Why is it that not many girls like Fantasy?

[navi_]

See, you're answering yourself already - your title states "girls", but in the thread you actually refer to women. I am inclined to believe that proportion of adult women that are into fantasy is smaller compared to girls (up to their early 20s). This can be easily explained by the fact that a decade or two ago fantasy was reserved mostly for nerds - the kind that read comic books and play board games or D&D. Nowadays with so many Hollywood, TV and other adaptations of popular fantasies, as well as fantasy MMOs that entice millions of players, the younger generation is much more inclined to get into the genre - and that includes both boys and girls.

ETA: Some fantasy adaptations are indeed more appealing to one gender than another, but that is largely because of the adaptation and not because it's fantasy. Take fantasy games - there are far fewer female gamers than male, but that's true for gaming as a whole so you can't rightfully claim that there is a lack of girls in WoW because it's a fantasy game; rather it's because WoW is a fantasy game.

Books and movies tend to be the most unisex - I bet you the readership and viewership of GoT is close to evenly distributed between male and female (perhaps more so with viewership than readership).

False. There are just as many, if not MORE female gamers than men. It's just, as always, industries cater to men as default. Perhaps there are more hard core male gamers, but that's not the same as gamers as a whole. Hopefully someone pointed this out before I did.

I grew up watching fantasy/sci fi. BOTH my parents liked fantasy and sci/fi. I still enjoy it, when the storyline isn't recycled, or if the storyline is, the author puts an interesting enough twist to it. and I think dividing females in early twenties and younger as girls is insulting (in my 30s, btw). If you're going to get picky about who is a girl and who is a woman, I'd say 18 is a good marker...

Some women aren't afraid to like things relegated to nerddom. And books we read often aren't influenced by peer pressure because people don't generally SEE us reading them. facepalm.

[Tehol]

things about fantasy genre make me uneasy

1. book covers.robert jordan's wheel of time us print any one? or what about glen cook's books?i love glen cook's work but hating the covers. steven erikson's book covers are also generic.

2. chosen one or fate of the humanity/world rest on hero's sholder- whenever i read those i can't but help rolling my eyes.

3. so called epic fantasy that never ends, the story goes on books after books; even from grave writer reaches out to living.

4. talking animals specially talking dragons. i have naomi novak's first four books sitting on my shelf, can't get to it.

5. magical sword that gives bearer mad skills, reminds me of rpg games.

above those reasons i don't go declare i like reading fantasy genre (i tried using word speculative fiction couple of times, but lets call what the are-fantasy). true incident- i was on a plane and there was not many passangers on it and one air hostess came up and asked me what i was reading.i showed the book, it was a clash of kings, she did not know martin but asked if i read terry goodkind. i told her only the first book, she looked pleased. she did not give me any weird look, she also read terry brooks. good memory.

[navi_]

A very interesting thread....

I am from a very different demographic than most others on the board. I know three women who I know read more "epic fantasy" other than ASOIAF. Not surprisingly, all three are college professors -- a psychologist, an accountant, and a computer information systems professor. Perhaps the last one would qualify as a female geek.

Of course, the university where I teach and the church I go to are the main places I meet women, and I don't normally discuss with the women in church what fiction they read. Guess I should ask.

30 years ago when I was still living in Michigan one of the first lesbian couples I knew were really into all sorts of science fiction and fantasy. I believe they had even met at a "con". But I suppose that's also a different demographic from what most of you are talking about on this thread. :)

I'm pretty sure the mass market paperbacks I see that could be called "vampire/werewolf porn" are designated as "urban fantasy" by their own publishers. Can't we just say that stuff is "bad urban fantasy" in the same way that Goodkind is "bad epic fantasy?"

The last one would qualify as a geek. There is no such thing as a female geek. It's not a gendered adjective.

[navi_]

things about fantasy genre make me uneasy

1. book covers.robert jordan's wheel of time us print any one? or what about glen cook's books?i love glen cook's work but hating the covers. steven erikson's book covers are also generic.

2. chosen one or fate of the humanity/world rest on hero's sholder- whenever i read those i can't but help rolling my eyes.

