The Etsy Debate Rages On: A Male Perspective

Our re-posting of DoubleX’s Etsy story gave us all some food for thought, as commenter SF Indie Fashion pointed out. Reader and Etsy seller George W. weighed in:

Sorry to disagree with you but I’m a male seller on Etsy and have run across several other men who are selling their creations on the site. I also don’t think of Etsy.com being a female dominated website at all.

Strictly by the numbers, however, it is undeniable that Etsy is very much a female dominated site: in a January 2009 international seller survey conducted by Etsy, a whopping 97% of the nearly 1600 respondents were women. It’s interesting to hear a man’s take away from the article; I found the mention of a minority of male sellers to be more of a footnote than anything else, and not any sort of comment on the quality of their wares.

My gender admittedly makes me a bit biased, but is it really so terrible that Etsy, and for that matter, the fashion industry, has an abundance of women? Coco Chanel was a major player in the fashion world while Rosalind Franklin’s research contributions were undervalued (or, um, stolen) due to discrimination in the scientific community. Women and the fashion industry no doubt have a complex relationship, but it is also an industry that has historically accepted women as equals purely of its own volition, long before Equal Opportunity sprung up.

In the spirit of equality, you can check out George’s Etsy jewelry shop here. Let’s keep debating, and feel free to post some of your favorite sellers, male or female, in the comments.