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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.'"
...And they mention Xena?
We raise our slide-rules high.
who watches sci-fi in well-lit rooms. So much for stereotypes.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
"...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.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
it's chilly here in Hell.
xao
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*buys first available plane ticket to England*
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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.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
do they outnumber the men in mass or in numbers?
-Sj53
that Star Trek is actual science fiction.
The others aren't.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
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.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Are you sure?
Maybe they just "say" they are women.
Maybe they really are aliens in short skirts!
*runs and hides*
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9. --OB1
-hold on, Mom wants me to clean out my room in the basement. Be right back.
"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?
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.
(music + neurology) * fiction = feedback
Uhura: black, female before a 1964 audience... a receptionist, sure, but never got anyone coffee.
--
make install -not war
Studies show that British women watch more sci-fi than British men do. The key reasons the researches found for this were that British men are less entertaining than sci-fi and that British women aren't worth taking out on a Friday night, anyhow.
I'm only speculating since I'm not from the UK, but is this article an indication that perhaps the Sci-Fi channel was heading downhill with respect to other channels and not generating the necessary revenue? To combat this, the management has decided to broadcast a few popular shows, that while don't fall under the category of Sci-Fi, cause people to pay for the channel because they would like to watch those shows?
Thought so, thanks to their recent bout of slashvertising.
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".
Just a cool little factoid for y'all. I'd bet that Firefly did at at least a little bit to help bring in female viewers (the women I've showed it to think that most of the men are pretty good looking). Haven't watched much Sci-fi apart from that and BSG, but I can safely say that my sister watches BSG solely because she likes Lee Adama.
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
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.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Immigration to UK website soon to be slashdotted.
I recently started uni and from what I have seen here, girls are far more into sci-fi and fantasy than boys. I've even got two girls who regularly come to watch SG1 with me and another who is lending me her Firefly boxset in exchange for my BSG.
Good ol' blighty.
Mod me down now and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
There is an awful song by Kate Bush (lyrics here) about socially challenged geeks spending late nights with their computers. Now, of course, everybody spends late nights with their computers, logged on to chat rooms and sending email.
Likewise, the socially challenged geeks used to be the only ones who watched scifi. And now everyone does.
What next...?
Prolog rules
Has anyone else also noticed the increase in personal drama and more plots that are focused on emotion and intra-crew arguments in all of the current so-called "Science"-fiction TV shows?
Most of them are like soap operas now, perhaps there is a relationship...
"whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."
Captain Janeway? Say what you want, that character had more balls than Kirk, Picard, and Archer put together!
And I really don't think she wouldve allowed herself to be caught dead in a mini-skirt (though since I havent seen every episode of voyager I could be wrong on that one).
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
...that anyone hasn't mentioned http://www.sg1archive.com/bios/at.shtmlUSAF Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, Ph. D.
UK lesbians now outnumber male geeks.
I for one welcome our British, sci-fi watching, FEMALE overlords. Really, really welcome them :-)
:-)
My first girlfriend was a sci-fi and fan-fiction fanatic, which turned out to be the basis of our relationship. Don't base your relationship on Star Trek, it gets cancelled too much.
[yes, I'm exagerating, slightly]
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Personally, I think you should get a sense of humor before you get any mod points.
Did I say overlords? I meant protectors.
Uh, Buffy isn't scifi. At best it's fantasy. Xena? Same thing, although I suppose you could call Xena something like "historical dramatic fiction", if you really want to stretch the definition. Lara Croft? Fantasy. See, the problem with too many writers, networks, producers, et al, is that they don't understand the if you want to call something scifi, it needs have some SCIENCE in it. Even 2001 went from scifi to fantasy about halfway through.
Sure, I'm being pedantic and purist. But it does keep Harlan Ellison from trying to kill me...
It was Judge Woodlock, in the US District Court for Massachusetts, with a gavel.
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.
Most modern science fiction TV shows have much more deeper characters, more sophisticated intercharacter relationships and often have plot arcs that last more than 60 minutes. It also helps that 90% of everything else is recycled and rehashed.
-- $G
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.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
Are you implying that there's something wrong with short skirts?
*shudder*
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
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
Wow, who would have thought having strong women roles would make women more interested in those shows?
I think it's something of a sad commentary on us all that the strength of character displayed by all three female role models cited in the article has to be matched by a physical strength for them to be recognised as such.
Tangentially related to your main point, I'm absolutely convinced that there was a male extra in the background of several scenes in the first series of ST:TNG who wore one of those minidress-style uniforms. Can anyone confirm this for me?
I'm fairly certain that the topless, leather-kilt-clad muscleman I saw leading his friend around on a leash in Brighton during some sort of "Pride" festival probably was gay. Just a guess.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.