Women and men probably collect things about equally. Women, however, just don’t collect stamps. Philately has long been a man’s domain. After the passing of the “timbremania” phase about 1860, the vast majority of stamp collectors, and certainly the vast majority of more serious philatelists, have been men. Of the hundreds of early philatelic books and articles that I’ve read, only a few have been penned by women. Of the people who have listed themselves as “followers” of this blog, all are men. And the APS membership is 90% male. I can’t think of any serious articles about stamps written by women before 1960. Even the greatest female collector of the last century, Louise Boyd Dale, was carrying on the great collection of her father Alfred Liechtenstein.
There are three main reasons for the lesser appeal of philately to women. First, there is a male tradition in the hobby that is self reinforcing. My boyhood stamp club didn’t exclude girls, but there were no female members either. Several of the club members have returned to their hobby following the long tradition of inactivity during the third, fourth, and fifth decades of life. Girls didn’t collect much when I was a kid, and so they have no fond memories of a hobby to go back to. Second, for most philatelists, their hobby is a solitary one