I am amazed at the amount of female fans on this series.

[East of the Wood]

I'd personally use "women and girls", or "young women". But once again, that's my nitpick and I know not everyone will follow me on that pet peeve. Personally, I think men who repeatedly refer to women as "females" is a red flag.

Sheesh, now that's what I call a nitpick.

So usually when you're in a hole this deep, the smart thing to do is to stop digging.

No no, let's keep digging! I wanna see how far we can get. <_<

iheartseverus, I thought you said you were leaving and never coming back?? :lol:

[iheartseverus]

iheartseverus, I thought you said you were leaving and never coming back?? :lol:

I am! This time I freakin' MEAN it. Take my word as a FEMALE that I'm never coming back, period.

LOL, this thread is like an ugly wreck at the side of the road--you're driving by and you're like ...well, just one little peek. A quickie. Okay, just one more...well, maybe, just one more...

That's IT! This FEMALE is outta here, for good.

*stomps off to go be a FEMALE somewhere else*

[Olenna]

I have a question about the whole "fantasy is a male genre" stereotype. In the 19th C, fantasy, that is, the gothic novel, was a very female-friendly genre--it featured many female writers such as Ann Radcliffe and the Brontë sisters and was overwhelmingly read by young women (who were duly scorned for it, much as male "geeks" today are). Even later fantasy like Lewis Carrol and E.R. Eddison had lots of important female characters and (as far as I know) a substantial female fan base. What happened? When did fantasy turn male? Should we blame LotR? Is it possible that once fantasy stopped being primarily dark social satire and got heroic/militaristic that it turned "male"?

About "female" as a noun: I get that some find it nitpicky to argue over using the expression "a female" vs. "a woman," but think about whether you'd ever say "a male." No, you'd probably say "a guy." Male and female as nouns are usually reserved for animals.

And no offense, but I'm just going to come out and say it--the only guy I ever knew who habitually referred to women as "females" was a fellow who had very little contact with women and always seemed exceedingly puzzled by them.

Maybe if people want an age-neutral word to describe female people they can say "gals"? Just an idea.

[Datepalm]

I have to admit 'females' bugs me a lot, but i'm willing to chalk it up to someone missing nuances of tone rather than the patronizing dismissiveness of 'gosh, girls know how to read too. How precious!', so i'm just putting it aside for now.

As to the actual subject...well, I think we've heard quite a bit of dismissal of ourselves, as female genre fans, lately - women readers don't exist, women writers don't exist or they suck (and thems the facts, ladies, so shut it), the genre is written for men and all this PC nonsense is just ruining it with our pernicious womanly influence anyway, etc, etc, so (for me at least) its something of an annoying issue at this point, and one i'm liable to snap over.

re political correctness run amock - my natural tendency is to take everything with more or less humour, so I see the point. OTOH, I find the OP's protestations unconvincing as well. As we discussed in some other thread - put something out there, expect to get responses. If those responses aren't what you expected, well, y'know, thats other people for you. If you want to always be met with glowing approval, develop a relationship with your mirror instead of the internet.

This is the unGregor of threads. Random ferociousness spewing this way and that, splattering viciousness and over-the-top blather, mindless gore dripping from the walls, long, long after the original body of the thing should have died and been decently buried.

I am charmed by your high standards :wideeyed: . This thread is polite and well reasoned on all sides compared to what I consider a real morass. Darling, even, with a sideline in adorably quaint.

Carry on.

[Datepalm]

I have a question about the whole "fantasy is a male genre" stereotype. In the 19th C, fantasy, that is, the gothic novel, was a very female-friendly genre--it featured many female writers such as Ann Radcliffe and the Brontë sisters and was overwhelmingly read by young women (who were duly scorned for it, much as male "geeks" today are). Even later fantasy like Lewis Carrol and E.R. Eddison had lots of important female characters and (as far as I know) a substantial female fan base. What happened? When did fantasy turn male? Should we blame LotR? Is it possible that once fantasy stopped being primarily dark social satire and got heroic/militaristic that it turned "male"?

Can anyone turn up any statistics on this? Anything? Google turned up absoloutely nothing for me, except the boring fact that the majority of fiction readers in general are women. Seriously, anything, however poor the methodology, some tail end to go by - a survey of ten people, a breakdown of blog comments sections, this forum, hugo voters, anything. In other words, i'm vaugely suspicious of the notion that SF really is all that male dominated. (I don't know that it isn't either, it certainly likes to think it is) But It seems like more of a backwards assumption to me, lacking actual numbers, based, again, on that oh so convenient evo-psych gender binary - SF is all, like, technical and stuff, and women are all emotional and stuff, so women must not read SF. ( i've known about even amounts of geeks across gender, at a guess.)

