gender-in-fandom

[gender-in-fandom]

Being Non-binary in Fandom Spaces

Whether intentional or unintentional, fandom spaces tend to be divided by gender. Some of the perceived gender divisions can be attributed to how “masculine” or “feminine” a certain interest may be. I previously discussed how many music fandoms are stereotypically seen as spaces full of teenage girls. This might be true for some of them, but there are plenty of music-based fandoms that lean male, or might not lean at all. Sci-fi fandoms are stereotypically seen as “fanboy” domains, but we know from our initial history lesson that women played an important role in the history of the Star Trek fandom. Like any stereotype, our preconceived ideas of gendered fandoms fall apart when looked at with a critical eye. I am fascinated by where these stereotypes originate, and what they mean for us as people who have to exist in spaces dominated by the gender binary.

The gender binary is the classification of gender into two categories, those categories being masculine and feminine. These categories align with the two most common categories of biological sex (male and female). Masculinity and femininity are not dictated by biological sex, however. They are defined by the cultures and societies that recognize them. In the Western world, these categories are strictly defined. In many cases, masculine and feminine attributes are considered to be opposites. Our society is consciously and unconsciously shaped by the gender binary in many ways. Even in spaces where the genders of individuals cannot be immediately identified, such as in online fandoms, the gender binary persists and assumptions are made about the identities of people based on societal understandings of each gender. Entire fandoms are reduced down to gendered stereotypes.

Gender roles exist in fandom because people exist in fandom. Ideas that are taught to us by society shape the way we interact with the world, with each other, and with ourselves. Some interests are stereotyped as masculine or feminine, but behaviors that exist within fandom can also be stereotyped. In my third post, I discussed how the creative arts are seen as feminine, especially when placed in contrast to the sciences, which are stereotypically masculine. As a participatory culture, creation is intrinsic to fandom. Whether or not the people who create fanworks actually identify as women, there is a stereotype that associates fanfiction and fanart with girls and women. Additionally, the association between masculinity and the sciences provides a basis for the idea that sci-fi is a man’s world. These gender roles shape how people treat each other in fandom spaces, but also what it means for someone to be in that space. How many boys have been afraid to express themselves because someone told them it was girly? How many girls were bullied out of male-dominated fandoms just for being girls? It's impossible to know, but these are very real scenarios that reinforce gender segregation in fandom and in our culture.

Being someone who identifies as non-binary, I think about how the gender binary affects not only how I see myself, but the way that others see me as well. On the internet, I can put my pronouns in my bio on social media and avoid any other indication of my gender, but that does not mean much when the gender binary is so much more than pronouns and personal appearance. By simply being in a given fandom, am I behaving masculinely or femininely? If I’m open about my love of K-pop boy groups, am I performing a feminine act? Was it masculine to obsess over Minecraft when I was 12, and is it still masculine now? How can I be non-binary in a gendered space without just tattooing it on my forehead? Is it even possible?

There’s an important question that I haven’t asked yet: does any of this matter? Out of every issue that plagues our world, is the non-binary experience in fandom really something that needs to be addressed? My answer to this question is that it’s not really about fandom at all. Fandom is the vehicle to understand the greater issue, which is how the gender binary is enforced in so many ways that it feels damn near impossible to exist outside of it. The real issue is inclusivity, or the lack thereof. Fandoms are just groups of people, and people are full of conscious and unconscious ideas about how the world works. My struggle to be authentically nonbinary in fandom is identical to my experience in real life. Outside of myself, I am at the mercy of other people to have my identity recognized and respected. This cannot happen so long as non-binary identities are ignored or actively despised outside of queer and ally spaces. The desegregation of gendered spaces in fandom occurs when gender segregation is addressed in society at large, and that happens when the gender inequality engrained into our culture is addressed.

[gender-in-fandom]

Bias and Discrimination in Fandom: Where Is It and Why Does It Exist?

