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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;kevin McGonigal, post: 4774360, member: 72790&quot;]For those of an earlier generation who lived in the Philadelphia area the name Catherine Bullowa will come up . Although I already had one ancient coin in my mostly US collection I, as a young man,&nbsp; happened to drop in at her locale on Walnut Street one summer day just to look around and she was kind enough to open a vault and show me some trays of ancients and from that time on I became a major student of ancient coins. Her catalogs on coin auctions was a gold mine and a treasure trove of information in a pre internet day. But, all things considered she was a rarity in the field. My experience, like most other posters,&nbsp; is that numismatics is a study that interests men far more than women. I hesitate in this day and age of gender equality to mention that my own, admittedly anecdotal experience, does confirm my belief that gender interests, to a great extent, not universally, are not just taught and learned but are innate and stem from some kind of biological, evolutionary development. One of my other interests used to be the collecting of antique firearms and even shooting them at a range when possible. Again, few Annie Oakley&#039;s in that world. The same in the sport of hunting and to a somewhat lesser disparity in fishing and photography. I am familiar with the arguments that little girls are discouraged from participating in such &quot;manly&quot; activities and given their druthers would be out there involved in these male attractive activities if they were encouraged to do so. Perhaps, but with my activities in these interests having me teach and coach and mentor in these areas, where we are supportive of and encouraging of females in these interests, we usually did not need to encourage the guys to involve themselves and participate. They seemed to take to it in a natural way that was not common, in that women did not show up in great numbers to them and often did need encouragement to do so and remain active in them. As for ancient numismatics, specifically, it may have something to do with its ancillary role in the the study of ancient history, another discipline that until quite recently was a male dominated one. All of this is not meant to exclude or disparage women from field and stream or stamps and coins or explorations and excavations, but it may suggest (not prove, but suggest) that some interests are more likely to appeal to one gender rather than the other and that there is no need to see this as being of cosmic significance, a happenstance that needs correction. I think that children, young people, of both genders should be exposed to many fields of interest and then left unhindered to pursue what interests them whether they happen to align with our own or not. P.S. For those wondering about this, in my own family, all the women, spouse and daughters have their Ph.D&#039;s, just not in fields of my interests, but theirs.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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