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taekotemple
Grey Havens
Apr 16 2011, 7:16pm
Post #1 of 36
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Are sci fi and fantasy fans really predominantly male?
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In response to the NY Times reviewer's belief that those interested in sci fi and fantasy are predominantly male, I'd like to see what the percentage is here on TORN. Is it really such a big percentage to be significant, or is it actually a lot more even, at least here on TORN?
Sometimes the only way to fight ignorance is with fact... And yeah, I included other as an option. It seems to me that in all of the books I've read, fantasy and sci fi tend to be a little more open minded on the subject than most genres I've been exposed to.
(This post was edited by Ataahua on Apr 16 2011, 9:00pm)
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Apr 16 2011, 8:08pm
Post #2 of 36
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Women have the lead on the boards, anyway.
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Before FOTR came out, the guys had the edge....the boards were probably 60% male. But that changed instantly on release night, and I'd guess the first big influx of newbies was probably 90% female. Over the years it's evened out a bit, but I think that the ladies outnumber the gentlemen by a pretty hefty margin; we're still a femine board. 
What would be really interesting is if we did a board poll and then compared it to a front page poll on the subject. It might be that the proportions here are significantly different than those of the front page visitors.
(This post was edited by Silverlode on Apr 16 2011, 9:14pm)
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taekotemple
Grey Havens
Apr 16 2011, 8:20pm
Post #3 of 36
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The people who join message boards may be different from the people who just research online. I think I have read somewhere that women are more likely to participate in message boards than men. I wonder if this is related to how women have a larger language center of the brain than men have, so we are more likely to choose to use the internet more predominantly to communicate, as compared to research.
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 16 2011, 10:39pm
Post #4 of 36
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So are you asking for what gender we are or our opinion of the larger number of SF/Fantasy fans?//
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taekotemple
Grey Havens
Apr 17 2011, 12:10am
Post #5 of 36
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What gender you are. I suppose what I'm trying to do is get a clear statistic rather than an assumption, which seems to be what the reviewer in the NY Times was going by. Her assumption may have been based on some much older views of sci fi and fantasy than are true today.
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 17 2011, 1:56am
Post #6 of 36
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I think it probably belongs in the same trashbin as...
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"Girls are bad at math" and "Girls can't be engineers" and stupid stuff like that.
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Magpie
Immortal
Apr 17 2011, 2:17am
Post #7 of 36
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I was top 10th grade math student, I'll have you know
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although I'm sure Aunt Dora can top that by miles. :-)
I was talking to a transgender co-worker who told me her partner (also transgender) was turned down for jury duty for being of ambiguous gender. I said I am of ambiguous gender. (And I don't think gender roles in most matters have anything to do with sexual preference.)
My co-workers response was, "I think a lot of people are of ambiguous gender". If we want to define gender roles in such narrow ways as some would like, then yeah... I think a lot of us are of ambiguous gender.
I don't know how to participate in any generalized discussions of what men vs women are like any more than I can with topics of age or race or education. Every attempt to generalize kills our ability to be individuals within whatever gender, race, economic and education level we find ourselves in.
Maybe living amongst many role breaking individuals has helped in this matter. I love South Minneapolis in part because it is so amazingly diverse.
(This post was edited by Magpie on Apr 17 2011, 2:18am)
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 17 2011, 2:29am
Post #8 of 36
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Did you mean to call me out when I'm SUPPORTING women...
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As mathemeticians, my best friend's wife has a degree in logistics, my HS best friend's wife has a statistics Masters from Iowa State, regarded as among the top math schools in the nation, engineers, etc?
I said that stuff belonged in the TRASHBIN and that it was/is STUPID to regard such rubbish as reflective of women or what they can do. And though I didn't know about your math prowess I CERTAINLY knew of Aunt Dora's!
I also know that psychology (taekotemple) requires some above-HS-math that isn't easy for anyone and I'd wager many of the women on this board can hold their own or exceed.
So to quote my fav'rite li'l green dude, "Away with your weapon, I mean you no harm!"
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Magpie
Immortal
Apr 17 2011, 2:31am
Post #9 of 36
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I wasn't calling you out. (was I?) I was responding in a agreeing sort of way (I thought)
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with some stupid bragging humor (at least I tried)
then I used it to spring board into my own thoughts.
(This post was edited by Magpie on Apr 17 2011, 2:32am)
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 17 2011, 2:38am
Post #10 of 36
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No worries. I wasn't certain but...
