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

Re:First to defend Gene Roddenberry

[hunterx11]

Roddenberry originally wanted half of the crew to be female, but NBC said he couldn't do that because it would make it look like "there's a lot of fooling around going on up there." They said he could do one-third women, which he justified by saying, "Well hell, one-third healthy, young women ought to be enough."

Another measure of equality?

[Safe Sex Goddess]

Wow, who would have thought having strong women roles would make women more interested in those shows?

We still have a long way to go to reach equality. I know some of you may disagree...but I've recently decided that a purely scientific measure of gender equality can be attained through clothing. Now if only some social scientist would work out the scale and do the research. Following is an example of what I mean.

What is your reaction to seeing a man in clothing traditionally reserved for women, such as a skirt? If it illicits no different a reaction, apart from sexual attraction, than seeing a woman in pants then that's when you'll know you have achieved true equality.

When women are viewed as having equal power with men, then women's clothing will carry the same status as men's clothing for any gender.

Re:yet some networks want the stereotypes to stay

[EnronHaliburton2004]

Joss (IIRC, maybe it was Tim) said that one of the main reasons that Fox axed Firefly was that (and I paraphrase here) the women were "too strong" and the men were "too weak".

You would think Fox would appreciate that Firefly had one of the sexiest casts in any SciFi/Fantasy show-- the women were hot, and being strong made them even hotter. Kaylee, anyone? She's even cuter carrying around those tools. The men were hot (Even according to my feminist woman friends), and darnit, Mal and the Doc had a sensitive side, which made them even HOTTER. It was even (*gasp*) a couples show!

And gosh, and I even liked the plots and the story of the human diaspora.

these are role models?

[dlasley]

Buffy?
Xena?
Lara Croft?
Ok, I'll grant a weak maybe on Lara Croft, but the first two as role models, nope sorry. Plus, as many have pointed out, none of the three are really scifi!

How about these instead:
Samantha Carter
Aeryn Sun
(I will grant that Claudia Black did guest on Xena once, but her integral role in Farscape should far and away excuse that transgression)

What we really need are more good role models in every genre, not just scifi, but that will get me on an offtopic rant ...

John Crichton: That's my underwear!
Aeryn Sun: What does this say?
John Crichton: Calvin.
Aeryn Sun: Well, they're not yours ...

Re:Ahh..

[QuantumG]

There's no if. Firefly is set in a solar system which contains no less than 12 planets, each with no less than 2 moons, the gas giants with at least 10 moons. Few of these planets/moons were inhabitable when humans came to the system (perhaps just one) but they brought teraforming equipment with them which gives every planet/moon an atmosphere and gravity as near to Earth-that-was as possible. How'd they get there in the first place? With a multi-generation space ark. All consistent with the current laws of physics.. which the possible exception of artificial gravity, which is a necessary conceit to make a space drama recognisable. There's plenty of references in FireFly to an aversion to transhumanism, suggesting that Earth went through the Singularity and FireFly is the story of the survivors. Yeah, you heard me, survivors, the few people who managed to get away from the hell of utopia. You may think having a superintellegent mind controlling your destiny is fun, but I'll take the unknown of the frontier.

Re:Short Skirts

[arivanov]

Xena is not female empowerment

Now this is female empowerment in Sci Fi:

"And just one more thing. On your way back, I'd like you to take the time to learn the Babylon 5 mantra: 'Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And, if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out! Babylon control out. Civilians." [Looks at ceiling.]

Xena isn't.

Disclaimer - I am male. I am judging by what my wife likes and what makes her frown in disgust and change the channel.