[sluttering]

It's a high quality piece of work. I don't understand how anyone, male or female, can NOT like it.

i absolutely agree with this.

i find it rather odd that there is even an eyebrow raised as to the prevalence of a particular reader demographic. that's nearly akin to suggesting "i am amazed at the amount of asian fans on this series."

a quality book is a quality book, regardless of its various themes and/or questionable content. i know very few book nerds that will disregard a literary masterpiece on the grounds that a particular aspect of it might offend a demographic's more delicate sensibilities. it has less to do with gender, and more to do with the type of reader you are.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

None totally perfect, of course, and some probably with more problems than others:

http://www.library.umass.edu/spcoll/exhibits/uncertain/fans.htm

http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/03/best-of-the-decade-data-votes-by-gender

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_studies#Significant_works

http://dannyreviews.com/h/Battle_Sexes.html

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:ccu13d2HOJEJ:www.ils.unc.edu/MSpapers/2792.pdf+survey+readers+fantasy+gender+fiction&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESg_4RcboAV21DrhFIV0dy6VSCwGUmwu5CsODdDcpkArYe5sBAVn3-aLJxBVE3XLtwVvqaD8XQswHtZGGQmYKrZPUKC1x-Qw8fZ6cFEzy4yURFGBKjjUHIOcbVU2rp34TuCY9Ohz&sig=AHIEtbRD6ja2bxJNTDnxxjju9MRzO8kX1w&pli=1

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/may/31/women-science-fiction-writers

http://corabuhlert.com/2011/02/21/sex-morality-and-epic-fantasy/

http://sideshowfreaks.blogspot.com/2011/06/sideshow-datapointsgender-and-my-slush.html

http://www.quidplura.com/?cat=48 Some numbers about consumers, not just producers.

http://www.quidplura.com/?p=795 And the direct link to her post on GRRM, because there are more bits in the comments.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/direct/female-younger-readers-biggest-fiction-fans-14476/

etc etc

[GreyJackal]

re political correctness run amock - my natural tendency is to take everything with more or less humour, so I see the point. OTOH, I find the OP's protestations unconvincing as well. As we discussed in some other thread - put something out there, expect to get responses. If those responses aren't what you expected, well, y'know, thats other people for you. If you want to always be met with glowing approval, develop a relationship with your mirror instead of the internet.

Glowing approval is definitely something that I did not want/expect. And frankly, anyone who comes on the e-net thinking that is in for a rude awakening. Some discussions, similar experiences, or even a jab or two(though that's here in abundance) was about the level I wanted to get to.

Like I said before though, I came on knowing what to expect and have really no anger or begrudging feelings toward anyone. I like a good discussion and am curious how some are coming to these....ahh...interesting conclusions.

Everyone has their views/thoughts. Some just like to beat theirs more into others.

Quite frankly, I am surprised this hasn't been brought up before.

[iheartseverus]

I have to admit 'females' bugs me a lot, but i'm willing to chalk it up to someone missing nuances of tone rather than the patronizing dismissiveness of 'gosh, girls know how to read too. How precious!', so i'm just putting it aside for now

But look at the gender-qualification under your avatar to the left of your post. Female. Is this board, then, 'missing nuances of tone?' Or flat-out 'patronizing dismissiveness?' Being a mod, you should well have some say as to whether this entire board is patronizingly dismissive of females. I have never found it to be so, in the least. But I'm nobody here. Males are listed as males, females are listed as females. Where's the disparity?

snip... women readers don't exist, women writers don't exist or they suck

Nonsense. I am the author of eight books, one of which was optioned by NBC as a 'Movie of the Week.' (Though it was never made.) My gender never once entered into a scintilla, not a wisp, of the negotiating or publishing process. Never.

and thems the facts, ladies, so shut it

Seriously? Seriously? Agree or shut up? For real?

the genre is written for men

Undeniably true, and, by the way, the entire point of the OP's original post. For which he has been excoriated as every kind of mysogynistic. Amazingly unfairly, in my view.

As we discussed in some other thread - put something out there, expect to get responses. If those responses aren't what you expected, well, y'know, thats other people for you. If you want to always be met with glowing approval, develop a relationship with your mirror instead of the internet.

So, basically, fairness has no place? The OP said basically exactly what you said--that this genre (for good or ill, who knows why, Hollywood money machines, most likely) has been and is still, dominated by males, and therefore he was 'amazed at the amount of female fans'.

