Saving Science Fiction
Why do women buy more fantasy than science fiction?
Well, how is science fiction different from fantasy? In a sense all fiction is fantasy but in literary terms science fiction is set in a world that might be while fantasy is set in a world that never could be. But that’s not the only difference. The real reason that women buy more fantasy is that fantasy is not adverse to emotional content and most science fiction is.
Most, though not all, of early science fiction was written by men, particularly in the first half of the 20th century. Men don’t generally like emotional stories. Most male readers hate the Twilight series and generally don’t like authors like Jane Austen, the Brontes or Margaret Mitchell. Women do. When men were most of the writers, editors, and readers of science fiction, emotional content was left out so it would appeal to the reader most likely to buy it. This continues till this day. I’m not saying it’s a hundred percent. In the last thirty years there have been plenty of science fiction authors who were women, women like Lois McMasters Bujold and Olivia Butler, but I wonder if even their works are read by many men.
The gender bias in science fiction is undeniable. Who can forget the words of Robert Silverberg about Alice Sheldon, who published under the name of James Tiptree to avoid the gender prejudice of the genre.
“It has been suggested that Tiptree is female, a theory that I find absurd, for there is to me something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree’s writing. I don’t think the novels of Jane Austen could have been written by a man nor the stories of Earnest Hemingway by a woman, and in the same way I believe the author of the James Tiptree stories is male.”
So women turned to the literary ghetto of fantasy, a place where women writers were allowed to publish and women readers were not disdained.
Gender bias exists, not just in what writers get science fiction published, but in the work itself. Many science fiction stories and novels are so sexist that they are likely to repel the woman reader. Women are not just demeaned, they are often nonexistent. Many stories set in the science fiction ghetto are like the Smurfs or pictures of the Middle East, all guys with maybe one chick off to the side. When there is a major female character she’s either just a sex object or she’s like Michelangelo’s sculptures of nude women, a man with boobs stuck on.
As women love the love stories, men love the superhero stories and the hero’s journey. Women often consider the whole “hero’s journey”meme as the purest kind of fantasy. When, at least after the hunter gatherer days, has the physical prowess of one man made a difference in the outcome of anything? David and Goliath? Okay, after that. But men have it in their souls, probably from the hunter gather days, that if they can fight and win and save their group, they can be the hero and get the girl, or girls. Well, those days are gone. A man can’t fight a predator drone. Even in the hunter/gatherer days, when a young male made a “journey” it was generally because he had been thrown out of his natal group or was looking for unoccupied territory where he could establish his own group. I think one of the reasons males, subliminally, want to become a hero is so they will gain enough value that they will be allowed to remain in their natal group or even lead it. Very much a hunter/gatherer thing.
So now fantasy is outselling science fiction ten to one because women are still buying real books in much larger numbers than men and women buy fantasy. I would think the solution to that is to hire women editors and for them to buy science fiction stories and novels written by women, with female characters, and to market them to women. Stephenie Meyer’s science fiction novel, The Host, has sold millions so women will buy science fiction. Despite that many men in science fiction publishing think they are above the woman reader and writer and disregard any manuscript with a woman’s name on it. That’s why Alice Sheldon pretended to be a man, why other women published under names that did not reveal their gender. Women notice the contempt and go write and read fantasy. I read fantasy myself, even though much of it makes me feel a little dirty. I really like science fiction better, like I prefer Star Trek to LOTR, despite the cardboard backdrops. And fantasy won’t change the world, the future, while science fiction has, and more than once.
We need to make a deal. We women won’t roll our eyes at your superhero stories and you won’t roll your eyes at our love stories. We won’t snort derisively at Superman or Spiderman and you won’t sneer at Twilight or Wuthering Heights. Then maybe we could share. Men and women could both write and read science fiction and maybe we could save the genre.
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To comment email alllie at alllie@newsgarden.org
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© Alllie 2009
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