3. so called epic fantasy that never ends, the story goes on books after books; even from grave writer reaches out to living.

4. talking animals specially talking dragons. i have naomi novak's first four books sitting on my shelf, can't get to it.

5. magical sword that gives bearer mad skills, reminds me of rpg games.

above those reasons i don't go declare i like reading fantasy genre (i tried using word speculative fiction couple of times, but lets call what the are-fantasy). true incident- i was on a plane and there was not many passangers on it and one air hostess came up and asked me what i was reading.i showed the book, it was a clash of kings, she did not know martin but asked if i read terry goodkind. i told her only the first book, she looked pleased. she did not give me any weird look, she also read terry brooks. good memory.

Naomi Novak's books are excellent. And I don't normally read talking animals, either.

[Kalbear]

False. There are just as many, if not MORE female gamers than men. It's just, as always, industries cater to men as default. Perhaps there are more hard core male gamers, but that's not the same as gamers as a whole. Hopefully someone pointed this out before I did.

that isn't remotely true, not unless you're being hugely broad with the term 'gamer'. FarmVille skews quite a bit toward women but most folks wouldn't consider a FarmVille player a gamer, or FarmVille a game for that matter. It is certainly less rare than it used to be but it's not that common at all.

Now some things are more woman friendly than others; mtg is massively dominated by men. Wow is 80/20 men. Modern warfare is like 70/30. Women definitely tend to not play in online matchups as much as men do, probably because it is astoundingly toxic and misogynistic.

[Alytha]

I'm pretty sure the mass market paperbacks I see that could be called "vampire/werewolf porn" are designated as "urban fantasy" by their own publishers. Can't we just say that stuff is "bad urban fantasy" in the same way that Goodkind is "bad epic fantasy?"

Can we have an official "Bad Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance" genre then? Because I want to be able to publicly admit that I like Urban Fantasy (as in Dresden Files, etc) without people either going "ewww, fangbanger", or "ohh, sparkly vampires" at me. (although I admit reading and enjoying Anne Rice novels when I was still young and stupid). Wouldn't a lot of China Miéville's work be Urban Fantasy too? That's just about as far away from Twilight as you can get.

To Katherine Sith, if you liked Rivers of London, you should also enjoy the Dresden Files novels. They start a bit slow but build up in terms of mythology and better plots as the series goes on.

[navi_]

I suspect there's a difference perceived about men who are hooked on a genre of literature for their past time, and those who have to take it further, with their board games and card games and buying swords off the Internet and playing WoW until 3 a.m. I'm sure that strikes many women as being juvenile and unsexy.

I also agree with what others said about the book covers and other illustrations from the fantasy genre of pop fiction and games and comic books--at least from my generation, and I'm nearly 46. (and I didn't like Harlequin romance covers either!) but as for the text itself, I loved Tolkien in my youth, and my sister collected all of those Dragonriders of Pern books, Merlin stuff, and some other series. I never heard of GoT until HBO made the series, probably because I was in grad school in its early years, but now I've read them all. HOWEVER, despite all the advances in female characterizations, I still find there's too much gratuitous sex and torture in Martin's series. I tolerate it because of everything else that I get out of the series (although the last booked could have omitted much of that rich description in favor of advancing the story instead....).

I never heard of urban fantasy, but if that's what Barnes&Noble refers to as the "teen paranormal romance" section that my 12yr old heads straight for, well, not my cup of tea.

and a chunk of the men that aren't doing that are doing it with video games, or cars, or sports... really. I could care less whether the guy collects swords. or plays 'board' or card games (everyone assumes D&D is board - I've never played table top, it was always pen and paper, as is my daughter's D&D game, that she plays, and then the people who don't assume it's a board game think you're LARPing...)

[granna]

What? WHAT! I may be an old woman, but I've always read fantasy, and so have my (female) friends. Of course, we were nerds before that word even exsisted. LOL! I would like to hope that there are plenty of us out there regardless of age.

[navi_]

Well, thats because you're not reading enough Dragonlance.

nomnom dragonlance. :D read a lot of it in high school.

