Why is it that not many girls like Fantasy?

[Sci-2]

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.

It's more likely to get mad when you get to Wise Man's Fear.

[Prince Alexander]

I think OP's question is loaded. I think more "girls" than "boys" read fantasy. And read in general.

[Zoë Sumra]

*facepalms* Oh, the things I could say.

I'll start out with the biographical bit: I love SFF, always have, segued straight into it as soon as I was old enough - like my mother and sister. However, till I went to university I didn't know many other girls who did. It's a social thing, as well as a gender thing: I lived in Nowheresvillage, Lancashire.

The other two geeks in my workplace are women, including one who got turned down as an assistant editor at DC (because she was overqualified, apparently).

In a previous thread Eloisa I think came up with some figures that suggested it was fairly equal and growing with more women reading fantasy and more men SF.

You're right: I did say that. My numbers were culled from someone else (Kari Sperring and Juliet McKenna IIRC), around four years ago, when women made up around 70% of the fantasy readership and around 45% of the SF readership, in the US and UK.

That was across all subgenres: paranormal romance was at its upswing, female-oriented kickass-girls-in-leather urban fantasy thrillers were in, and the average woman in the US and UK (and Europe, and probably everywhere else) had more disposable income than now because Bear Sterns had only just tanked and Lehman was yet to tumble.

But. 70% of the readership (sure, including subgenres where I bet the number was way higher, i.e. paranormal romance). 45% of the SF readership.

This leads on to something discussed at Eastercon about female SF authors. This isn't, apparently, just a phenomenon about publication: fewer women submit SF for publication than men, regardless of acceptance. Then someone brought up the middle aged, bearded, male SF fan stereotype... which exists, sure. Definitely.

But if the - predominantly male - authors are writing to that readership, and to the geeky fourteen year old boy readership, it's not necessarily a surprise that prospective female writers (most of whom start very young) don't want to write in the same way, because some of that objectification gets nastily jarring. Then the number of female readers directly addressed reduces, and on we go.

I think it was the "Gender in Genre III" thread in this subforum in which a boarder posted that if his gender wasn't pandered to in a book, he'd just go to another book, author, whatever. Double standards, when female readers are expected to suck it up? IDK. I'd love for that not to happen. But as long as there's a perception out there that the readership for SFF is primarily male, despite that not being the case - as long as questions like the OP get answered - maybe the objectification will just go on.

There's been a push in the past fifteen or so years for epic fantasy going anti-Tolkien, in comparison with writers like Brooks and Eddings. Maybe, maybe, the anti-Tolkien isn't Grittiness and Rape Fantasy (For Men), but something that passes the Bechdel test a little more often.

(Incidentally, Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett contains zero male characters who have a real effect on the plot of their own volition. All the protagonists and antagonists are women.)

And:

I think he speaks truly as how a Woman at Westeros (or middle ages) would feel about. Today woman can do pretty much everything that guys can do. But in the past (and in medieval stories like Game of thrones) women don't get as much opportunities If they were low born they'll would explored, if they were Highborn they would be sold at their parents convenience to make good political bounds. If she was lucky it would be a good husband, yet she would be mistreated in the sam fashion if not by him, by the society.

Q1. Name at least three queen consorts of England who formented rebellions, including at least one who rode into battle.

Q2. Name at least two queen consorts of England who happily rode to war with their husbands because it was less boring than the court.

Q3. Name at least two mediaeval female pirates/vikings.

The mediaeval European life involved far more opportunities for women - and involved women who seem far more "rounded characters with agency" - than the average fantasy author would like to portray. Not nearly as many as men, sure. But far more than you'd expect if you took, say, Bakker (sorry...) as your template.

That's without going into female warriors in battle in multiple cultures (usually ones where women weren't solely chattel and had a greater stake in society -> a greater stake in needing to defend it), which may be another topic.

The heroic narrative does not only appeal to male readers. It may be made so by excluding.

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.

My mother, who would be 68 now if she were still alive, met her best friend (same age) through geeking out about Tolkien in the university dining room.

[Arthmail]

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...%2BMieville.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot...00/mieville.jpg

I call famous person rose tinted glasses. Mieville looks like an ass, one that you would cross the street to avoid if it was dark and you didn't know he wrote fantasy. He looks like a troll.

[Sci-2]

I call famous person rose tinted glasses. Mieville looks like an ass, one that you would cross the street to avoid if it was dark and you didn't know he wrote fantasy. He looks like a troll.

You could chalk it up to "Hot for Fantasy" as opposed to "Hot Hot" but the number of women I've seen express the sentiment of wanting to bibilically know him sorta belies that.

As a [straight] dude, I understand it better than I've ever understood women liking Timberlake and other boy band, metrosexual figures.

