Comments on: Why Have Women Magicians Vanished?

By: Lady Isabella

Lady Isabella — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:39:33 +0000

I’ve been a magician for nearly 19 years.
I’ll share this: any woman magician at all of any age or type will be totally accepted as long as she is really good at the magic she does.
It can be forceful or lyrical, sexy babe or mad scientist. The key is being really good.
The advantage of being a woman includes new ways of using costuming. New ways to misdirect. What I read above sounds like someone has the idea that an effect can’t be improved upon.
Why bother sawing anybody in half again? Come up with your own stuff. Male magicians can be boring or astonishing.
Magic can be monotonous and tiresome or thrilling and awesome. Be an artist of the higher order and set a new standard. Don’t waste your time with another predictable cliche. I think that’s all there is to this situation.
And yes, I’ve been shunned and attacked by male magicians. It only spurs me on to do more amazing effects that look good on me and wimpy on them. Their sense of self is dependent on dominating someone. Momma must have scared them. The confident ones love the ladies, the insecure ones try to invalidate and oppress. So, what else is new?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:17:10 +0000

I am a woman magician and I have no idea why the profession is so heavily male dominated. Today when half the medical students are women, when there are many women scientists, engineers, and attorneys, the biological and physiological reasons mentioned in the survey do not make sense. There are other areas of magic besides sawing people in half and besides card magic. Magicians are foremost entertainers and people who love to perform (there are many women actors!).
I am a math major and mechanical engineer (in my 60′s) and although there are now many women in the math and engineering fields, the field of magic is for some mysterious reason still mostly devoid of women. Maybe it is a matter of education; since more women are getting higher education (beyond a BA) and most magicians according to your survey are NOT college educated, the women just do not have time for it, even at an amateur level. Younger professional women, are just too busy with jobs and family. Maybe as this generation ages (ie become empty nesters) , we will see more amateur women magicians. I did not start performing professionally until my children were grown.

By: MattB

MattB — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:55:17 +0000

I’ve been thinking about this subject a lot lately, after watching an all-too-short documentary on the subject of women in magic. My opinion is that one of the key reasons there may be fewer women in magic is the lack of role models that young girls can look to for inspiration. There are some amazing women in magic, but in recent history, none have obtained the kind of popularity as David Blaine, David Copperfield, Doug Henning, and other men who have become the public face of magic for young magicians.

I do believe that some of the other reasons given both in the posts below and the article above also contribute. But I do not believe that they need to be showstoppers. Particularly in the case of gaffes and techniques that may be ill-suited for a woman’s costuming or physique, perhaps what is called for is to develop new gaffes and new techniques. That’s a challenge, but it could make this art all the more interesting for young women. What an opportunity! Not only to produce new methods and tools, but to produce new effects as well. I think that women could bring a completely different feel to magic, and broaden its boundaries beyond those that tradition has formed.

By: dancemu

dancemu — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:23:45 +0000

It’s amazing.SO according to you, women are not magitians cause they are not logical and emotinal. That’s right we might just burst in tears when a rabbit dissappears. Why don’t you use the left side of the brain to create something original, instead, writting another cliche about why women aren’t good enough for the “male jobs”???

By: RodChu

RodChu — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:41:10 +0000

I’m amazed that no one has suggested one possible problem: A fundamental magic technique is misdirection. My conjecture is that most men examine women carefully – wherever they may be gesturing – putting women at a significant disadvantage as magicians!

By: BIc

BIc — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:40:27 +0000

To Sid: actually a few said what you’re saying in the “nature of magic” section in the article, about size of hands and bodies.

By: GreggTobo

GreggTobo — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:42:26 +0000

My suspicion is that gender-based social roles work against women in stage magic. At an early age, young women learn that sharing secrets can help build relationships and friendships. Young men discover that by hoarding secrets they can foster power. It may be useful to consider allied arts such as palm reading or tarot reading to be the flip side of the same magical coin in which the the feminine side of magic is about establishing relationships and sharing insights, while the masculine side of magic is about exclusion — withholding information to build and sustain power.

By: Sid

Sid — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:08:39 +0000

I’m surprised that not one person so far has hit upon the reason which my magician ex-boyfriend explicitly stated is the reason few women get into magic. Much stage magic depends on gizmos which must be sized to the magician’s body (especially hands) and historically *simply aren’t sold in women’s sizes* — according to him, for decades, some were not sold to women as a matter of sexist policy.

From what he told me about the technical details of the craft and its tools, and what I know about the mass production in general, I’m gathering that over the last 100 years, there’s been a move away from custom-made magician’s equipment to mass-produced, and since mass-production will always favor the majority customers’ tastes and needs, that would mean that young men taking up the craft are vastly more likely to find gear commercially available that works for them than are young women.

Similarly many sorts of beginner’s prestidigitation tricks are much more difficult, or even impossible, for people with smaller hands, particularly any tricks done with coins or cards, both of which are standardized sizes and not amenable to custom solutions. If you’re a woman with less than enormous hands, unless you approach the craft through a different set of “beginners” tricks, one’s which are better suited to smaller hands, when you start learning, you will be at a disadvantage compared to your male peers; you are more likely to be deterred by the difficulty, because the difficulty will be much greater for you.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:18:52 +0000

Magicians start as young boys. Plain and simple. Girls have different interests. Also, witches are far more common than warlocks, which adds to the fascination. Magic acts are also phony hoaxes. Boys don’t mind it, and maybe girls do, as they may be more interested in real magic.

By: mindreader

mindreader — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:11:22 +0000

I’ll take the hobby for geeks philosophy. Most of us started out as insecure young men with few or negative social graces. I think the early maturity of most women steers them away from magic or computers, etc.
Forget all the other stuff. It’s about being a man and being inadequate. Women are better off.

By: CardToon

CardToon — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:45:24 +0000

I think the chauvinistic images portrayed by most professional magicians really turns women off to magic in general. It’s time we magicians began respecting our audiences and keep it from being a virtual stripshow. My wife had a hard time with the fact that I am a magician until she realized I perform my entire illusion show solo and give the audience (especially females) the utmost respect.

Additionally, to GoJoTV I’d recommend to reconsider magic. There are thousands of excellent card tricks that you can do with small hands. Additionally, small hands can still do very visual and beautiful coin magic, cups and balls, linking rings, and several other classics of magic. Please look again, we need more female magicians!

By: GoJoTV

GoJoTV — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:15:45 +0000

My reasons for never pursuing my interest in magic is simple. My hands/wrists are too small to palm cards. So, although I read a lot about magicians, and maintain an interest in the field, I never took it up as a possible profession. Plus, I have so many other talents; why dwell? Saying there are differences in the female mind that prevent us from pursuing magic is chauvinistic horsehockey. Who doesn’t want to do wondrous things? Only self-identification, society’s perception and lack of white male mentorship prevent women (and black men, when you really look at it) from performing magic.

By: TheMatrix72370

TheMatrix72370 — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:53:38 +0000

I invite anybody and everybody who reads this to check out my YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMatrix72370. When you get there, you will find, grouped into four categories – Female Magicians, FMV Vol., Older Vids, and Temp Folder – with a total of 9,120 videos that have females performing magic. I am in a continual process of eliminating private videos, videos that I have more than one copy of, and videos that are no longer available, so the actual total will be less, but I am CONSTANTLY looking for and adding new videos.

By: AaronJones

AaronJones — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:09:08 +0000

Interesting article. Do you think it is culturally based? I live in Japan and I am a magician. Here in Japan there are a lot of Japanese women magicians both young and old. There are more men but you see way more women involved in Magic in Japan than in North America.