UK Female Sci-Fi Viewers Now Outnumber Males

mosel-saar-ruwer writes "The UK Telegraph is reporting that, due to the popularity of Buffy, Lara Croft, and Xena, female sci-fi viewers now outnumber males, at 51%-49%. From the article: 'People have an impression of sci-fi fans being small men who sit in the dark watching Star Trek but it's not like that now ... There has been an increase in positive female role models, whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts.'"

Comments

Short Skirts

[Valcoramizer]

...And they mention Xena?

Re:Short Skirts

[moonbender]

Star Trek isn't just TOS, and neither Xena nor Buffy are sci-fi. That is all.

Re:Short Skirts

[donscarletti]

I don't get that star trek short skirt stereotype. Granted, I've only really watched TNG and not that much of it either, but I was under the impression that Dr Crusher wears a lab coat over trousers and Counselor Troi wears the ugliest frilly lycra jumpsuit I have ever encountered. I also sure as hell wouldn't want to picture Captain/Admiral Janeway or that even older Admiral I can't remember the name of in tiny miniskirts.

But as far as I can tell, women seem to like miniskirts at least as much as I do. Especially those tiny denim ones that have been popular for the last two years and I used to love until I saw my sister in one. Think about the popularity of Alley McBeal with female audiences even when the popularity of miniskirts was at an all time low. It seems to be the consensus of most women I know that they would wear miniskirts regularly if they could know that they were safe from their bodies being criticized by other women. Of cause men know not to tease, since if he were to encourage an overweight woman to not wear miniskirts all her friends might be lead by peer pressure and of cause he has to think about the welfare of guys who have a thing for fat chicks.

However, there is one thing to consider about short skirts. In all societies that men and women both did/do wear skirts, including the Greeks up until a century ago, the ancient Egyptians and the Roman empire, it is/was always the women who wear the long garments and the men who wear the very, very short ones. This is of cause because of practicality since it was expected that a man be active in his day and a woman (at least a wealthy women) should be largely sedentary. Thus, it is obvious in todays times of neo-feminism where women neither aspire to masculinity (faded cargo pants with curry stains) nor conform to the oppressive mold of ancient times that a women wears something that is notably feminine in form but with a four millennium documented track record of practicality.

First to defend Gene Roddenberry

[Valacosa]

"...all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

Star Trek would have been much more progressive if Roddenberry wasn't teathered by NBC.

Xena & skirts

[toetagger1]

"...in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

And I'm sure Xena is the best example to illustrate how this has changed! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining!

Ahh..

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Thats a good way to widen your audience -- Just misclassify things as SciFi.

Laura Croft is no more SciFi than Indiana Jones -- Its adventure.
Buffy/Xena is Mytho. No Science involved at all, just adjusted beliefs leading to an alternate reality.

Re:Ahh..

[fireboy1919]

Firefly is only barely science fiction

Yeah...and the pope's only barely Catholic. Microsoft's only a little power hungry.

They've got a consistent mechanism powering the ships (spinning matter/energy converter things). They've got a complete future history that includes the mixing of all peoples (so that everyone now speaks the two widest used languages- Chinese and English), colonization of another galaxy, and a civil war. Then they deal with the results of this - including the law of supply and demand, and variations in society.

Heck, they even went so far as to explain (**MINOR SPOILER WARNING***) which part of the brain the people who experimented with River used to do it, and why.

If this isn't Sci-Fi, then what is? You don't have to explain things using the particle-of-the-week (like Star Trek: TNG) just for it to be Sci-Fi.

In all seriousness, I think you've hit upon the root of the problem. Its sort of hard to classify Sci-Fi because it means different things to different people.

I would personally consider Firefly/Serenity to be pure, uncut, and mainstream Sci-Fi. I'd go so far as to say that you could use it as an paragon example when someone asks "What is Sci-Fi?"

But I guess that's just me.

Re:Ahh..

[QuantumG]

FireFly is more Sci-Fi than StarTrek as Joss Whedon decided he didn't need to throw out Einstein (there's no faster than light travel) and he didn't need to speculate about aliens (as if it is possible to ever realistically present alien life).

So when you see Captain Kirk go down to random-planet-X-that-always-looks-like-a-californi a-backlot think about how far we've progressed in Sci-Fi by taking the fantasy out of the show, not putting more in.

