Even if the future is female, as a recently popular T-shirt proclaims, the world of fine watches can sometimes feel as insular and male-dominated as a 1950s boardroom. Consider Hodinkee, a go-to website for watch geeks, where the readership is 93 percent male. What is it with guys and watches? We went to Cara Barrett, 30, who is the only female writer at Hodinkee and lives in New York, to get her take.



Q. How did you develop a love of watches?

A. I started off as a cataloger in the Sotheby’s watch department. I cataloged over 600 watches a year, and through that just picked up an eye for watches, and it fueled a love for them. I started at Hodinkee about a year and a half ago.

Did the watch world strike you as a boys’ club from the start?

It’s funny, because at Sotheby’s it’s a very female-dominated company. Then I started at Hodinkee, and I realized that basically all of our readers were men; all of our commenters were men. Very few women comment. I think it’s an intimidation thing, because some of the comments can get a little out of control.

How so?

I wrote this story on a 36-millimeter [Rolex] Oyster Perpetual. I wrote that this is a great watch for a woman. It’s clean, it’s balanced, it’s a friendly size, not too big, not too small. People got very ruffled, because in vintage watches, 36-millimeter is a traditional size for men. The backlash was insane. It was almost as if I was trespassing on their boys’ club.