A couple of weeks ago I sat in on a panel about upcoming sci-fi books for the Fall and Winter seasons. The line to get into the panel began forming about an hour ahead of time and by the time they let us in we easily had over 200 people trying to get into a room that would only hold 100 at most.
The crowd was thoroughly a heterogeneous lot. All ages, all races, all manner of people and at least 50% female. Now the reason I mention the last is that this is a thoroughly different situation than those that I encountered when I went to my first sci-fi convention back in the 80’s.
Back in those days the female nerd was almost unheard of. Nerd culture was very much an old boys club in more ways than one. Nerds always complained about being excluded and picked on by the cool kids and society in general but here they were doing the same to other fans. Nerds did not exclude female fans outright but neither did they make them feel very welcome.
I noticed this type of behavior into college. The gaming and sci-fi club admitted female members but usually the member was “the girlfriend” of this guy or “the sister” the other guy and the male members never went out of their way to invite female members to participate in gaming nights, and only included them when they were short a player. Which is a really bizarre reaction as nerds typically want to meet women, and here they were shunning them.
After college my gaming activity dropped to nothing. My only interaction with this world was through conventions. I noted that the bad behavior continued unabated. The worst incident I recall was at a panel for a TV show featuring a lead actress that had been invited to speak. The talk was marred by jerks in the back of the room making constant catcalls until they were asked to leave. At the end of the session as we were all filing out I heard a pair of guys talking. One told the other how bored he was and how she “should have flashed the audience”.
But something was quietly happening in front of everyone’s eyes. A small trickle of female fans was slowly growing into a mighty stream. Not only were they attending the conventions in greater numbers but they were taking up positions of importance in the fan groups that organized these.
Those early pioneers that suffered through the “second class citizen” treatment in the 70s and 80s had grown up and transmitted their love of sci-fi and nerd culture to their kids and a new generation of female fans thoroughly inculcated in nerd culture was growing up.
Another thing happened separate to all of this. Nerd culture had come into the limelight in the 90s. With greater exposure came a wider fan base. Female fans from the mainstream that refused to be marginalized entered the equation and forever changed things in the nerd world.
These new fans demanded to be heard. Writers, artists, and those creating content began to take notice and slowly began to provide content aimed specifically at this new market.
A few remnants of the bad old days still remained however. The “booth babes” phenomenon of the early 00’s drew in male fans by having models wear skimpy outfits. This was quashed by those that pointed out how women were being objectified by these displays. In the late 00s came a call to action from several prominent female gamers to stop the cyber bullying ways of certain male gamers online.
Is it a perfect world now? By no means. Old attitudes take time to die out. Harassment of female fans still happens at conventions from time to time. Now however this is dealt with as a crime and not ignored. Those caught harassing others are at the very least ejected from the convention if not turned over to local authorities.
The younger generations coming into this culture seem to come into it with a more open mind. I wander along the milling crowds of fans at this convention going from display to display. Everyone happily mingling together. The thing about nerd culture is that (for the most part) it has always been more open and accepting of different cultures, points of view, and different ideas.
We never discriminated along racial or religious or other socioeconomic divides. Why did we discriminate along gender lines?
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