[Solmyr]

False. There are just as many, if not MORE female gamers than men. It's just, as always, industries cater to men as default. Perhaps there are more hard core male gamers, but that's not the same as gamers as a whole. Hopefully someone pointed this out before I did.

No one pointed it out, firstly because it's a bit off-topic (especially since the thread was moved to Literature), and because I don't think anyone believes so.

At first I was a bit baffled by your comment, but considering Kalbear's remark about Farmville, I can see how you can claim such statistics, if you considered Farmville as a game. Most people would not call a person who plays Farmville (or Angry Birds and etc.) a gamer and they only call the latter games, for lack of a better word.

From the gaming industry's perspective, the definition of their demographic would come based on sales or means of monetary gain. If we follow that definition of a gamer, men outnumber women no matter how you slice it. Men spend more money, time, energy and emotions on games. Men dominate e-sports and make up the greater majority of attendees at gamecons.

[navi_]

I honestly think that part of it is that a lot of women don't know that some epic fantasy can really kick some ass. When I gave GoT to a female pal, she kind of winced and said, "I don't really think that's for me. It's for boys and men."

It could also be that women want to be able to relate to a strong female character in the stories they read. Robert Jordan, for example, has always turned me off with the way he writes women. I can't relate to a single one. I had the same issue with Anne Rice (a female author). That doesn't mean I need everything "girled up" for me. It means I want a woman to act like more than a spoiled princess, brat, idiot, c-word, nag or manipulative bitch. Arya is a great example of a great female character (though she is a child). She makes good decisions, bad decisions, is a survivor, has some great instincts.

I think the market is changing, though. I'm certainly counting on it. :)

I had someone try to tell me the stuff my then tween daughter liked was boy stuff. I pointed out I don't have to worry about her dating boys too early, though. ;) (seriously she shows no interest in boys other than her boyfriend, who DMs a game, - I swear does the DM always get the girl? - and showed no interest in him before getting to know him, either (they have been in choir together since sixth grade, she didn't notice him until this year).)

D&D related fiction has strong female characters as they were actively trying to get more girls to game. Especially the dragonlance series does.

[Grack21]

things about fantasy genre make me uneasy

1. book covers.robert jordan's wheel of time us print any one? or what about glen cook's books?i love glen cook's work but hating the covers. steven erikson's book covers are also generic.

2. chosen one or fate of the humanity/world rest on hero's sholder- whenever i read those i can't but help rolling my eyes.

3. so called epic fantasy that never ends, the story goes on books after books; even from grave writer reaches out to living.

4. talking animals specially talking dragons. i have naomi novak's first four books sitting on my shelf, can't get to it.

5. magical sword that gives bearer mad skills, reminds me of rpg games.

above those reasons i don't go declare i like reading fantasy genre (i tried using word speculative fiction couple of times, but lets call what the are-fantasy). true incident- i was on a plane and there was not many passangers on it and one air hostess came up and asked me what i was reading.i showed the book, it was a clash of kings, she did not know martin but asked if i read terry goodkind. i told her only the first book, she looked pleased. she did not give me any weird look, she also read terry brooks. good memory.

Whoa, whoa, WHOA. You be dissing my men Swayland and Lockwood? Them's fighting words, yo.

Edit:

There are definitly more female gamers today. More then men? Hell no, not be a long shot. But it is getting better.

[Lyanna Stark]

Can I ask a question about this? How does it come up? I remember not being able to get my book club to read anything decent, but now that it's gone by the wayside I'm not sure how I'd end up talking about it with anyone. I think I tend to change the subject before someone tells me how much they loved Hunger Games and I have to suppress a desire to explain the concept of a Mary Sue. Not sure.

Probably because I used to read a lot and I had bookshelves filled with the stuff. My friends and mother noticed and I got into huge fights with my sister about it (she has terrible taste in books). It was always someone else who brought it up, for whatever reason and since I was young and combative, I defended reading what I did. :)

EDIT: You have a book club, I am envious. :( If I join something around these parts, they are more likely to discuss something like Twilight or Jilly Cooper than they are reading anything actually interesting. Sometimes I remember how much I hate living in the armpit of the universe.

that isn't remotely true, not unless you're being hugely broad with the term 'gamer'. FarmVille skews quite a bit toward women but most folks wouldn't consider a FarmVille player a gamer, or FarmVille a game for that matter. It is certainly less rare than it used to be but it's not that common at all.

