Quote:
Originally Posted by Sparrow
Thanks for the link, in addition to the previous one; but they're both rather anecdotal.
What I'd appreciate are links to facts and figures for the topics under discussion - anyone got any?
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Well, I've never had to look for statistics since it's something I deal with every day, but a search for women's fannish activities statistics on Google gives me
Geek Culture: An Annotated Interdisciplinary Bibliography,
Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Archives: Fandom, Participatory Culture and
Gender and Fan Studies (Round Four, Part Two):Will Brooker and Ksenia Prasolova (with links to previous parts). Fandom, Participatory Culture has a bibliography at the bottom of the post, and Geek Culture is a detailed bibliography. Bacon-Smith, Camille. Science Fiction Culture. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. under
Science Fiction Fans mentions the demographic composition.
The second portion of the book examines the cultural developments brought on by changes in the demographic composition of the SF community: the increased prominence of women, gays and lesbians, and cybergoth youth culture. Though science fiction fans have long claimed tolerance and open-mindedness among their virtues, Bacon-Smith delineates the ways in which white male fans have resisted the incursion of others. SF fandom began with pulp era stories of technological heroism; while women were accepted and even welcomed by male fans all along if they identified themselves with this male agenda, by the late 1960's many women wishing to participate had different interests and tastes, having been drawn into fandom by non-scientific fantasy (e.g. Tolkien and Dungeons and Dragons) or non-print media (e.g. Star Trek). Having brought change into the culture, these women faced a backlash from traditionalist male fans in the 1980's. Similarly, lesbian and gay fans have historically found tolerance in fandom, but had little voice until the New Wave movement of the 1960's. Bacon-Smith reports that, ironically, many gay fans now find it more difficult to admit their interest in science fiction to the gay community than to announce their gayness to fellow fans; as an identity-defining culture itself, science fiction fandom has represented a threat to the increasingly politicized gay community.
[emphasis mine]