WOMEN IN RE: Comfortable going to meetups? Improvements?

[J. Martin]

I have a question for all the WOMEN in real estate out there on BP.

DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE AND ENJOY GOING TO REAL ESTATE MEETUPS?
IS THERE ANYTHING THAT WOULD MAKE YOU MORE COMFORTABLE GOING TO MEETUPS?

@Jonna Weber just posted about another BP member who has a women's RE meetup, and I got to thinking about the topic a bit more.. It appears that there are fewer females heavily active in real estate than male. And I would probably be naïve to try to make that change overnight. But I can make my meetup as inviting and comfortable as I can to the women who are involved or looking to get involved in real estate now.

Is there a need for women-only meetups?
Do women feel comfortable going to meetups that are predominantly male?
Is there something I can do to make women feel more comfortable coming to my meetup?
- be explicitly inviting to all groups of people: male/female, young/old, all religions, race, orientation, etc.?
- gain critical mass of women in the group?
- reach out directly to successful women on BP and locally to come out to the group?
- have at a different time of day or week to make it more accessible?
- don't make any effort to try to reach out specifically to women because that is sexist?
Is my premise that there is something more that can be done flawed because all women are totally comfortable joining these groups?
Something I can do better?

I saw Jonna posted about the women's meetup. Can you share? It would be great to hear from some of the other successful female investors I have had the pleasure of speaking with also. @Brie Schmidt, can you share your perspective, especially as a female running a meetup group? What is your sense, especially with the women that do or don't attend your group? @Lynn Currie? @Shiloe B.  @Marcia Maynard ?

@Yuliany W., @Anja Brey, @Erin A.,, @Account Closed, @Mel Selvidge

As one anecdotal sample, I noted that 23 of the 59, or 39% of investors RSVP'd to my next meetup are female. I was actually a little bit surprised (and happy) to see it was that high. Or maybe that's just my own flawed preconceptions.. I wonder if @Brandon Turner could share the male/female ratio on BP?

I noted that it appears that 3 of the 10, or 30% of the BP Leadership + Engineering team were women, based on the "About" page as of. It also appears that 3 of the 11, or 28% of moderators are female,  more recently bolstered by @Dawn Anastasi and Brie. I believe  the first was @Karen Margrave

Now I'm also wondering if there are any other groups that don't feel as comfortable coming to meetups.. Hmm...

Thanks for the feedback!

[Brie Schmidt]

@J. Martin I grew up a tomboy, my friends are mostly male, I worked in a male dominated industry selling to a male dominated industry.  I never felt the need to separate myself into a different classification.

Of our meetup group, we have about 60 attendees each month with about 30 regulars... of those 30 I can think of 3 other women besides myself.  I see no need to form a women specific group and feel you are limiting yourself by doing so.  While I like the other women in our group, and have talked with them all outside the group - I get just as much growth and development from them as I do with the other friends (male) I have made from the group.

But I may not be the right person to ask, I also hate baby/bridal showers, book clubs, and any other event with lots of girls unless there is an ample amount of alcohol.