That's not Sci-Fi

[evilviper]

Since when does Buffy, Lara Croft, or Xena count as Sci-Fi? It's "FIction" of course, but I don't see any SCIence in any of them.

Trek women

[Wumpus]

"whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

Or were starship captains for a full 7 season run. At least give them points for trying, OK?

ahem

[xpatiate]

speaking as a female sci-fi fan, I feel the need to point out that women can be aliens *and* wear short skirts *and* be positive role models, all at the same time.

Linking the increase in women viewers to shows being more 'character-led' might seem like a stereotypical generalisation but it rings true for me. The sci-fi I've always been most into is the kind that uses speculative, imaginary environments to explore big ideas and hopefully arrive at some interesting truths about human personalities... rather than the car-chases-in-outer-space kind.

Freedom

[Doc Ruby]

Uhura: black, female before a 1964 audience... a receptionist, sure, but never got anyone coffee.

I'm not surprised

[Dark Paladin]

The last (and so far, first time) I went to Comic-Con was this summer of 2005, and I was surprised by how many women were there. And not just the classical "geek girl" (bad haircut, bad acne, overweight, etc, etc, etc), but how many smart, excited, interesting, and - to display an unfortunate level of sexism perhaps - cute geek girls there were running booths, going to events, buying things, and the like. There were whole sections that seemed to be made just for women. Not in a "ooo - pink!" kind of way or trashy romance, but stories that appeal to more than guys looking for giant breasts, but stories about relationships, or the infamous yaoi booths.

But girl geekhood is not just regulated to "romance". One lady I went with drooled with me over the Terminator 2 arm replica, and this was a woman that most slashdotters would not pick out as the "geek" of a group of similiar attractive women.

Personally, I think it's a great thing. Not just because it increases the chances of future geeks to breed and multiply, but it gives an extra dimension to geek hood. Sure, Star Trek was good, but once the sexes became more equal and women could wear more than short skirts, it got better. I've never liked my heroines with just big giggly breasts and chain mail bikinis. With more geek girls, we still have the stereotypes, but I've been seeing deeper and more interesting stories in my geek world. I wonder how well "Serenity" and "Buffy" would have been if Mr. Whedon hadn't tapped into both the male and female side of geekhood. It's been easier to show my wife good geek stuff (like "Battlestar Gallactica") as it looks to include the sexes instead of pretend one doesn't exist.

So, welcome to our new female geek overlords! While I love my wife dearly, I do wish you ladies had been in greater numbers a decade ago - but at least now I have hope for my two boys, and most importantly, my lovely little geek daughter - because now she can play in my world too.

Depends on the classification

[fm6]

Buffy and Xena do borrow from mythology, but neither is true to established mythology. Most of the monsters on Buffy were invented for the show, and Xena considers mythological characters (and also historical characters, such as Julius Caesar) to be outlines they can impose their own stories on, without being at all faithful to the originals. (Note that Xena is on a first-name basis with both Julius Caesar and Helen of Troy. Helen was probably not a real person, but the Siege of Troy did happen — at least a thousand years before Caesar was born.) Both Buffy and Xena are more fantasy than mythology.

Lara Croft and Indiana Jones also rate as fantasy, since their backstories have only token connections to the real world.

Now, here's the thing: most people don't distinguish between fantasy and science fiction. It may be obvious to you and me that, say, Buffy and Star Trek are different genres. That's because we see vampires as purely imaginary, and interstellar travel as something that could happen someday. But to most people, one is not "more real" than the other, either because they're very credulous about vampires, or they're very skeptical about starships.

The problem here is that most people who read or watch (or even write) fantasy and SF just don't give a shit about what's scientifically possible and what's not. They just want to escape from reality for a while. Vampires and spaceships, magic and time travel — it's all the same to them. And to someone like that, any precise definition of what's SF and what's not is boring, dweebish nitpicking.

Re:I'm an overweight man

[Fordiman]

Doesn't this article just basically say that the same percentage of women as men watch Sci-Fi (IE: there are, generallly, 51% women and 49% men in the world, thus a 51/49 split between male / female fans is pretty normal), or, moreover, that it's become genderistically mainstream (no longer strictly a male demographic)