Metathought on Gender and Buffy Fanfic Writers

[jetpack_monkey]

This is something of an embarrassing confession, being male and a Buffy fanfic writer. I've had a few recent additions to my fanfic awareness bubble and I've taken to perusing their profiles. It's come to my attention that I automatically assume that a Buffy fanfic writer is female unless I'm otherwise informed.

How ridiculous is that? There's nothing about "Buffy" that makes it more orientated to the female writer than the male. Indeed, there's nothing about men that makes them less likely than women to key into the "Buffy" fanfic world. Hell, I write fanfic (I just don't finish it), and I'm male.

Maybe it comes from experience. I've been involved in a couple of LJ RPs in my time, and I'm usually one only a few males. Once I was the only one. In the one major fanfiction group writing project I've done, I was the only guy (and also, incidentally, the youngest by a few years).

So, I guess the real question is - where are the good male Buffy fanfic writers? I know they exist. I've read their work. But why is it such a minority that I actually find myself shocked when I discover one?

So, here's a little survey for the guys out there:

1) Do you write "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction?
2) Do you feel that you're in a gender minority in the Jossian fanfic circles?
3) How would you describe your fanfiction? What genres, 'ships, etc. do you write in?
4) What genres, 'ships, etc. would you absolutely avoid?

And for everybody:

5) Why do you think there's a gender imbalance in "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction writing?
6) Does this trend extend to all fanfiction?
7) Do you find it's more difficult for a writer to win your readership, based on their gender? Why?

Please pimp this out, start a dialogue. I'm interested in the answers and the discussion resulting from those answers.

Comments

[lizbetann]

In my experience (for the record, 10 years now of Internet fandom with varying levels of involvement through 10+ shows), the vast majority (80% - 99%) of the fans involved in online fandom (not just fic writing) are female. (To wit: One convention that I went to was conviently limited to 100 members. Four attendees were male. At least one was there because his wife wanted him to come.)

Since the stereotype of "fan of sci fi movies and tv shows" is predominantly male, I've wondered... where are they?

I don't have a good answer, so the rest is just babbling. :)

The stereotype of the Internet user is male; which is not my personal experence. Now, in my 10 years, I've been a member of mailing lists, posting boards, chatrooms, LiveJournal, etc. Now, I think the stereotype of the male Internet user is passive; he looks for things to read and pictures to look at.

The stereotype (how many times can I use that word in one comment! Yay!) of females-in-general is that we communicate. Hence, all the places I've (virtually) congragated at have been interactive.

With specific regard to fanfic... many people write/imagine stories based on characters created by someone else. Most people I have encountered as newbies never dreamed anyone but them did that until they came online and saw others doing it. Generally, once they realise that fanfic is an acceptable practice and they get positive reinforcement, they Commit Fic.

So I think the question is more who admits to ficcing/makes their fic available for public consumption.

gender in fandom and fanfic

[hjcallipygian.livejournal.com]

Interestingly enough, I have a note in my LJ bio that says I'm male just for that very reason: I figure that, otherwise, people will assume I'm female.

To the questions!

I write Buffy & Angel fanfic. I definitely think that the majority of fanfic writers are female; I have no idea why. Probably about 75% of my friends list is female, though, and almost all of them are gotten from Buffy/Angel fandom.

I tend to write ensemble pieces that are mystery/action/adventure/tragedy types, or comedies with either a specific character or ensemble. There's nothing I wouldn't write, but I haven't had any hankering to write anything smutty or porny at all.

I have no idea why there's the gender imbalance... but of all my writing friends -- even at university when I was in the fiction program there -- it was more female than male.

And I never look at someone's gender before reading a story, just what the story is about and how well it seems to be summarized. In my opinion, good writers write interesting summaries.

[butterflykiki.livejournal.com]

Came here via lizbetann's lj....

5) Why do you think there's a gender imbalance in "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction writing?

I think part of it is the overall symptom of more females writing in all fandoms, not just Buffy and Angel. For reasons which Lizbet got into above, women look for these forums, and are able to explore them in more detail (for whatever reason). Now, that said, I have seen a lot of guys in B/A fandom--- but they're commentators, critics, meta-specialists, more often than writers. I'm not sure why, exactly. Maybe because the fandom makes it easier on women to seek help? Maybe it's a guy thing, where the risk of criticism scares 'em off unless they're really serious? I hope not. It might be the cliche's and stereotypes of some of the shallow end of Jossian fandom scares them; the teenyboppers who love the Buffy-Angel relationship, or the women who are crazy about Spike.

