I might need someone to hand me a grip. Please share your own minor irritations.

[DeliciousIrony]

I have been watching a few old episodes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire on Challenge over the last week or two (yes, I lead an exciting life).

It seems that in every episode, the pool of 10 potential contestants usually consists of 9 men and 1 woman. Occasionally 2 women, occasionally all male.

Why is this? I don't think I've ever noticed this in any other TV gameshow, at least not in recent memory. Perhaps I've not been observant enough.
I can't see why Millionaire's format would appeal to men more than women. Apart from the lesser threat of having Chris Tarrant's arm draped across your shoulders.

Check out Only Connect.
Or University Challenge.

Women very much in the minority in those quiz shows.

University challenge selects from the pool of teams put forward by the universities. It's an open progress for those who want to get involved. There was a tv behind the scenes of uc about the selection process

Oh, I don't think there's discrimination in the selection process per se (I watched that programne too) but OP said she hadn't noticed it in other quiz shows.

UC has no influence on what happens to put the teams together, I believe - if a group of mates put a team together to try out or if the uni itself does a blind selection of some kind.

Eggs heads I think has a token woman in the egg heads.

I think two tribes has a mix

New bunch of stamps being produced by the Royal Mail to celebrate great British inventions. Not a woman in sight (that I can see).

The question for programmes like University Challenge is why aren't women coming forward as participants? What's stopping them?

I've got another one about the erasure of women (on a much more local scale). I got an alumni magazine today from my school. It used to be a segregated school, girls and boys, but they have now amalgamated, although lessons are still separate. Not only is head now a man, the entire magazine which was about 20 pages was devoted to men/boys with the exception of 2 articles. There are around the same number of girls and boys at the school. I think I may be having a word. This is what happens when men and women share spaces, men dominate.

It's "Smurfette Syndrome." See, in man-land, it's fine to have society represented by a bunch of archetypes like builder, father, comedian, hunter, explorer, woman.

Other shows have the jocky guy, the nerdy guy, the goth guy, the woman. Women are tokens in television and beyond, and while I'm from the US, not the UK, I can say that at least at auditions for quiz programs here (I've been to a few), women and men are represented in roughly equal numbers. When men outnumber women vastly in actual competition, it ruffles my feathers, too.

I think more men than women have an interest in quizzing.

Ifyourehoppy which female inventors do you think they should have included?

Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr, Emily Canham, Martha Coston?

Modern: Emily Cummins, Virginia Gardiner

Dr Shirley Jackson, Dr Betty Harris, Marie van Brittan Brown, Dr Patricia , Mary Kenner, Natalie Love, C J Walker.

How timely that I read this article a couple of days ago. Amazing women.

Quiz shows such as Top of the Class and Are you brighter than a 10 year old, iirc, had an equal mix of girls and boys, so, if AICM's assertion that more men than women have an interest in quizzing is correct and I'm not convinced it is then what happens in the meantime? When do girls stop being interested in general knowledge?

I have to say that, at quiz nights I've been to, there is about an equal mix of women:men, hence my lack of conviction that women don't enjoy it.

Gail Trimble got a pretty hard time..

Apparently the reason there aren't more women CEOs is that we don't enjoy that either and choose not to. It's such a bollocks excuse. Studies have shown it's not true. Convenient for those who like the status quo though.

Meeting with men and women at the same level. Only the men talk.

OK
I admit my comment was overly harsh.
However some of you have a strange definition of British. I thought if you were American you wouldn't quality as a British inventor and also I massively underestimated the inventing genius of Mark Kenner who invented an improved toilet roll holder.

re University Challenge - look at what happened to Jenny Harris (there may have been others but she is a friend of a friend so was more aware of it) - I am sure that would put some people off, and it doesn't seem to happen to men.

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/8746096/Starter-for-10-female-University-Challenge-contestants-subject-to-web-hate-campaigns.html

I hadn't thought of University Challenge - 84% male last year, with an all-male finale.
I really struggle to believe that this is just coincidence, or that women just don't like quizzes as much as men do.
That is awful about Jenny Harris and Gail Trimble, but sadly it does not surprise me that women who dare to appear on TV for their intelligence rather than their appearance (or 'bubbly personalities') then get lambasted for it.

I've never watched Only Connect, every time I see Victoria Coren I am unpleasantly reminded of her brother, which is probably very unfair of me.

Alright AICM. No need to be snidey. I missed that we were looking at British inventors. I just happened to have read that article and the discussion reminded me of it. It was quite late last night I posted.

And Mary Kenner invented other things. But hey if you are going to have a swipe why not get their name wrong too or maybe I should just give you the benefit of doubt for a typo, given your supportive comments so far?

Victoria Coren Mitchell is worth 20 of her brother.

I apologise for being snidey.

I'm sorry about the typo with Mark; I was typing on my phone.

ALL of the women mentioned above are worthy of praise and a place in history.

Historically women were not allowed to pursue the paths they wanted to. Men were allowed to pursue their ambitions as scientists, composers, artists and inventors. Women were made to give up their ambitions, stay at home cooking their tea. The women mentioned above are all the more remarkable for having achieved at a time when society was against them.

This has lead to a massively disproportionate number of men who have written themselves into the history books compared to women.

If I had to pick the 8 most world changing inventions by a Brit the Post Office list is not a bad start.

In a more productive way I'd like to ask who you would take off and who would you replace them with?

Agree with your post AICM.

Emily Canham invented dipped headlights. That could be an alternative stamp to cats'-eyes

Fair enough.
The list should be amended.