Women in wine

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-04-27/meet-the-women-changing-bordeaux-s-historic-wine-traditions

I was at a digital wine communiction conference and Felicity Carter, editor of Meninger’s Wine Business International (a fantastic speaker, by the way) gave a talk on women in wine - largely to say that this may have been a cutting edge subject 20 years ago but that, yawn, the subject’s pretty much out of date.
The women are there these days, in force. And have penetrated all levels of the wine industy.
No more raised eyebrows or snickering.

On the other hand, collecting wine and obsessing about it (like I do) seem to be very much a guy thing.

I wonder why so few women post here?

Alex R.

I hope some of the women of WB will opine; in particular the women on this board who are ITB.

My perception is that this board can be a bit jocular at certain times and certain threads (probably more so in the asylum) can take a path that is less conducive to female involvement. I’m not making a value judgement on it, simply saying this is my perception.

It is absolutely true that, while there are tons of women ITB, and certainly many enthusiasts, there are very few collectors in a serious sense. (As a side note, I realize that the notion of “collecting” rather than just drinking or enjoying wine is not without it’s negative implications here, but it’s the most useful direction from which to approach the question.) I am often the only woman bidding for her own account at auctions, and, when talking with the owners of various wine storage facilities, they confirm that very few of their clients are women, especially not with sizable collections. There are many reasons for this imbalance, most of which are pretty obvious historically, including income levels and alcohol consumption levels. Then there’s the fact that men in general are the collectors - coins, stamps, baseball cards, what have you. Not that women don’t accumulate (shoes, bags and jewelry spring to mind as the stereotypical items to amass), but the obsessive collectors of almost anything are men.

As for participation in forums, the sexism is rampant and insidious, on top of what Jason calls the “jocular” tone (I would use the word “puerile” in many cases - sorry, guys). I can point to numerous instances of open condescension I’ve experienced from people on this and other boards who assume that, since I’m a woman, I must be a beginner, despite some fairly obvious evidence to the contrary. It seems to be reflexive. I don’t find it offensive most of the time - I work in finance, so I’m accustomed to institutionalized and tacitly condoned sexism. It isn’t exactly welcoming to women, though.

PS - there are notable and important exceptions to the rule, of course, and I consider myself lucky to have met and built friendships with some other brilliant and experienced female collectors.

Puerile is a good word and I might jump to pejorative. Some of the sexism fights can be fun, some are silly and some are mean-spirited. Like a lot of things in life.

A note on alcohol consumption though, Mel outdrinks me daily.

Indeed. Many of the men here act like they’re in a locker room.

sexual and sexist are two different things. conversation here certainly often includes innuendo, double entendre, or overt sexualness, but sexist/sexism/discrimination? i don’t see that too often.

We could fix that!!

When I first saw the title, I thought this was a thread on some weird new fetish.

Okay, seriously… thank you for your thoughts Sarah. I would add that men are almost always infantile and often use tawdry humor regardless of the subject. (It’s part of our charm. ) In my circle of friends, there are several women who are more serious and educated about wine than their husbands or most other males in the group.

Not much to add to this. I think Sarah puts it well. Coming from an academic background though, I’ve been floored by some of the sexist posts. It’s not something I’m used to encountering so it makes it harder to process.

I still read and post occasionally because there is so much good information. And I think new women posters are more likely to stick around if they see at least some posts from regular women posters like Sarah, Siun, Merrill, Nola and others.

Because not many posts are by women!

Seriously, posting about wine tends to be a “guy” thing, and that’s true on other wine boards too (certainly is on eBob).

More women actively involved in the wine industry is almost all to the good IMHO (even those not given much love here).

WB is mostly filled with guys obsessed about collecting and/or consuming “fine wine”…including most ITBers. Comparisons to stamp and coin collecting seem fair, moreso than baseball cards. My Aunt and Mother were casual, life-long stamp collectors. They dipped their toes in to the “serious” (and competitive) male-dominated levels…auctions, appraisals, etc. They never found it rewarding enough to pursue. Seems like there must be something environmental and/or genetic that causes men to pursue their hobbies to unusual (i.e.: unreasonable) extremes. Competition? Men seem to get more reward from completely “geeking out” and keeping it up longer term. Must be some behavioral research somewhere that shines more light on the subject.

RT

I post here occasionally. I cringe most of the time with the locker room bullying behavior. I get tired of the wine comparisons to women such as “Pamela Anderson/Sophia Loren”. There was a post last week that basically alluded to date rape. I shut my computer down.

I’m quite aware of the difference between sexual and sexist and I used the word I meant. I usually do. And believe me, I can play in the sexual innuendo park with the best of them! But you do see sexism here, it’s just likely you don’t perceive it as such. Those of us on the receiving end very often do.

This conflict of perception is so common as to be constant. I don’t know you personally, Steve, but I do operate within a number of male dominated realms where many men respond as you did when this comes up - “there’s none (or little) of that here!”. Often men aren’t aware when they themselves are being sexist, or notice those behaviors in others. It’s deeply ingrained, habitual and a part of widely accepted norms of interaction. In many instances, society has even imposed systemic excuses, in order to pre-absolve people of responsibility for these behaviors. I used another word I chose carefully - “insidious.”

Look, I don’t want to use this space to rant about this issue, but I can assure you that there’s a good deal of sexism displayed here, and I know for a fact I’m not the only one who thinks that. It doesn’t set me off, or particularly bother me, as I said. But it’s definitely part of the environment.

I enjoy your posts Sheila, and hope you stick around. And, as I’m sure you’ve gathered, there are lots of male posters who abhor that behavior as much as we do.

BTW, I also find your notes on Cellartracker to be very informative so was happy to see you start participating here.

Katrina

You have to remember, when people (men) think of the word ‘beautiful’ it’s usually a woman that comes to mind. That’s just the way god (I mean Elvis) made them.

When someone says this wine is the "Sophia Loren of Pinot Noir - all they mean is; it’s a beautiful wine.

I don’t consider myself sexist at all, but I have no problem with the association.

There IS obvious sexism on this board, and in the wine industry. I work in quite a few wine markets, and I must admit that usually the top salesperson for every good wholesaler in each market is a woman. And they are usually the highest paid because of that. Ditto with winery/importer reps. It’s still a “good ole boy’s network” on the final tier; the collectors. But there are gains being made every year.

AND - I wouldn’t be surprised if half the winemakers in France and Italy are women. And hasn’t it been that way for more than 100 years? If you own a winery, and have a daughter and a son, you put the son on a tractor, and send the daughter to winemaking school. Now that itself might be a little sexist, but that’s usually how it works.

So there you have it.


Don’t want to divert from the topic at hand too much, but Erin Scala (of Levi Dalton’s podcast) has a thoughtful piece on the issue of using female descriptors for wine.

I see quite a bit of it, with some serial offenders.

Blog posts like that raise good issues and in some instances, or for some readers, go too far. I have no issue hearing about a wine being masculine of feminine, depending upon the author and variety this descriptor provides a lot of information.

FWIW I nearly always prefer PN where the descriptor masculine would not apply.

I started reading the article, and when I got to -

“Allow me to explain: I bristle when someone describes a wine as “masculine” or “feminine.” What does that even mean, anyway?”

She blew all her credibility with me. I mean, really? Lots of things in this world that ARE sexist. This AIN’T one of them.

Anyone else here read Rebecca Solnit’s Men Explain Things to Me? I wish she had a chapter in there about wine.