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Your 'bragging' came across to me as indignance and nothing in your main post appeared to acknowledge (to me) that we were in agreement. In the words of the late Emily Latella, "Never mind!" 
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Magpie
Immortal
Apr 17 2011, 2:45am
Post #11 of 36
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I tend to post as if we were in a coffee house
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One persons says something... another person works off something they say to join in. Most of the times it's not so much agreement or disagreement as just banter.
It probably works better in a coffee house.
And among people who know each other.
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Patty
Immortal
Apr 17 2011, 2:46am
Post #12 of 36
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I thought it was "Away PUT your weapon"...
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but, Star Wars trivia is not something in which I'm proficient . Given that the lil green dude screws with his syntax, I'd think my version is correct.
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sevilodorf
Tol Eressea
Apr 17 2011, 2:51am
Post #13 of 36
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I've often wondered how much....
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of a role the Internet has had with the increase of women as active participants in fandom.
Message boards can be very anonymous. Which can imply (not really the word I'm looking for) safety.
While many TORn regulars have met each other over the years that is not so on other boards. Also it is a personal decision to "unmask" or reveal personal info. Though I will admit that I'm of a mindset that is very leery of posting all sorts of personal info where it is retrievable by so many.
But as to the question of whether the sci fi fantasy fandom is predominantly male...I think that books, movies, TV shows that were SCI FI were aimed at males (Jules Verne...HG Wells....) but that females read and watched anyway but probably may not have admited it due to negative stereotyping. (Andre Norton chose her pen names for a reason) However times have changed. It's not only guys who are geeks and nerds now.
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SirDennisC
Half-elven
Apr 17 2011, 3:33am
Post #14 of 36
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I can vouch for Magpie, that was nowhere near the rough edge of her tongue.  (Nor did it seem like bragging.)
It will be nice one day when we can all sit down together and talk face to face.
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taekotemple
Grey Havens
Apr 17 2011, 3:58am
Post #15 of 36
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I was born and raised in the San Francisco area
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I grew up with two gay uncles and a lesbian auntie, even lived for a time in the castro, have friends in the LGBQT community and I totally get what you mean about gender identity and transgendered individuals. Initially, I wrote a bit regarding those who are transgendered as well, but I shortened it because I thought I was blabbering, and I know at times I have to be careful about who I stand on my soapbox in front of with my pretty liberal thinking. But I definitely put other as an option on purpose.
Gender roles are a choice, and a difficult choice to make due to societal expectations. Sure, when we're born, a doctor or nurse usually tell our parents, "it's a boy!" or "it's a girl!" and from there, we are already saddled with gender expectations. So few even question them. But I can tell you that I've seen plenty of research showing that those who have more neutral gender identities and preferences tend to be more emotionally stable and healthier.
One of my big pet peeves when I was a kid was that I liked to program VCRs (back in the day when they were nearly impossible to program), and neighbors would always ask my mom if she could get my brothers to help them, instead of me. They just assumed that my brothers, being boys, would be more interested in that sort of thing. Even now, whenever someone has some kind of problem with a tv or a dvd player or something, I always jump at the chance to do it, because I hated that I wasn't given that chance as a kid. Luckily, my mom didn't have those strong gender expectations of me or my brothers, so she really gave us a lot of room to figure out who we were without such constraints.
I do know there are differences from my studies in psychology. There actually are some brain structure differences between what we traditionally think of as men and women. But I also know that out of all mammal species, the male and female of our species are perhaps the least different from each other. Yet there's so much differentiation society tries to make. I think it's really unfortunate.
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Arwen's daughter
Half-elven
Apr 17 2011, 5:27am
Post #16 of 36
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To springboard off your VCR story...
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I was in line for the opening night of Star Wars ROTS when some volunteers for a local comic-con came through to pass out fliers. They hit every one of the guys in line and skipped all the women! And I was the only member of our group who attended cons. Still annoyed...
To ramble further along, I'm often taken aback when men tell me they never see single women at sci-fi conventions because I see and meet tons of them. It's as if the assumption that there aren't any there blinds them to the truth.
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Rosie-with-the-ribbons
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Apr 17 2011, 6:59am
Post #17 of 36
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No women at Sci-fi conventions?
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Okay, now I have to confess I go to fantasy conventions in Europe, that might be the difference. But I don't meet any single men there. It are mostly women. There are of course men. But I think at RingCon (largest LOTR/Fantasy convention in Europe) over 60% are women.