Fandom has existed as long as mass-produced media has been around. People love to connect with each other and participate in spaces that cater to their interests. They also serve as places to meet other people that share their interests. They are also spaces that encourage creativity. In the internet age, they are also fairly inclusive spaces and allow people to be authentic. In my experience, people join fandoms for two reasons. One reason is that fandoms act like communities of people that share a common interest and want to connect with others through that interest. Especially for people who may feel ostracized from other community spaces, fandom can feel like the most comfortable place in the world. The other reason is that fandom serves as a form of escapism, especially in fandoms of fictious media. There are countless reasons nowadays to want to distract oneself from everything going on in the world. Fandom spaces can be neutral or isolated spaces for many who want to think about anything else.

Fandom spaces are inherently communal. Fandoms would not exist without collaboration, communication, or human connection. This is what I personally would call the “good side” of fandom. There are countless stories of people who found their closest friends and life partners through fandom. This sense of community has been utilized to be a force for good. There is a history of charity and activism in fandom where people have been brought together to work towards a common goal. Organizations like Fandom Forward and Project for Awesome are charities based on the premise of using the collective power of large fandoms. Fandoms also provide a sort of digital third space for many people. For example, TikTok and Tumblr are both known for being broken up into many smaller communities centered around different topics and interests. In earlier eras of the internet, these communities would have been based in forums. While these are not actual spaces for people to inhabit, they are places that are isolated from the rest of a platform where people can find friends and a sense of belonging.

Many people turn to fandom to find somewhere to escape from the troubles of their daily lives. Reality sucks sometimes, and the only way to feel better is to think about something else. Fandoms, especially those around works of fiction, provide spaces that are completely unconcerned with the real world. People become deeply attached to works of fiction and identify strongly with them, sometimes to the point that criticism of the media can feel targeted at them. Sometimes people’s obsession with a certain media can spawn an entire sub-community that revolves around their own invented canon. One example of this is the Marauders fandom, which is almost entirely built on fan-created lore and has no basis in its canon, which is the Harry Potter books. It addresses the many flaws in J.K. Rowling’s canon by ignoring it entirely in favor of their own. It is a great example of how fandom breeds creativity and collaboration when left to its own devices. However, the desire to find isolation from the horrors of the world in fandom poses an issue.

Simply put, fandom is not and cannot be isolated from the problems that people face in the real world, particularly discrimination. Fandom is made up of people and people are shaped by their biases, whether consciously or unconsciously. Often these biases are present in their contributions to fandom. These biases also shape the behavior of the community and what is deemed acceptable. Unfortunately, not everyone has taken Intro to Gender, Race and Sexuality, and are not aware of their less obvious prejudices. This means that subtler forms of discrimination can be rampant in some communities, even those that preach inclusivity. They might even be overt parts of the fandom experience.

Racism is a huge issue in fandom, just as it is in real life. One example that I have personally seen is in K-pop fandoms. There are some K-pop fans that do not recognize how their internalized biases shape the way they perceive the actions of idols, particularly the racist ones. Appropriation of Black culture is a big problem in the K-pop industry and is usually only addressed after something controversial happens, like an idol wearing cornrows or saying a slur. Without fail, some fans will swear that the idol had no idea what they were doing and shouldn’t be called racist. These fans fail to understand that racism doesn’t always happen on purpose, and their failure to see their own internalized biases prevents them from recognizing them in others. Racism within fictional media communities is a real issue as well. Going back to how fandom can function as a form of escapism, there are many people who take issue with addressing the prejudice that exists in their favorite works of fiction. For them, fandom isn’t the place to talk about it. Racism is a real-life problem, and fandom isn’t real life. This argument is flawed and a classic way to avoid talking about racism at all. There is no appropriate space to talk about racism, just as there is no racism-free space.  It can’t be ignored just because it’s uncomfortable to admit your favorite book or movie has racism in it. Escapism becomes an excuse for willful ignorance, and that ignorance only leads to the further perpetuation of prejudice.

Homophobia is a huge problem within shipping culture. Gay pairings between men are the most common ship orientation across fandoms. The biases that people hold about and against queer men are especially visible in discussions and depictions regarding relationships between queer men. There is a preoccupation with sexual dynamics that is morbidly fascinating to me as a queer person. Sexual preferences have been turned into personality types and character archetypes in which topping is conflated with dominance and bottoming with submission. This dichotomy becomes the lens through which fans understand the personalities of characters outside of smut. It is a one-dimensional understanding of the actual queer experience. The invented queer men who exist in fandom spaces are completely separate from actual queer men. These invented men do nothing to give straight people any realistic idea of what actual queer people are like and serve as vessels for them perpetuate the stereotypes surrounding the queer community.

