm more of a lurker than a poster. There's more people studying off the site than posting in the forums, are you going by the forums or all the members on the site?
Anyway, I think males might be more likely to study with RTK than females because of the way the system works. I noticed that for guys more than girls, when they get into a hobby, they get really into it...more into the technicalities and statistics than girls tend to. Like with computers, gaming, programming, sports, and in this case, learning 2000-3000 kanji out of context. For me, I love RPGs, but I can't play them all the time, and I'm not especially great at them -_-;

Also, I don't know if it's because I'm female, or if it's just my personality, but I have a lot of trouble relating to Heisig's stories. I end up ignoring them, making up my own stories(for the kanji that already had stories), even giving primitives new meanings. As you can probably tell, I don't follow Heisig's method closely.

"Plain feeling", lol. Funny how a forum can feel different depending on who's in it. The ball-joint-doll forum I go on has a very different feel to it.

Since one's gender is not asked when making an account, even Fabrice shouldn't know the demographics of the site. However, the only females I can think of offhand are Laura (who herself posted a similar question, albeit in reverse), ChristineTham (sp?) and astridtops, the last of which completed RTK1 and a good portion of RTK3.

yukamina, the fact that you make your own stories is probably better than using Heisig's stories, as that would generally mean they would be more personal and thus more memorable. I, too, did not like the story Heisig used for lake, which naniwa mentioned, rather indubitably, I might add.

On-topic, I say no, as I don't see any factors that would suggest it is, aside from the solitary nature of the method, but that one factor isn't particularly strong, especially when one considers that RTK doesn't even take that long.

I like studying alone... I think that has less to do with male and female and more to do with how introverted people are.

Yeah, I wholly agree: it's more about personality than it is about gender.

[ファブリス]

There are more women using RtK and this site than you think. You wouldn't know by their nicknames. Then again, many nicknames sound neither male nor female. I've received a few feedback emails from women, at least judging by their full name.

Btw, brose's comment cracked me up!

I don't see why women wouldn't excel at RtK as well as men. I don't think that "testosterone-driven" stories account for a great number of stories, neither that they really make a big difference in recall. And emotion-driven stories would do just as well (^_-)!

naniwa Wrote:I used to play chess with a top player in Australia who made a similar argument as to why the top ranks of chess players were dominated by men. Simply, that many women were put off by the solitude that is the constant adjunct of such a hobby.

Hmmm... I believe the real reasons are far less politically correct and because of that not often discussed.

Serge Wrote:Hmmm... I believe the real reasons are far less politically correct and because of that not often discussed.

Borat Wrote:Is it not a problem that woman have smaller brain than man. Government scientist proved it with size of squirrel.

Hey guys ^_^, add me to the female bracket of the group. I've been here awhile as well, but it wasn't until recently that I started to really blaze through the kanji. In accordance with some of the other posts I guess I'm not your "average" girl since my interests do include kendo, manga, anime and video games (I love rpgs like Persona, Final Fantasy -insert number here-, etc). I'm also more of a forum lurker than poster. Nice to meet everyone <3.

PS love the yaoi dating sims/rpgs too ^_-

brose Wrote:Maybe there is something about Japan and its culture that is more attractive to men than women.

Like Japanese women?......

ファブリス Wrote:I don't see why women wouldn't excel at RtK as well as men. I don't think that "testosterone-driven" stories account for a great number of stories, neither that they really make a big difference in recall. And emotion-driven stories would do just as well (^_-)!

It's not about who excels, just how many are here studying, right? Whoever is dedicated can do it...

I wouldn't say that there are more men studying Japanese than women. When I was in university in Osaka, the upper level Japanese classes were always at least 50% women (although a rather high percentage were lesbians o_O)

Jarvik7 Wrote:I wouldn't say that there are more men studying Japanese than women. When I was in university in Osaka, the upper level Japanese classes were always at least 50% women (although a rather high percentage were lesbians o_O)

Hmmm...gives a whole new light to what chamcham wrote.

I think it depends on what nationality you're talking about too. I went to a Japanese language school in Tokyo where overall I think there were more women than men. The difference was that there were quite few western women in comparison to western men. I'd guess that 40% of the students at the school, or maybe more, were Korean. A lot of these students were women. There were also a lot of women from China, Taiwan, Malaysia and other Asian countries. There aren't any non-western versions of RTK, despite my Korean friends really wanting one after I explained it to them.

I guess a lot of people would choose not to reveal much in the way of personal information on an internet forum in any case. I've certainly been fairly careful in the past to make my posts gender neutral so it's not evident - no idea whether this worked! No specific reason - I guess it just seemed irrelevant to the main focus of the site. I'm about to negate that by "coming out" and admitting to being female. Maybe I'm unusual, but I enjoy studying alone and have no objections to graphic/violent images when it helps (although having worked in a hospital for many years have probably seen more disturbing stuff for real than I would generally need to conjure up for the sake of remembering a few kanji). I'm probably a little hypocritical though; I tend to assume RTKers are male unless their nicknames are evidently female - although for some reason I thought Yorkii was a girl until it became apparent to the contrary!

Chadokoro_K Wrote:Hmmm...gives a whole new light to what chamcham wrote.

I'm trying to think of a way to concisely sig this whole conversation: it's comedic gold.

fiminor Wrote:I'm probably a little hypocritical though; I tend to assume RTKers are male unless their nicknames are evidently female - although for some reason I thought Yorkii was a girl until it became apparent to the contrary!

I auto-assume that everyone is a male, too. I'm curious why I think this way though. I think the message boards I frequent seem to be male-dominated, maybe that's why I've subconciously just assumed that most posters here were male as well.

Plus, not many people here use avatars (or sigs).

suffah Wrote:Plus, not many people here use avatars (or sigs).

Signatures appear to be disabled. If I feel that an avatar is too feminine, I generally Adblock it to prevent it from screwing with how I perceive someone's gender.

Murphy Wrote:Second Law of the Internet - Everyone is male. Everyone. Unless you're female, in which case, they're female. If you're bi, no one has genitals. No one.

Despite ファブリス's assurances, I'm still inclined to believe that a significant majority of members are male. At I guess, I would say 75%. As there are about 600 active members using this site, that would still mean roughly 150 females - no small number, but a minority to be sure.
I think it is quite possible to make reasonable guess as to the gender of a member by their usernames and especially their stories. The male just has a completely different conception of the female body than females themselves do, and this manifests itself time and time again in various stories. Also, I believe the monks of old were similarly obsessed with the feminine form when they created the kanjis - how many kanjis can you see containing 女? Over 50 in RTK1 alone, I'd surmise. How many contain 男? Only two - courage and captive.

naniwa Wrote:How many kanjis can you see containing 女? Over 50 in RTK1 alone, I'd surmise. How many contain 男? Only two - courage and captive.

This doesn't improve in RTK3: 娼, for one, will be an endless source of humor for me.

Quote:Also, I believe the monks of old were similarly obsessed with the feminine form when they created the kanjis - how many kanjis can you see containing 女? Over 50 in RTK1 alone, I'd surmise. How many contain 男? Only two - courage and captive.

I believe this is only because 男 is much more complicated than 女. Men have a three-stroke kanji too - 士.
Were Chinese characters invented by monks? First time I've heard that.

Perhaps I should have said "scholars" rather than "monks". But my post is only party serious, and in my imagination I see some learned, robed monk pondering over how to construct his latest kanji, before deducing, "女! Of course, these three graceful lines fit perfectly again!".