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taekotemple
Grey Havens
Apr 17 2011, 7:37am
Post #18 of 36
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I've been to 7 Star Trek conventions, and all of them during times when I was single as well. I wonder if the reason they aren't meeting women at sci fi conventions is because the kind of girl they want to meet is not the kind they usually see at those conventions? Like you, I've met plenty of single women at conventions. Maybe they assume if a woman is there and with a male friend or relative, that it's really their husband or boyfriend who forced them to go to the convention? Or maybe they're assuming the same thing many male wrestling fans seem to assume of female wrestling fans -- that they're just there to see the hot guys (or hot actors in this case.) I'd get weird reactions too back in the days when I collected comic books and I'd go into stores. The guys would stare like I was an anomaly or something.
Sigh. Sometimes I wonder if the gentle thud of hitting my head against a nearby wall will make everything better. But I fear that it will just make my forehead really really red.
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Faenoriel
Tol Eressea
Apr 17 2011, 12:31pm
Post #19 of 36
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Other: both genders influence the genre both as writers and as readers. //
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 17 2011, 2:26pm
Post #20 of 36
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Well, this is the second time I've completely missed...
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So from now on I'll simply assume I'm off me rocker when something doesn't seem right because there's now a solid body of evidence that your meaning is the mildest rather than a contrary one - which means when the contrary DOES happen I'm TOAST! hehehe
As a side-note in coffee houses there's a lot more to go on, such as body language and tone and yes, I'd know what you tend to order among other things. hehe
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 17 2011, 2:27pm
Post #21 of 36
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Since I never get lyrics right when listening to music, why would I get movie lines correct (other than a LITTLE less noise to interfere with it and apart from Yoda and a few others they actually TRY to make it so one can understand!)
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 17 2011, 2:29pm
Post #22 of 36
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But my wallet isn't! Though I have to be in Ohio (Akron area, about 30 or so miles SE of Cleveland) the weekend of June 12th for my grandmother's 100th birthday so I suppose I could manage a jaunt to see Alcarcalime and OhioHobbit.
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 17 2011, 2:51pm
Post #23 of 36
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As far back as MARCON '87 I've seen single women at Cons...
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And generally those women are smarter, funnier, "craft-ier", more literate and great company than women who do not attend such things. And at least in my experience they're just as knowledgeable as the men attending. Oh, and quite a few of them have collegiate degrees.
The sad thing? It intimidates me to approach 'em. My usual line of thought is, "What the DEUCE (okay, that's an add-in, I don't ever think that term!) do I have to offer such a complete and awesome woman??" Pretty "comic-al" that I take myself out before giving 'em a chance to size me up and reject for legit reasons, eh? But to be fair, I'm rather old to go to cons as a 'casual' fan - I've never been whole-hog into any genre or style and the last Con I attended was the Dover Peace Conference back in '96 or so (a Star Trek convention).
Attending all 3 LotR movies as Gandalf (the Grey and the White) and the Star Wars movies (not as anyone specific but in general Jedi garb) I don't know if it's a general thing among nerd/geek/dork men or not but the movies seem to feel we don't meet women well - though I'd venture that's a stereotype of the past as well and it's just me that's a holdover from when that might have been true of a significant percentage.
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GAndyalf
Valinor
Apr 17 2011, 3:07pm
Post #24 of 36
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Andre Norton is a great example...
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And much more recently J.K. Rowling was literally forced to use her initials for the same pre-supposed reason. So as recently as 14 years ago this stereotyping was still very prevalent and powerful in literary circles.
If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because as a Society we raise women to look at life more practically and encourage boys to try 'creative' problem-solving. Fantasy is closer to the realm of the latter than the former so because it's what Society seems to have tried hard to TEACH that it's what results when a girl is exposed to the fantastic. Judging solely by the response here I'd say that such 'expert analysis' is missing something, no?
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taekotemple
Grey Havens
Apr 17 2011, 6:26pm
Post #25 of 36
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The thing that's interesting about that...
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When we're little girls, we're often encouraged to love princesses and castles and unicorns and fairy tales and the like -- all parts of the fantasy genre. Why would anyone expect us to suddenly change and not be interested in the fantasy genre after a certain age?
I think it's true, that in some ways, women are encouraged as girls to focus on certain practicalities, shown in playing house and other such games. But I've been seing in the kids I've worked with lately that little boys will play house (a little boy I used to care for loved to play with his kitchen set) and little girls will participate in games of strategy. I think the barriers of what is accepted for boys and girls isn't as strong as it used to be. It's just there's still a lot of hold back from the civil rights/women's rights movements all over the world that is still being worked out on a societal level.
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