Transphobia is less visible in fandom due to the lack of trans representation in comparison to cisgender queer representation, but it still absolutely exists. Headcanons are a phenomenon in fandom that refer to someone’s personal interpretation of the canon, regardless of the actual canon of a given media. More often that not, that is where trans representation in fandom will be found. Unfortunately, that where transphobia will also be found. Beyond people flat-out rejecting the idea that a character could be trans, the people who support these headcanons also have their own biases. Personally, I have seen transmasculine characters be subjected to feminine makeovers far too many times. I can’t help but think every time I see a transmasculine character in a dress, does the artist know what transmasculine means? Not that trans men can’t be feminine, but there is a distinct aversion to portraying trans men as being male in fandom that I find difficult to ignore. There is also a lack of transfeminine representation both in and outside of headcanon, and a lack of female representation in fandom in general. Across all fandoms, transfems and WLW are underrepresented, if not completely nonexistent. It brings up concerns of sexism and how even fictional men dominate conversations while women are ignored.

These biases exist in fandom because fandom has people in it. It’s a mirror of reality, whether people want to admit it or not. It’s important to address these issues not only in real life, but in the alternative spaces we inhabit and in the media we consume. It’s a disservice to the people we share spaces with to ignore how our media can be problematic towards them, and how that media perpetuates discrimination in real life. We all have a personal responsibility to recognize prejudices in media and in ourselves and address them in order to make a better world. Social change happens in fandom when the people that inhabit fandoms choose to educate themselves and grow as individuals.

[gender-in-fandom]

An Anthropological Look at Gender, Space, and Place in Fandom

Anthropology can be defined as the study of human culture. In the United States it has four major subfields, which include archaeology, biological or physical anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. However, for this blog post we will be using the methodology of the fourth subfield, cultural anthropology. Cultural anthropology studies living cultures using several methods. Cultural anthropology studies culture in a way that they can be compared and contrasted through objective means. It uses quantitative and qualitative tools to achieve this. Common methods include participant observation, in which the anthropologist studies a culture through the perspective of one of its members, and use of interviews, surveys, and other data collection. When we think of culture, we usually think of nations and ethnic groups with distinct traditions that make them unique. However, there are certain characteristics that are universal to all cultures but are expressed differently. Cultural anthropology uses those universals to understand how culture forms and changes.

There is more than one way to understand fandom in terms of cultural anthropology. One interpretation of fandom is that it is a subculture. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subculture as, “An identifiable subgroup within a society or group of people, esp. one characterized by beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger group; the distinctive ideas, practices, or way of life of such a subgroup.” Subcultures differ from countercultures in terms of how their beliefs align with that of the dominant cultural group. A subculture may accept some of the beliefs of the dominant group, while a counterculture would hold beliefs that are incompatible with the dominant culture. Fandom can be understood as a subculture of fans. In many cases, they have their own language quirks, traditions, and habits that make them distinct from a larger culture. There are certain ways of thinking that exist in fandom that don’t widely exist outside of it.

Fandom has also been defined as a participatory culture, in which fans are not just consumers of media, but also producers and creators. Jenkins et al. (2009) define participatory culture as having five elements. These are: a low barrier to artistic expression and civic engagement; strong support for creating and sharing those creations; informal mentorships in which knowledge is passed from more experienced members to less experienced members; members who believe their contributions matter; and members who feel socially connected to each other and care about each other’s opinions of their works (haenfler.sites.grinnell.edu). It might be difficult to see fandom as a kind of culture when from an outsider perspective, it is not much more than a hobby or obsession. In reality, fandoms are more than just people who share an interest in someone else’s creation. A key hallmark of fandom is creativity. Fanfiction, fanvids, fan songs, and cosplay are all creative ventures born out of inspiration from a source material with the intent to share it with other people. Fanworks have been foundational to fandom both before and after the introduction of the internet to the space.

