There are a lot of "sexist" generalizations in here, but I don't mean to offend anyone.
I think that the .org is still predominantly male, but it is because of this that we are noticing a more of a female presence. While females are no where near majority yet, since we're used to fifty guys and one girl, another girl is like.. "Hey wait a second... We're lacking a sausage, here."
Take, for example, AWA. I've been going since 2001 (but only started as an AMVer in 2002). In that time I was THE only girl in presence until about 2005 or 2006.
I also tend to agree with Oto and Kionon on the whole 'gender is subjective' thing, but right now we're talking about sex, not gender.
On to what the whole bolded disclaimer is about, though.
Why has there been an increase in females to the .org, an increase in their popularity, but no true increase in VCA winning?
In addition to the whole titties argument (which I really think is true), there are some things males have that girls don't. Minus the huge overbearing age difference between males nad females in the community:
Males have:
- money
-pirating skills
- more technical skills (girls tend to go more artistic)
- jobs/responsibility(or at least an understanding of it)
- more free time
Girls tend to have:
- less money, but more money management
- artistic senses
- lack of computer knwoledge
- spoiled/bratty tendencies and no understanding of responsibility
- less free time, but better time management skills
More girls use WMM because it's easy, and it's free. They realize that this a program that's convient, easy, and can be used. Then when they "see the light", they just try to make things work better in WMM. There's an entire website dedicated to making awesome things in WMM. Hell, there's a whole forum to producing special effects on an AfterEffects level with it, and it's from simple XML Files!
Not that girls would understand how to utilize custom effects like this, but it's there, and it shows that you don't have to buy/install other things.
Girls don't use other programs because they either don't have the money, or don't know how to pirate. Let's face it here- the .org plays kissy face with legality, but most of us know we all pirate at heart. Girls tend to take things for face value. So when we say buy everything and rip from DVDs, they take that to heart and don't want to pirate an editing software. Not that they could figure out how, anyway.
Girls aren't winning VCAs because the VCAs have drifted from less of an artistic + technical award to more of a technical use + popularity award.
It's more often a music video that has wowed us in technical aspects is going to win an award, rather than the artistic base. Tack onto this that girls aren't using top-of-the-line programs to edit with, and you have yourself a male-dominanted award ceremony.
Plus, because of the whole money and leack of computer knowledge issue girls have, they 9 times out of 10 don't understand how to rip a DVD or even have the DVD in the first place. They don't have an understanding of copyright laws either, so they think if it's on YouTube it isn't illegal.
A growing number of IDIOTS(girls and guys alike) in my and generations after mine have decided it's completely cool to download things from Youtube and put them on TVs. I learned that someone actually downloads stock footage off YouTube, puts it on a DVD, and gives it to his clients if he's missing it otherwise. This makes me EMBARRASSED that a) this guy is even IN business and b.) We're surrounded by people who actually thinks blowing up YouTube footage looks okay on a TV/projector/anything bigger than 320x480 screen.
YouTube footage aside, some girls know how to work the fansub areas but are too dumb to remove them, so there's a lot of subs in girls videos. Moreso is that girls tend to look for pats on backs instead of serious critisism, and when told the subs take away from the video, they usually go "Nuh uh! The subs help because of what they're saying!" Not to mention the one time I physically told a girl how to remove subs in the easiest way possible, and she ACTUALLY TOLD ME that if she cropped them out we'd miss some IMPORTANT information there.
Because, yes, there's a ton of information in an anime in the 30 pixels where subs are.
So now you've got female editors who may be doing some amazing artistic shit, but the technical part of it is so lacking it's usually painful to watch.