[mormont]

I call famous person rose tinted glasses. Mieville looks like an ass, one that you would cross the street to avoid if it was dark and you didn't know he wrote fantasy. He looks like a troll.

I'm a straight male and even I know that China is hot.

[Isis]

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?

It's not a foul rumour. She really said it. I still have the Times letters page where Terry Prattchet wrote a great response to that.

[Sci-2]

The other two geeks in my workplace are women, including one who got turned down as an assistant editor at DC (because she was overqualified, apparently).

Consider her lucky, DC was known for being a terrible workplace for women. I think Marvel had a better rep in that regard.

[AverageGuy]

I don't know many people who like fantasy period. I kept the fact that I read fantasy quiet when I was a kid and even now when I'm open about it don't know of many besides my brother and sister and a couple friends who I got into the genre. There are lots who might read the flavor of the month - Twilight, HP, True Blood and ASOIAF books now, but none of them would go further. There are a couple who might try a couple examples of magic realism, but they won't take it seriously enough to go beyond a couple books. Even beyond fantasy, I know a lot of readers but not many who get invested in fiction of any type. There tend to be stereotypes and stigmas associated with genres that I think are still as pervasive as ever.

[ZombieWife]

In reading these responses, I had to ask myself why I love reading epic fantasy. I've always been interested in mythology and fairy tales and epic fantasy was the closest thing to that as I grew older. I love reading that archetypal, heroic journey,

Something else to consider is that the monomyth is pretty male-centric. Even Campbell goes so far as to say it doesn't jive so well with a female hero. Limiting, imho. There are books out there that have presented a femanized version of the monomyth (a few that are a bit too 'women's studies' for my taste). In most mythology, the woman serves the man's story. Always. What I like about some of these newer epic writers is that they're breaking the mold.

But, even with my distaste with how some male epic fantasy writers handle women, I still read it. And I still enjoy the stories (for the most part). I feel like that's my only outlet to a modern mythology here. Certainly can't get that watching CSI and your typical car-chase movie.

Finally . . . there is something to be said for gender roles and how women and girls are raised. Fortunately, I had a father who was a bad-ass geek and loved sharing his geek side with me. But, the women I get in my classrooms a the university have been raised to believe they aren't as smart as boys, that they need their material dumbed down. I'd say, in the average class I teach, about 80% of the girls have this type of challenge to mitigate. One student came out and told me that she grew up LOVING math and science, but, her mother didn't want her to "be too smart for boys." She'd never land a man if she was smarter than the opposite gender. So, her brother was sent to math/science camp and she was sent to cheerleading camp.

It doesn't help that women and girls are bombarded by poor gender models. Could the Kardashians be any dumber? And yet, girls eat that shit up. Maybe if they act vapid and empty-eyed, they'll get a cute boyfriend. Where does epic fantasy fit into the lives of girls and women like this?

People may scoff, but I've seen girls in my classroom purposely act stupid during class discussions and then turn in amazing, thoughtful work.

You have to remember that the women who come to a forum such as this are, in my opinion, exceptional in their own right. I doubt we'd hop over to the Kardashian forum and see them discussing the merits of genre. :)

[karaddin]

Have you heard of airplanes? Cars? :P

Well you know from the break up thread in Gen chat how my last attempt at an international relationship worked out. I'd have to try convince them to come here!

Don't suppose you want to visit the land down under? :P

Hmm all those aforementioned board crushes have been in this thread at some point!

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

Yeah he is a good looking man, have to agree.

[karaddin]

Oh and ZombieWife I would say Kim Kardashian has proven if not intelligent then at least a very savvy business woman. Still a terrible role model, just doing a good job making a lot of money out of not much.

[Lady Olenna]

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.

At this point I'm really wondering if I'm going to get my woman card revoked. I love gaming - love RPGs- love modern warfare, gears of war, LOVE metal gear, and pretty much all the "guy" games - I even have UFC games that I have played more than my hubs. I have never played FarmVille or angry birds (but I don't have Facebook either) and I don't read romance fantasy/ or whatever it's called. I happen to love epic fantasy more than any other fantasy books.

I must really confuse the crap out of people because I'm very feminine but I love a lot of the stuff that is really male dominated. I never thought I was all that weird up until this point. But I guess I am. :dunce:

[PaulineMRoss]

You're right: I did say that. My numbers were culled from someone else (Kari Sperring and Juliet McKenna IIRC), around four years ago, when women made up around 70% of the fantasy readership and around 45% of the SF readership, in the US and UK.

I don't suppose you have any references to that, do you, or pointers as to where to look? I've been trying to get hard data on this for a while, and it's really difficult to nail down. People bandy numbers about, but of course they're all different.

[Seli]

...

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.

...

Nice post.