I think maybe more guys need to answer this. :>

6) Does this trend extend to all fanfiction?

To an extent, but it's worse in B/A. You'll find more guys in Highlander fandom writing (why, I don't know) and more in the hardcore scifi like Bab5 and Stargate, and the borderline Farscape. Again, why? Not sure. Those shows don't have any more intrinsic appeal for men than they do women, I think (although HL has always been notorious for the RPG guys who like swords). Comic book fandoms are geared towards young guys, who stay in and sometimes end up writing; maybe they just get sucked in earlier?

You won't, by comparison, find too many guys in the heavy male slash-oriented fandoms (Sentinel, QL, Mag7, etc.), which probably explains itself. But why Buffy & Angel would fall somewhere in the middle of this, with a population bent towards more women, is beyond me. It can't be a slam at the heroines-- all the guys in the fandom like the women as they are, and there's a low incidence of the degrading/denigrating fanfic. Maybe they dont' like the guys? *sigh* Your turn.....

7) Do you find it's more difficult for a writer to win your readership, based on their gender? Why?

No. I may go in with certain preconceived notions, I'll admit -- most guys I've read tend to like action more than emotions, but that's not a bad thing. Gyrus is one of *the* best action writers in any fandom, and he doesn't neglect the dialogue or motivations either. Plus, he can write in a woman's voice -- his Faith is excellent-- so I don't go into it assuming a male writer has less business here.

I make most of my "should I read this?" judgements based on summaries, anyway. If you can't write even a semi-decent summary, I won't attempt to read the story. If the title's okay (not trite, not a cliche, some cleverness to it) and the summary is at least interesting and not misspelled, I'll try anything.

[recognitions.livejournal.com]

Guys go out and try to get laid. Girls stay home and write about romance to get away from the guys trying to get laid.

[jetpack-monkey.livejournal.com]

I'm doing something wrong, then.

[butterflykiki.livejournal.com]

*smack upside the head*
*thinks about it*
Well, you're not *entirely* wrong....

[keith5by5.livejournal.com]

1. Yes
2. Because after S3, the strong males were taken out of the show (Giles and Xander were relegated to side players) and not replaced.
3. Action\adventure, F\X
4. Smut, slash, and Spaith, Fuffy, and B\X.
5. Probably. See answer 2.
6. Yes, although worse because of answer 2.
7. Never had any problems.

[qkellie.livejournal.com]

5) Why do you think there's a gender imbalance in "Buffy" and "Angel" fanfiction writing?

Well, I'm sorry, but I'm going to sound either sexist, old-fashioned, or Fredian here, but I think it's because fandoms that have female protagonists will always attract more female fans. Yes, I realize "Angel" has a male protagonist, but as a spin-off of "Buffy," that's where the carryover is from. There's an old adage about writing in general that says that females will read books about a hero of either sex, but that males will only read books centered around other males. While obviously this is a GROSS generalization, I think that sometimes for a male to get heavily invested in a female-centric program is maybe just one iota more difficult, at least to the extent that he will then go off and write fanfic. It isn't even perhaps a conscious thing, but just as most "masculine" action movie viewers are men and most soap opera viewers are women, there are certain things that tend to appeal to one gender or the other in a skewed fashion. The fact that "Buffy" is action oriented is almost incidental in terms of inculcating male appeal, because there's still the perception of it as a "girls' show." I have several friends who are huge "Firefly" fans who won't even touch "Buffy" or "Angel" for some odd reason, and I can only think that it's because they're coming from a male POV of genre shows (big "Star Wars" and "Farscape" fans, most of them).

6) Does this trend extend to all fanfiction?

Really, the majority of the fanfic I've read out there has been written by women, but there are a lot of guys writing "Red Dwarf" fic for some reason. I am not heavily involved in any fandoms where most of the fic is by men, so I can't really tell if this is across the board or not.

7) Do you find it's more difficult for a writer to win your readership, based on their gender? Why?

It depends on the genre of the fic, but if we're talking general plot-based stories, I couldn't care less what the gender of the writer is. I've been woefully disappointed in fics by men and women, I don't go out of my way only to read women, etc. In fact, there have been times I've spotted a male-sounding nom de plume on an archive site and deliberately read the story, thinking, "Wow, finally a different perspective!"