I am charmed by your high standards :wideeyed:

Thanks. Me, too.

This thread is ...snip.... Darling, even, with a sideline in adorably quaint

Yikes.

The 'female' of today being decried as 'the perennial victim' is, to my mind, the very worst mysogyny of all. We can't get a fair shake because we're females? We can't compete on a level playing field anywhere, in any profession we choose, because we're females? Discriminated against? My doctor is a female. My skin-cancer specialist is a female. My accountant is a female. My banker is a female. My literary agent is a female. My lawyer is a female. I am a female, with my own thriving, creative business. And, by the way, I was the first female cop to work street patrol in Chicago's history. I'm nobody's victim. Books by women are treated as something that 'basically suck?' Uhhh, J.K. Rowling? Welfare single mom to billionaire in a decade. Stephanie Meyer? (Hated those books, by the way, but that's neither here nor there...) This can go on forever.

Gads, I hate the turn this thread has taken. I really, really am leaving for good. lol... For which I'm sure most of you are heartily appreciative.

:P

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

You... you got that Datepalm was listing the ways in which women in the genre (as authors, readers, watchers, etc) have been dismissed, right? With a heavy dose of sarcasm in her phrasing as the summaries of those arguments?

[Lord Godric]

Books by women are treated as something that 'basically suck?' Uhhh, J.K. Rowling? Welfare single mom to billionaire in a decade.

For what it's worth (and that may be nothing at all) Joanne Rowling and her publishers selected the pen name J.K. Rowling to not turn male readers away from books written by a woman. Sure after the initial success of the series everyone knew she was a woman, but that doesn't hide the fact that the intent was to mask her gender so that boys would pick up the books.

[blackstar]

Lol.

It's just given the subjects being dealt with in these books I would expect the average woman to either be bored or disgusted by it.

I think I will stick my neck out and say that most the women around this board are far from average.

[GreyJackal]

For what it's worth (and that may be nothing at all) Joanne Rowling and her publishers selected the pen name J.K. Rowling to not turn male readers away from books written by a woman. Sure after the initial success of the series everyone knew she was a woman, but that doesn't hide the fact that the intent was to mask the fact she was a woman.

Yep. And why would they do that exactly ?

I would say it but then I would be declared the enemy of all women. :uhoh:

[Datepalm]

http://www.quidplura.com/?cat=48 Some numbers about consumers, not just producers.

This is the more interesting question, I think - it makes sense to have a small amount of female SF professionals if theres a small amount of female SF readers. My point is, i'm unconvinced we're all that small a minority, and despite Iheartseveruses conviction that the genre is 'written for men', I think if women had actually stayed away from everything thats ever been 'made for men', we'd still be trying to figure out how to breathe in our corsets. My point is, women like SF. Not soft, fluffy, kitteny SF (ie, Fantasy) but the SF thats 'made for men'. I assume a lot of us did what I did growing up, which is kind of read around the sexist stuff, but thats women only appearing as victims and whores and the like, not the ideas, spaceships, technology, sense-of-wonder, etc, backbone of the genre. I don't need that 'feminized' for me, because its never been something masculine to start with. The idea that it is, that i'm somehow unusual (as a woman) for liking it - yes, that annoys, because of the sense that its based on a sexist gender binary.

Glowing approval is definitely something that I did not want/expect. And frankly, anyone who comes on the e-net thinking that is in for a rude awakening. Some discussions, similar experiences, or even a jab or two(though that's here in abundance) was about the level I wanted to get to.

Like I said before though, I came on knowing what to expect and have really no anger or begrudging feelings toward anyone. I like a good discussion and am curious how some are coming to these....ahh...interesting conclusions.

Everyone has their views/thoughts. Some just like to beat theirs more into others.

Quite frankly, I am surprised this hasn't been brought up before.

Would you believe that it has? Nothing new under the sun. Sorry.

Anyway, I have to ask - what kind of response were you expecting? I must admit, that ASOIAF has a lot of female fans is not, to put it mildly, a stunning breakthrough of demographic observation.

But look at the gender-qualification under your avatar to the left of your post. Female. Is this board, then, 'missing nuances of tone?'

"Female" as a description of individual gender identification strikes me as different from "females" and more coolly technical than "woman", and thus appropriate to something like a profile, or a resume, but when describing a group, in conversation "Females are...." is, to my ear, different from "Women are...", with the former being distancing and objectifying, (the same goes for 'males'), taking on a psuedo-scientific tone, as if referring to a herd of animals in a discovery channel documentary. (I could plead the old 'english isn't my native language' here, but...I think i've got the more widely right reading here.)