Now some things are more woman friendly than others; mtg is massively dominated by men. Wow is 80/20 men. Modern warfare is like 70/30. Women definitely tend to not play in online matchups as much as men do, probably because it is astoundingly toxic and misogynistic.

Hell to the yes. Removing the misogynist atmosphere would probably put the numbers of female gamers up far, far more than anything else. Even though game design can be blamed for a lot, the actual players are horrible, horrible downers. I would NEVER recommend MMORPGs to my female friends since I think they'd be horrified and I've played many different ones for years. You just have to have such a thick skin to get by, and even then you can sometimes get into downright awful situations.

[Sci-2]

Oooh, he IS?

Yeah, I think it's known Lynch is a cutie (was a firefighter for awhile). Mieville seems to be the guy female fans gush over in my experience, I've seen variations of "I'd so hit it!" when he's brought up.

ETA: Whoah, I'm getting a little lightheaded myself:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-uIsE7lZSYkI/Tkz-Ll-Cr7I/AAAAAAAAEC8/LAbNYMv5zvI/s1600/China%2BMieville.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qNMLh1BKEis/TGGd1P2kRVI/AAAAAAAAAEg/5jXGx8IZWVA/s400/mieville.jpg

[Eponine]

Plenty of women interested in fantasy here, on the interwebz, and in real life in general. But if they don't necessarily like reading the kind of fantasy you particularly enjoy, you need to be more specific than just saying "fantasy". What's the fantasy you like that they don't like? And what's the fantasy that they do like that you don't?

I admit to a prejudice against women who only like romance fantasy. Not just Twilight, but anything that I consider a clumsily slapped on veneer of fantasy onto a mindless stereotypical romance. To me, this is the female equivalent of the one-dimensional male epic fantasy fan whose fandom is an escape and an obsession rather than an interest.

I'm not an big epic fan and I don't think that anyone would mistake me for one - I guess those who have met me can say if I come off that way. But I am a fantasy reader and am female, so I think some of my animosity comes from a desire not to be confused with people who read things that I find stupid (which isn't exactly to say that I think everyone who reads things I find stupid IS stupid). That is, I take the "women only like fantasy if it's mixed with romance" stereotype more personally than any male-oriented fantasy stereotype.

[PaulineMRoss]

Y'all will be pleased to know that this discussion is providing amusement for Australian fantasy author Glenda Larke out there in blogland:

http://glendalarke.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/girls-dont-read-fantasy.html

Somebody upthread (Seli??) mentioned her line that half her fanmail comes from women. She details her own fantasy reading, has several friends who also read fantasy, and has a long list of female fantasy authors she assumes are also reading it. Although - not sure J K Rowling is an asset in this context; didn't she deny that Harry Potter was fantasy at all? Or is that just a foul rumour?

[The Marquis de Leech]

Although - not sure J K Rowling is an asset in this context; didn't she deny that Harry Potter was fantasy at all? Or is that just a foul rumour?

Rowling said that when she first wrote Harry Potter she didn't think of it as fantasy. It was only after they'd been published that she identified with the genre.

[loltergeist]

I've been trying hard to refrain from commenting on this particular thread, but since I disagree with a lot of what's been discussed and factor in that I can't hold my tongue at the best of times, here I am.

I can't even begin to explain how much this whole discussion has pissed me off. From the small remarks about how fantasy is not written for women, to the suggestion that the only fantasy book women would ever deign to read is twilight, or one of those vampire/werewolf porn books. Honestly? Give me a break. Not only is that completely inaccurate, it’s also pretty insulting.

I have been operating under the assumption that when a writer sits down to write, they don't intend to alienate HALF OF THE POPULATION, by writing a book that comes with an invisible "you can only read this if you have a penis" warning. Stupid me for thinking that books were written for people, vagina or not.

