Quoting Andrew Lias <anrwlias at hotmail.com>: > The recent discussions about gender biases in the science has led me to > wonder about a similar question regarding the readership of science > fiction and fantasy. > > From what surveys I've read, the readership of science fiction is > overwhelmingly male, whereas fantasy works have a much larger female > following. So the question is, why. *snip* > So... why? Why do women, especially young women, tend to avoid science > fiction while embracing fantasy? I've never seen hard numbers on this, but it seems to me that there are just as many female sci-fi fans as there are male fantasy fans. I was first introduced to sci-fi by my mom, who would record reruns of Star Trek for me. Later, whenever we visited my grandparents, Mom would take me up to the attic, which was literally full of nothing but wall to wall sci-fi and fantasy books; shelf after shelf of pretty much everything in the genres published in the 20th century. This is how I was introduced to Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Piers Anthony, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Roger Zelazny, James Blish, Alan Dean Foster, and more. When I got older, I naturally gravitated towards friends with the same interests (read: geeks). It didn't seem strange to me at the time, but now I realize that I had just as many female friends -- who were every bit as fanatical about both sci-fi and fantasy as I was -- as I had male friends. I still do. That said, I think young girls tend to be more taken by the romantic, flourishy fantasies of Marion Zimmer Bradley, et. al., whereas young guys are more likely to start by reading the more juvenile, almost soft-pornish fantasies of Piers Anthony. But I can't seem to make this distinction regarding sci-fi...I've never noticed an overwhelming tendency for female sci-fi fans to like a different kind of sci-fi than male fans. And then there are those of us who like the "assassins, rapiers, sorcery and badassery" fantasy stylings of Steven Brust. We're the smartest ones, if you ask me. -- Ryan Grove ryan at wonko.com http://wonko.com/