Undeniably true, and, by the way, the entire point of the OP's original post. For which he has been excoriated as every kind of mysogynistic. Amazingly unfairly, in my view.

So, basically, fairness has no place? The OP said basically exactly what you said--that this genre (for good or ill, who knows why, Hollywood money machines, most likely) has been and is still, dominated by males, and therefore he was 'amazed at the amount of female fans'.

Now, evidently, i'm being unclear. My point is that the idea that the genre is consumed primarily by men, or somehow in its essence 'for' men, is ridiculous. Maybe i'm wrong, but I want numbers before i'll admit it.

The OP's astonishment at the amount of female fans stems, at very best, from a simple lack of familiarity due to biased sampling on his part. Unfortunately, he couched that lack of familiarity is some baseless, and irritating - bordering on sexist, assumptions. To describe this thread as an excorciation is, to my mind, startlingly exaggerated. People have disagreed, and been annoyed, but overwhelmingly politely so, going to great length to try and explain why, only to be mostly ignored and their points dodged around and dismissed without any engagement.

[GreyJackal]

Would you believe that it has? Nothing new under the sun. Sorry.

Anyway, I have to ask - what kind of response were you expecting? I must admit, that ASOIAF has a lot of female fans is not, to put it mildly, a stunning breakthrough of demographic observation.

Some civility or rational discussions without mudslinging and the accusations laced with rancor. And while it may not be a stunning breakthrough it is one that I didn't know about. Sue me.

And apology accepted. :cheers:

[Alexia]

To describe this thread as an excorciation is, to my mind, startlingly exaggerated. People have disagreed, and been annoyed, but overwhelmingly politely so, going to great length to try and explain why, only to be mostly ignored and their points dodged around and dismissed without any engagement.

This is where I am. I have seen people get excoriated on this board before and this just ain't it. It was a few lashes with a wet noodle for misspeaking and a somewhat interesting discussion coming out of that. And I still don't get where the vitriol is! :dunce:

[georgeforeman]

Is it okay to observe that, over the course of my lifetime, a higher proportion of the men I've known have been interested in SFF than the women I've known?

Is it okay that, as such, the relatively high proportion of women who post on the site could come as a surprise to me?

(Of course, since other "fandoms" I've observed have been more densely populated by females than males, it really didn't surprise me that much. But growing up, it wasn't really until college that I met women that were into SFF, whereas I met a ton of guys, which sounds a lot to me like the perspective the OP was coming from.)

[Datepalm]

This is where I am. I have seen people get excoriated on this board before and this just ain't it. It was a few lashes with a wet noodle for misspeaking and a somewhat interesting discussion coming out of that. And I still don't get where the vitriol is! :dunce:

Exactly. If this is what we're calling an appallingly unfair vitriolicaly rancorous feminazi bra burning lesbian PC harpy emasculatingly excoriating assault now...fuck, we've gotten simply pathetic.

[GreyJackal]

The OP's astonishment at the amount of female fans stems, at very best, from a simple lack of familiarity due to biased sampling on his part. Unfortunately, he couched that lack of familiarity is some baseless, and irritating - bordering on sexist, assumptions. To describe this thread as an excorciation is, to my mind, startlingly exaggerated. People have disagreed, and been annoyed, but overwhelmingly politely so, going to great length to try and explain why, only to be mostly ignored and their points dodged around and dismissed without any engagement.

Time out. I have contributed my lack of knowledge from not being experienced with other female readers but irritating and sexist ? Egads ! Are we reading the same thread ?

I pointed out two things(in the initial post no less).

1.I havent met any female fantasy readers. Does this mean they don't exist and NO FEMALE IN THE WORLD will read this series ? Well, I will let you read that statement over to see the absolute ridiculousness in it.

2.The article on the show where the lady basically called the GoT show crap and insulted every female who would ever like it. Not a strong reasoning but other than Twilight I never really considered the female fanbase being so strong.

These are the two major contributing factors to my view. I in no way designated that a woman couldn't read the series. If anything, at worst I would think the numbers for them would be low. And no, not because women can't enjoy a good story before someone revives that zombie again.

[Blackfish FTW]

I don't know about other guys who have been forced to watch "chick flicks" like "The Notebook" (Great Movie) , but I have enjoyed them. I think much of the difference in female/male preferences is due to culture whereen are supposed to like blood and guts and stuff while women are supposed to be all dainty and into gushy romance.

Of course this gets passed on and creates gender roles from kids seeing their parents act this way. Actually trying something outside of the "role" often makes people realize that their likes and dislikes are less shallow than society would have them believe.