For the second year in a row the MPAA has released data showing that men and women each buy half the tickets to movies. (Here’s the post of the 2010 stats.) Two years ago women bought more than half the tickets.

That’s all tickets.

But still movies are not made for women. Here’s my imaginary theory of how these numbers get analyzed by the powers that be: well women go see the boy movies and the boys won’t go see the girl movies (which will be disproved after this weekend) so let’s just keep things as things are because hey we’re making a shit ton of money (even though attendance is down) and people are lapping up this crap.

Here is some of the other data from the MPAA’s 2011 Theatrical Statistics Summary

• It is really all about the global market. Global box office was up 3% to $32.6 billion, and domestic (Canadian box office is included in all the domestic stats) was down 4% to 10.2 billion. Global box office makes up 69% of the business.
• 67% — 221 million — of the population went to the movies at least once last year.
• Frequent moviegoers (ones who go at least once a month) are the bread and butter of the business. They are only 10% of the population but buy 50% of the tickets. Older folks are starting to go more frequently and the business shed about 1 million younger moviegoers.
• Average ticket price — $7.93
• There are 39,600 screens. 80% of them are in multiplexes with 8 screens or more.
• 25–39 year olds bought the largest amount of tickets — 24%. 18–24 year olds bought 17% of the tickets.

You can read the full report here.