All the talk of women not being able to relate to the characters, therefore, disbanding the whole genre, is such an ignorant comment. Being able to identify to a character isn’t the sole selling point of a novel, in my opinion. And with fantasy expecting the reader to suspend belief, it goes without saying that fully relating to characters is going to be difficult because of the genre, NOT your gender.

Much of the problem is the preconceived notions people have about who reads what genre – women who like fashion and pop music are boxed into the “chick-lit” category etc – but ultimately, the only people who put weight behind these kind of preconceptions are ignorant. And by saying oh hardly any women read fantasy you’re playing into this.

Maybe if you stopped being so ignorant you would see that a big percentage of women love to read fantasy novels. In fact, I happen to know a lot of female readers who would state that fantasy is their favourite genre. So maybe you just know the wrong types of women, because trust me, female fantasy fans are out there, and by leaving sexist comments for the whole internet to read, you might just be alienating them without realising.

Excuse me; I have The Name of the Wind to read. Pretty sure my vagina is furious at my reading choice, because fantasy is the chocolate equivalent of a yorkie bar apparently.

[Tyria]

:dunno: I have far more female friends that like SFF than ones who don't. Yes, that includes epic fantasy, cyberpunk, even Star Trek. Maybe it's a metal thing? Some subcultures are definitely gonna be more receptive to this stuff than others. You guys are clearly all just hanging out with the wrong people. :P

This is exactly what I wanted to post while reading this thread! My core group of friends for the last 25 years is made up of the punk/metal crowd. We are all sci-fi, fantasy (of all sorts), and horror fans. Not one of my friends would bat an eye at me reading mostly fantasy. I was also lucky that my mum loves the same stuff, so I grew up with the old cheesy sci-fi shows and movies, reading LotR at a pretty young age, and watching horror movies (with my mum) at such a young age that most folks these days would probably consider it child abuse.

Outside of my core group of friends, I'll admit I usually don't bring up fantasy. I've been sneered at by co-workers (and others) in the past, who later came to me with questions about GoT. They can suck it.

[polishgenius]

I've been trying hard to refrain from commenting on this particular thread, but since I disagree with a lot of what's been discussed and factor in that I can't hold my tongue at the best of times, here I am.

I can't even begin to explain how much this whole discussion has pissed me off. From the small remarks about how fantasy is not written for women, to the suggestion that the only fantasy book women would ever deign to read is twilight, or one of those vampire/werewolf porn books. Honestly? Give me a break. Not only is that completely inaccurate, it’s also pretty insulting.

I have been operating under the assumption that when a writer sits down to write, they don't intend to alienate HALF OF THE POPULATION, by writing a book that comes with an invisible "you can only read this if you have a penis" warning. Stupid me for thinking that books were written for people, vagina or not.

All the talk of women not being able to relate to the characters, therefore, disbanding the whole genre, is such an ignorant comment. Being able to identify to a character isn’t the sole selling point of a novel, in my opinion. And with fantasy expecting the reader to suspend belief, it goes without saying that fully relating to characters is going to be difficult because of the genre, NOT your gender.

Much of the problem is the preconceived notions people have about who reads what genre – women who like fashion and pop music are boxed into the “chick-lit” category etc – but ultimately, the only people who put weight behind these kind of preconceptions are ignorant. And by saying oh hardly any women read fantasy you’re playing into this.

Maybe if you stopped being so ignorant you would see that a big percentage of women love to read fantasy novels. In fact, I happen to know a lot of female readers who would state that fantasy is their favourite genre. So maybe you just know the wrong types of women, because trust me, female fantasy fans are out there, and by leaving sexist comments for the whole internet to read, you might just be alienating them without realising.

Excuse me; I have The Name of the Wind to read. Pretty sure my vagina is furious at my reading choice, because fantasy is the chocolate equivalent of a yorkie bar apparently.

This rant would be a lot more justified if half the thread wasn't people going 'yeah na, that's rubbish'.

To respond to part of it specifically though: of course no-one (or almost no-one) ever writes with the specific intention of alienating an audience. They do however sometimes write with a particular audience in mind, or at least with the intention of writing the sort of fiction that is perceived to appeal to a certain demographic.