dreamer_easy | (no subject)

Browsing through Enterprising Women over on Google Books, I found some evidence to back up one of my hunches: that a lot of fangirls are mutants like me. The author, Camille Bacon-Smith, recounts how many female fans have experienced "scorn" for their "masculine" interests. She describes Star Trek fangirls growing up during a time when, as teenagers, they were expected to give up any tomboy inclinations, and defer to and flatter boys. "Many women in fandom, however, did not make this transition". Some were outcasts because of their physical appearance; some refused to mask their intelligence. Even in fandom, some suffered ostracisation or harassment from male fans. (That said, as a teenager, I was far more bullied by girls than by boys.) It's possible this explains some of the sensitivity around issues of gender and inclusion into which I have poked my thumb.

Some data points on the gender makeup of fandom. Firstly, from Enterprising Women: in 1988, an index of 34,000 Star Trek fanzines included only 4 edited by men, and only 10% of contributors were male. Polls of readers of sexually explicit Trek zines found they were mostly women. Secondly, this list of 80s/90s fanzines gives a snapshot of offline Doctor Who fandom in the UK: there are women editing and writing, but they're a tiny minority.

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When I was growing up a fan in the 80s in Oregon, all the fans I knew well were female, but then, they were my particular friend group and we were a bunch of total fangeeks. We gamed, read books, watched SF&F TV and movies, some of us squeed (some didn't), many of us wrote some rudimentary form of fanfic, etc. Since we pretty much kept to our little circle (by choice), we never really ran into discrimination issues. It probably helped that there was no organized fandom in the area -- we read about things like clubs and cons and all that, but it seemed like reports from another world that was depressingly far away.

The comic book stores were certainly all-male bastions, but I don't recall being particularly discriminated against -- I was pretty much there to just buy what I wanted and get it home ASAP so I could read and enjoy. The guys behind the counter were quick enough to take my money and hand the baggie of goods over, and that was all I cared about.

I will note that, based on what little I could see of larger-scale US Doctor Who fandom at that time (PBS fundraising breaks staffed by fans, correspondence with penpals, etc.), it was *overwhelmingly* female, especially when compared to the gaming and comics fandoms.

Since then, I've done a fair amount with regional cons, apas and some online fandom groups, and have really only experienced gender discrimination-type issues at stores; until just recently there was a gaming store in the mall that might as well have put up "no icky gurls allowed" signs (they would talk down to female customers, be slow to wait on us even when there was nobody else at the counter, etc.) so us icky gurls took our business and our money elswhere.

When I was beaten up or ostracized by peers as a teen, it was largely by other girls, and had nothing to do with fandom. It was the "too smart / not enough friends to travel in a pack 24 hours a day" syndrome more than anything else. One learned never to admit one's test scores aloud and to never be alone in isolated spots.

For me, fandom has been a welcome refuge - a place to socialise without Mean Girls. Until now.

As the dogpile proceeds, it's becoming clear that I have jammed my unsuspecting thumb right into a whole lot of fangirls' insecurity about their gender. Whoops.

Edited 2008-12-17 21:01 (UTC)

Hopefully I'm not adding to that dogpile inadvertantly, or coming across as insecure -- I was just adding anecdotal evidence to the discussion.

FWIW, there are Mean Girls (and Boys) in every hobby and special interest area, in my experience. the only real reason they're getting so obvious now is that the net allows for *vastly* increased sample sizes.

Shit, absolutely not, your thoughtful comments are very welcome.

Natch there are assholes wherever one looks, but not necessarily *networks* of assholes. Cliques at school or online magnify the power of the individual asshole many times over.

"The internet magnifies the power of the individual asshole."

-K.Orman

Edited 2008-12-18 03:47 (UTC)

"Like the data-umphs, he thought; individually stupid, but get a million of them together and they're a billion times as stupid."