One of the problems in genre (and in culture in general to be fair) is that while people do not start out thinking "let's alienate a significant part of the population" they still end up doing it. If it is by simply only using men as protagonists, or only people of european descent and culture, or only straight people, or only english-speaking people. And those are simple relatively obvious problems.

At times this can be done on purpose, but often it is done by people not thinking about things and simply doing 'what has always been done'. And the women-unfriendly books in epic fantasy that are the result of this process have been the point of discussion, a lot recently.

[Lyanna Stark]

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.

Nice rage.

I don't think anyone has said women don't read Fantasy and SciFi, but that Fantasy as a genre suffers from a lot of crappy sexist tropes which is dull, boring and tedious to read for anyone slightly aware. There are lots of examples even among the more famed novels and series, such as LOTR, Goodkind, Robert Jordan and R Scott Bakker (Yes I Went There, sorry DatePalm :) )

If you think people in this thread are "the wrong type of women", well, what's the right kind? The ones that will accept all sorts of messed up gender roles for the sake of escapism? Or did you mean something else by it that I did not catch?

I still enjoy reading LOTR a lot, I can even appreciate some Bakker occasionally (don't kill me kalbear), but that doesn't make me blind to the issues within those works or to the genre as a whole***.

Nice post.

One of the problems in genre (and in culture in general to be fair) is that while people do not start out thinking "let's alienate a significant part of the population" they still end up doing it. If it is by simply only using men as protagonists, or only people of european descent and culture, or only straight people, or only english-speaking people. And those are simple relatively obvious problems.

At times this can be done on purpose, but often it is done by people not thinking about things and simply doing 'what has always been done'. And the women-unfriendly books in epic fantasy that are the result of this process have been the point of discussion, a lot recently.

Yes! Or if you have a person of a different ethnicity, they are the Token Guy or Wise Crone, if you have a woman among men she is either The Whore, The Damsel in Distress or the Spunky Tomboy, and the gay guy is the Token Gay dealing with Gay Issues .

***shorthand for "the most famous or infamous part of the genre"

[Solmyr]

At this point I'm really wondering if I'm going to get my woman card revoked. I love gaming - love RPGs- love modern warfare, gears of war, LOVE metal gear, and pretty much all the "guy" games - I even have UFC games that I have played more than my hubs. I have never played FarmVille or angry birds (but I don't have Facebook either) and I don't read romance fantasy/ or whatever it's called. I happen to love epic fantasy more than any other fantasy books.

I must really confuse the crap out of people because I'm very feminine but I love a lot of the stuff that is really male dominated. I never thought I was all that weird up until this point. But I guess I am. :dunce:

My point about male and female gamers has nothing to do with what individual tastes should be like - so no worries about your woman card ;). But among the population such games as you described are predominantly male.

Not that I question your femininity or anything, but why do you think you are very feminine? Are you referring to physical appearance and features or behaviour? Because the games you mentioned are not only male-dominated, but often attract the macho-man type of gamers, those who would never play games with elves and dwarves.

P.S. I just thought of something actually on topic: someone mentioned earlier that WoT should be appealing to women because there is an abundance of female characters in power (the Aes Sedai). Well, aside from the obvious reason that women might not want to relate to scheming, never-aging characters, who never show emotions, RJ still demeans women in the overall story by mentioning that in the Age of Legends when the Aes Sedai population was evenly distributed between men and women, men were still stronger in the One Power in general, the same way they are physically stronger in general. The potential for strength in the OP is the same in both genders, but women much rarely would come anywhere near that potential.

I can see how this, alone, could put off a female reader.

[TrackerNeil]

I apply the Bechdel test to fantasy often, and am usually disappointed by the results.

Can I say something here about "strong female character"? Like many, I hear this term often and frankly it makes my skin crawl. Too often I find it means a character who is ostensibly female but acts in essentially masculine ways, as if being a "strong" character means being masculine. To me, a strong character is one who acts instead of being acted upon, whether that action is swordplay or sorcery or scheming.

[ZombieWife]

I apply the Bechdel test to fantasy often, and am usually disappointed by the results.

Can I say something here about "strong female character"? Like many, I hear this term often and frankly it makes my skin crawl. Too often I find it means a character who is ostensibly female but acts in essentially masculine ways, as if being a "strong" character means being masculine. To me, a strong character is one who acts instead of being acted upon, whether that action is swordplay or sorcery or scheming.

And this is exactly what kind of female character I want to see. Are you arguing semantics here? I can't have a strong female character that does the things you mention above without turning people off because I put "female" in between "strong" and "character?"

[Sci-2]

I apply the Bechdel test to fantasy often, and am usually disappointed by the results.

I'm curious how many SFF books pass/fail this test. I'm pretty sure Rothfuss and Bakker fail but I think with Bakker you have a society where so much power is in male hands there is at least attempted commentary in this regard. Same with Martin, there's some intelligent commentary going on.