Anthropological studies have been done on fandoms both before and after the dawn of the digital age. Anthropological studies usually choose or a few elements of a culture to analyze. Three dimensions of culture that I want to use to analyze fandom are space, place, and gender. As an anthropological concept, space refers to somewhere that can be measured in some way. That is an incredibly vague definition, but it generally but not always refers to a physical location that can be measured in size or population. This is different to place, which refers to the cultural meanings assigned to a space. Gender is defined by Rebecca L. Upton as the cultural constructions observed, performed, and understood in any given society, often based on the perceived biological differences attributed to sex.

While space often refers to a physical or geographic location, it can also be used to describe a virtual location. I can use the parameters of space to analyze the virtual spaces that fandoms inhabit. I can also use the qualities of place to understand the cultural meanings attached to these virtual spaces. Before the internet, fans organized meetups that focused on their shared interests. These meetups were the predecessors to fan conventions, which have become absolutely massive in the modern day. School clubs and fan organizations also use physical spaces to create places of connection for fans. Fanzines, such as those mentioned in a previous post, could be considered non-physical places. In the same manner as a laptop, the fanzine creates a place where people connect with others without being in the same space. The internet expanded the number of non-physical spaces where people could connect. Forums and social media became places that held meaning for fans and allowed for more creation and increasingly faster sharing of their creations. The internet also increased accessibility, especially for those that were excluded from these spaces for their identities or those with physical disabilities.

It can be difficult to know exactly how gender factors into fandom in detail. Physical spaces are subject to cultural values. Those with identities that hold privilege tend to dominate these spaces. Men often outnumber women and nonbinary people, and white people outnumber people of color. This outnumbering can alienate people from these spaces and make them feel unwelcome, whether intentional or not. Online, it is easy to engage in fandom without revealing your gender identity. While this means that understanding how fan behavior relates to gender identities can be difficult to understand, it also implies that gender is not something that defines how people interact in virtual spaces. In physical spaces, identities can be policed, and certain groups can be alienated. The anonymity of virtual spaces makes this kind of policing difficult, if not impossible in some cases. The creative aspects of the participatory culture may have gendered connotations. The creative arts are often placed in contrast to the sciences, which have historically been masculine fields. For just as long, we have associated creation with femininity. Regardless of who is actually participating in this creation, our culturally defined understandings of gender roles might leave us to think that the people who participate are more likely than not to be feminine. While it is difficult to fully understand the effect that gender has on fandom spaces and fandom behavior, it is important to recognize how subconscious biases might lead us to make false assumptions. Now more than ever, fandom is a place where creativity takes precedence over identity.

[gender-in-fandom]

How Did Teenage Girls Become the Face of Fandom?

As seen from the brief tour of fandom history, fan subcultures have always been a place for all kinds of people. However, in recent history a stereotype has developed that I find fascinating. Where the term “fandom” might have conjured up images of young male fans of sci-fi a few decades ago, now pop culture has come to associate fandoms almost exclusively with young girls. It’s the most apparent with bandom, or fandoms associated with the rock scene of the 2000s. With the rise of social media and the internet, these fans were unwittingly thrown into the spotlight as a new phenomenon for the public to criticize and dissect. One has to wonder what the effect of all of this might be on the self-esteem of such a vulnerable demographic.

I mentioned bandom as the probable origin of this stereotype. Bandom refers to fandom specifically regarding music subcultures. It is usually used in reference to emo band fan subcultures of the early 2000s (think Fall Out Boy or Panic! At the Disco), but it can be used to describe fandoms in other genres of rock. While I believe that the source of this stereotype is internet fan behavior, I don’t think this is completely new. The stereotype recalls the older stereotypes of groupies as young women obsessed with rockstars. The term groupies first came into use around the 1960s with the rise of rock bands such as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, although the phenomenon of fans following their favorite celebrities predates this name. Groupies are like the predecessors of bandom, although with key differences. Groupies have a connotation of following band members in order to have a sexual relationship. While that did not disappear in the 21st century, the internet created new pathways for fans to directly connect with band members.

