There is so much wrong with this
This article, here->
http://aidanmoher.com/blog/?p=238
But here, let me single out the biggest offender:
Women like to read, no one will be shocked to hear that. But consider who (anecdotally) make up the largest contingent of fantasy fans: overweight, sweaty mouth-breathers with neck beards. Now, of course this is a major generalization (I don’t have a neck beard, nor do I breathe heavily through my mouth; I’m not overweight, either), unfortunately this is how the fan base is perceived by the general public; not fair, but hard to deny. Women (for good reason) generally don’t like to be associated nerds like us (unless they’re nerdy, too).
There is so much wrong with that. Just so much. First, the reason why women don’t want to be associated with a certain section of genre fiction has nothing to do with being “nerdy” and everything to with what you’re saying here. Or rather, how this person is saying it. He turns women into objects, who only want to hang out with attractive people, because, damnit, all the girls want to do is breed!
No, women don’t hang out with people like you not because you’re a nerd or a fan, but because you turn them automatically into objects.
Also, blaming women for this whole urban fantasy/paranormal chic lit romance sub genre that’s popular is also wrong. Mostly because it’s a broad sweeping generalization, but also that’s denying that men too read this sort of thing. You sound about as bad as those old SF fans I know (personally, as friends), who complain about all them elves and dragons mucking up their SF section of the bookstore.
Ew. Ew. I have so much issue with this I won’t even start up on it. As a woman, I take serious offense. As a writer of SF/F I take offense…
Yeah, going to leave it there before I spam up your blog, Paul.
Don’t worry about spamming it up, I like getting comments
Agh, it just offends me on so many levels. As a gamer, as a woman, as a geek… I could go on and on. What pisses me off is when people have a voice to give, and could change perceptions, instead choose to be total idiots. He’s talking stereotypes, and is clearly not a woman (nor does he seem to know women).
In fact, women gamers–especially online–make up the larger percentage. And women love to read SF/F. So he’s wrong there. They don’t want to associate with men with bad hygiene, sure–but chances are most girls are more than willing to overlook a bad overbite and a “I roll 20s” t-shirt for a good personality and sense of humor which, by and large, most geeks have a-plenty.
Oh, excuse me, but I’ve got to go watch “Sex and the City” now–:P
Women are the majority readers in SF/F right now, without a doubt. And I think that confuses people like hte original poster, who don’t understand why they’re manly man man genre is all girlied up.
“They don’t want to associate with men with bad hygiene, sure–”
Who does? I don’t want to associate with men with bad hygiene, either. That’s another thing that frustrated me about the article.
Hmm… I suppose a bit of tongue in cheek humour can be lost in translation sometimes. Even in the quote you pulled, I admit that it’s a gross over-generalization.
Feel encouraged to leave your comments on the original article, too. I’d love to get some of this discussion going among my readers. Also, please don’t assume to know me and/or gauge my level of respect for women; if you’d have followed the thread of the discussion as it has spread through the blogosphere, you’d have noticed that the original response was written with regards (mostly) to Paranormal Romance, a sub-genre whose huge level of success is unarguably fueled, in large part, by women who wouldn’t otherwise read SF/F.
In any case, come on by A Dribble of Ink and get some people talking over there, I’d love to hear some more opinion on this.
~Aidan
A Dribble of Ink
No, that’s quite all right. I think I’ve said what I want to say. You can hide behind “it was all just a joke!”, but really, yeah, you’ve not said anything new, and only things that are offensive.
“Also, please don’t assume to know me and/or gauge my level of respect for women”
I’m just judging by what you say. And what you’ve said here shows no respect to women, whether you meant in tongue in cheek or not. The problem with most post modernistic irony is that it gives the excuse for veiled misogynistic comments by trying to make them look like profeminist statements. But in reality, the irony is weak, and lost, and not humorous.
“Paranormal Romance, a sub-genre whose huge level of success is unarguably fueled, in large part, by women who wouldn’t otherwise read SF/”
Mostly because of blatantly anti-female statements like the one you purposed. Of course most women who read don’t normally read SF/F- it’s not because they don’t like it, it’s because the genre (until now) has been targeted at pushing women away in favor of male readers. Now that male readers are shown to be a minimal level of income for most books, it shouldn’t be a surprise that female centric works are more popular.
And I’m not talking about just barbarians and women in bikinis on covers. I’m talking about an attitude by readers and writers of genre fiction that is overtly hostile towards women.
I always feel a bit odd out on discussions like this as they seem to require a degree in History of (Sub-)Genre X or awareness of a mysterious thousand-question survey asked of every reader but me, but I do want to say a little something at least as this has been poking at me all day.
After reading the blog post, I having trouble with the connection between the rise of Urban Fantasy and female-targeted readers and the death of Epic Fantasy. Why must Epic Fantasy be the bastion of men only? Dragons? I purposely picked books during my teenage years solely for the existence of a dragon on the cover. Swords? Nothing wrong with swords. Princesses? Okay, I do admit I would like to see the swords in the princesses’ hands a bit more often. But seriously. It seems that the reading public changes over time, and if a specific genre fails to appeal to the readers’ changing tastes, is it truly the fault of the change in taste, or the lack of adaptation in the genre? There doesn’t seem to be any reason why only Urban Fantasy can draw “teh mysterious womenz” in SFF. I am not quite buying into the sweaty hordes of neck-bearded men and the faint assumption that only nerdy women dare the shelves against them, but now Urban Fantasy has magically handed a stick of deoderant to everyone in the SFF shelves.
There are some other points that have that same hollow feeling to me, but as mentioned far above, I don’t have a degree in genre history and nobody had me take the survey or showed me the all-encompassing results.
So avoiding those, can someone please educate me with some more solid details on why its my fault Epic Fantasy is dead?
Yeah, I don’t see it either. The only reason why you could blame urban fantasy for the “fall” of epic fantasy (and is it really dead? I’m not sure….I see it still sells very well) is that urban fantasy is hip and in and selling. MMM, that’s about it.