In general I have spent my life bucking the trend on what girls and women are expected to do (sports, hobbies, career, temperament, family – well lack if it). For

MENTORS: Although I was taught by a man, and my two main mentors were men, thinking back I think it was the women in leadership roles who encouraged me the

I agree with many of the comments made in previous stories so far. I have been ringing for more than 40 years now, with a couple of breaks, mainly with

I think there are several reasons for the imbalance, some valid, and some definitely not. Women are generally physically weaker than men, and this feeds into the idea that women

At a District Meeting two or three years ago we welcomed two male visitors. One of them had phoned in advance to check that they could come and naturally they

I once organised a few days ringing with a group of people, most of whom were working on a new (to us) surprise major method from the
Pickled Egg Project

Male ringers in my circle are aware of the gender problem at least when it comes to band placement, possibly because their female friends
gripe to them about it frequently

One example: I tried to convince a male tower captain that his overwhelming tendency to place only male ringers around the back was a
problem. During the conversation he argued

I learnt, and continue to ring, in a place that is dominated  by males and I feel they behave very differently to the female ringers. The male
ringers can be

I have called touches in the past, and I particularly worked on Stedman Triples, as no one locally could call it. I had a small repertoire of
other stuff, but

This isn't really a story, more a general observation based on something that I've seen happen A LOT over the years. I must stress that the
below in no way

I was taught by my father as a child and didnt really enjoy ringing. When I went to university I stopped completely and sort of expected
people to try and