Calling NY fan writers and artists -- Women are in fandom? Really?

[rthstewart]

I've been gnashing my fandom fen teeth lately because the excellent discussion in the Star Wars EU fandom about the poor development of compelling female characters then led to the deeply discouraging but usual, "what's it to you since Star Wars is all for guys, right?"  Credit to people like duncatra webmistress at Club Jade for mustering a better response that I could manage which you can read about  here.  As Nancipants, Eliz, and others have been saying so eloquently, why are we still discussing this in 2012?  Sigh. 

So when I followed the wonderful Mary Sue to a PBS Off Book production on fan art and fan fic I got really, really irritated as apparently only dudes create fan art and write fan fic as they are the only ones featured in the vid.  The Mary Sue post is here. Now, we learn in the comments to that entry that Lisa Romagnoli, an assistant producer for PBS' Off Book, is looking to rectify the mistake.  She writes:

Hi! I'm the assistant producer for PBS Off Book. Thank you for the post. We are so excited to be on The Mary Sue! The lack of women in the episode has gotten a lot of attention, and I just wanted to say that it was a completely unintentional omission. We are sorry! Because of all the feedback, we're planning an addendum episode to feature female fan artists, so if you have suggestions of female artists that are NYC-based, please send them our way!

In response to another comment Ms. Romagnoli provides her email address:  lisa@kornhaberbrown.com
So, have it New York-based artists and writers!

I'll just delete right now my ranty rant about how marginalization of women seems to be the flavor of the day. I'm really pleased that PBS is responding to this really stupendous omission and reaching out to the ones who really do generate most of the fan fic and art content and maintain the communities that keep these things alive and culturally relevant.

Comments

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

WTH? I thought fanfic and fanart was about 80% women -- way more than even equal. And somehow they found the few guys doing it to feature? Heh, glad to hear they plan to edit this ...

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I've been feeling ticked off about so many things for so long, I just feel like we're in the middle of this big, ridiculous regression. Why are we still having these conversations? And... Happy Birthday!!!!

[(Anonymous)]

This is just...but I won't. I'll second that, after my five-ish years of involvement in fic, almost everyone is female. I'm glad that PBS is fixing their large and glaring error, but the fact that it was made in the first place speaks volumes. And now I'll stop so that this does not devolve into the "ranty rant" you had to restrain yourself from.
greaves

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's hard to not keep going with the rant, rant, rantity rant. I don't want to assume it's all related except it is, in a way -- let's see how we can continue to marginalize, ignore, and sexualize women!!! When our elected officials do it so routinely, why wouldn't others follow? They all just reinforce themselves.

Also, you know, a new chapter would be great. Are you going to get on LJ?

[min023.livejournal.com]

*Le sigh* Since sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, I will refrain from stating the bleeding obvious (which were at least my first four thoughts), and simply say 'go, ladies of NY'. Bah, humbug

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to seeing the revised piece. Bah indeed.

[tenut.livejournal.com]

But...but..but fanfiction is written mostly by WOMEN!!! I've seen estimates (including some from academics) ranging from 75% of active writing fandom to 95%, but it's always been a very very VERY female-dominated arena!!!

WTF indeed...

[tenut.livejournal.com]

...and just to add, I've been lurking (I'm not a writer -just a voracious reader with an academic background in literature) in fandom circles since 1998 (!!!!) and at first it was almost impossible to find a single dude.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Another academic! (I'm not, but lots of them come and play over here!) And even if the women weren't creating most of the content (and they are) the women are the ones who build and maintain the communities where these interactions occur. It's so stupid. Alyssa Roman and Think Progress just posted an entry on fan fiction (it's all the stuff related to 50 Shades of Gray) and one of her commentators made the point about how fanfiction is a community activity. And that in turn necessarily relates to how women use the Internet (generally) in ways that are different from how men use the Internet (generally).

[muscatlove.livejournal.com]

I was glad that they didn't ignore slash (in fact they showed some art that I would have thought was a little racy for PBS, haha), but yeah, this baffled me as I watched the video. I feel like they recruited artists at a comic convention in NYC (where many fan artists renting space perhaps might be statistically likely to be male), but the fact that they ignored women showed that whoever made it isn't actually involved in fandom at all. From that perspective, they did give a pretty good "fans aren't creepy" view that I appreciated, but yeah, it was a mystery that they didn't appear to know anyone but male artists. The fanfic snippet they showed also seemed pretty crappy - I am pretty sure if you put out a call anywhere for NYC-based fanfic authors you could get someone with more talent/more involved than than guy.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Yes to all of that. Lev Grossman did that wonderful piece in Time and now there are great pieces on Think Progress and Wired too about fan-derived works. You're right -- about they were at some fan comic con and interviewed a couple of guys. It's just all part and parcel of the same -- why do we keep having these same conversations about the same old things? What is this all so shocking? How can someone even attempt to do a story on fan based works and not, with a 5 minute google search find out ALL THAT STUFF? Gosh, the Avengers just had a fan art show in LA -- there were pictures on the Marvel website and you could see Noelle Stevenson's work in the background. Women are so prominent, how can you miss them?

[autumnia]

I don't actually have anything to add to this interesting conversation but wanted to mention that I was in the elevator with Lev Grossman the other day and actually thought of you and your mentions of his article on LJ and in your FF.net profile. :-)

[raykel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm kind of gobsmacked by the same thing as anyone else. It's one thing to not include women in fan arena that is, by and large, majority male. But in fanfiction? I think I know one or two male fic writers and about 3,928 female ones.

[harmony-lover.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, yes, to all of this. I am another one of those academics who writes and plays in fanfiction, and the fact that PBS - one of our standard bearers for fair and accurate reporting - could make such a frightful misrepresentation of fanfiction writers is really appalling. Not to mention that it does marginalize, sexualize, and generally ignore women, and given all of the ways that women are being attacked right now, that really upsets me. The vast majority of fanfiction writers I know are female - in fact, I would almost say that it would be nice to see more male writers, just for the change in perspective - and it is definitely women who keep the fanfiction communities going and active.