column: EUOLoGy #4

[Brenna]

That's interesting--most of what I write is fantasy too, and when I took that same class (from the same teacher, even), I chose to do something different as well.

[stacer]

I think many women are more closet-geeks, and the fact that two women in a very small class were willing to admit to the class that they write it seemed like an interesting point to me.

I suppose I've just been kind of weird in being willing to be so open about my interest in fantasy. But then, often I have interests and talents in a variety of areas and can spread myself thin over a number of things. For example, I was thinking about majoring or minoring in no less than 5 subjects during my last two years of school. It was all just *too* interesting. So sometimes fantasy takes the forefront, and sometimes family history does, and sometimes historical fiction/historical research in general, etc.

But I concede the point, EUOL, about women in general. It's probably related to the larger part of the feminist movement (I'm talking about the marching etc.) being more a thing of the past for my generation than for my mother's, so most girls of my generation have grown up thinking, "I can do *anything* I want." So if I have an interest in it, there's no stigma.

[MsFish]

Yeah, well, as far as not writing fantasy for this particular class, I had this story idea, and I couldn't MAKE it fantasy.  Believe me, I tried.  It just totally loses it's meaning if you take it out of mainstream american teenagerness.  So I guess I'm temporarily sellling out.  Or maybe just expanding my horizons.  

As far as girls being willing to admit they write fantasy--why not?  I had this epiphany last March: I'm a geek!  I like fantasy!  And I'm darn proud of it!  Although, I suppose before that, I very much fit the description of a closet geek.)

Of course, this epiphany also led me to start manifesting my randomness, so I suppose it's overall value is debatable.  

[Peter Ahlstrom]

no, definitely a good thing.

[Oldie Black Witch]

What? Being a woman and writing fantasy has a stigma attached? Why didn't I get that memo?

[Sigyn]

I don't think I ever realized that girls were less likely to be (or at least publicly) into fantasy.  After all, growing up my favorite fantasy authors were women.  And I have to agree with stacer.  When I grew up I never thought anything was verboten simply because I was female.  I had five older sisters who were certainly doing whatever they wanted.

[MsFish]

Thanks, Ookla

[EUOL]

I don't know that it's a stigma so much as a general misunderstanding.  For a long time, fantasy was seen as simply part of SF--which was, and still is, dominated by men.  (Both in writing and reading.)  In addition, the types of activities associated with reading sf/f--playing video games and RPGs--were also associated with me.

I don't think that video games will ever catch on with women as well as they have with men.  The visual medium makes them more attractive to men.  However, I've never understood why more women didn't get into role-playing.  It seems right up their alley.  Maybe it's because most 'role playing' involves crawling through dungeons and killing orcs.

[stacer]

I dunno. I never really knew what role playing was till I joined TLE, I think. Maybe I might have heard about it once or twice, but never paid attention to it if I did. Perhaps it's not marketed well to girls? By the time girls are in their teens, they're told that the cool things for them are things like cheerleading, and nowadays, soccer or something. I know when I was in high school it wouldn't have been something that occurred to me.

And now? I suppose I've never really given it a chance. Too many other things on my plate.

[Brenna]

I wanted to role-play with my guy friends when I was about 16 or so (that was the first time I'd ever heard about role playing or D&D), and my dad thought it was fine, but my mom was convinced that role-playing was as bad as Ouija boards, so I wasn't allowed to play.

What really amuses me is that my family basically made up our own LARP adventures all the time (almost every time we went on a hike when I was younger, we'd end up falling through a time warp and have to fight bandits/highwaymen/other creatures and help the local people before heading back through the time warp to home), though that was just make believe, so it was okay.