In the internet age, these fans no longer needed to physically follow their idols from show to show. The rise of bandom is correlated with the rise of social media, and the internet in general in the 2000s. That especially changed how fans of real people operated, even outside of music scenes. Celebrities were now in constant reach on websites like Twitter, Myspace, and LiveJournal. Fall Out Boy’s rise to fame can be partially attributed to this. They made use of the internet as a way to gain more fans in a way that was kind of revolutionary for its time. Pete Wentz, the band’s bassist, was well known for his posts on LiveJournal and Myspace. He would answer questions posted by fans and talk directly to them. Whether intentional or not, he created the perfect setup for fans to develop parasocial relationships with him. Parasocial relationships predate the internet, but the personal atmosphere of social media made it much easier for people to become attached to people they’ve never met. However, the changes caused by the internet did not affect celebrities exclusively. For fans, connecting with celebrities made them vulnerable to abuse by those that held power over them. In the years since the peak of emo bands, many members have come under fire for sexual assault and misconduct with fans that were underage at the time. This vulnerability also extended to the public perception of young fans. These fans were put under a new kind of spotlight.

The internet and social media are virtual spaces that are ruled by the youth. Trends and popularity are driven by what young people are interested in. The internet at large was a place that couldn’t be policed by parents or adults. The ability to connect from anywhere in the world was paradigm-shifting for fans of all types, including music fans. The creation of online communities changed how young people listened to music and how they discussed it with fellow fans. As mentioned before, bands and fans could connect directly without ever meeting face to face. The power of this connection would be seen in real life where bands would sell out tours and break music records without mainstream popularity. Like with 20th century bands, teenage girls made up a notable part of these fandoms. However, their activity and presence on social media created a skewed perception of the demographics of a fandom. Young girls that reached out to their idols using social media accidentally became the faces of fandom as a whole, through no fault of their own. It’s hard to tell exactly how the stereotype affected these girls. In a broad sense, being thrust into a pop culture spotlight puts them in danger. It’s not a new or unique phenomenon for young girls to be criticized for their interests, but it can create a sense of shame. It’s an unfortunate effect of the internet that it gave these girls a sense of community and validation of their interests, while also leaving them increasingly exposed to ridicule.

[gender-in-fandom]

Who Started Fandom? A Brief History

The fandom subcultures of today are so intertwined with the internet that it is difficult to imagine what they’d be like without them. It was interesting, then, for me to discover that the beginnings of fandom can be traced all the way back to the 19th century. The earliest groups of fans to create their own subcultures were the Janeites, fans of Sherlock Holmes, and railway enthusiasts. The Janeites, a self-given name, started out as meetings of young men who liked the novels of Jane Austen. According to Virginia Heffernan, author of Wired article The Pride and Prejudice of Online Fan Culture, they were similar to male fans of pop artists like Cher or Britney Spears than the modern male fans of science fiction or fantasy media. They evolved from book clubs to a fully-fledged subculture with its own jargon and eccentricities. The Janeites are also credited with the earliest examples of behavior that we associated with online fandoms. Heffernan lists six characteristics of fandom that originated with them. These include speaking of characters as real people, being secretive outside of fan spaces, and merging reality with fiction through hobbies like cosplay and fanfiction. What’s most surprising about this is how closely the Janeites resembled online fandoms when the internet would not be invented for decades. It speaks a lot to the power of community that the Janeites are still around today, still obsessing over the same books as their predecessors over 100 years ago.

There’s an old internet folk tale that claims the first fandom was created by housewives who wanted to bond over their shared love of Star Trek. While that’s not necessarily the case, these Trekkies were still incredibly influential in the world of fandom. Their fanzines were the ancestors of forums and fanfiction websites, where people could share their stories, art, and opinions with each other. When the original Star Trek series was set to be cancelled, these fans used this established network to organize a successful letter campaign for one more season. The creators and showrunners were even aware of these networks and encouraged the enthusiasm of the fans. It was their dedication to their favorite TV show that kept it alive and eventually turned it into the massive media franchise that we know today. A great resource for more information on the first Star Trek fanzines is Joan Marie Verba’s Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan and Zine History, 1967-1987 (2003). As a Trekkie involved in the zine community, Verba established a history of the practice verified by herself and other members of the community. In doing so, she immortalized the names of the women who were involved in this part of fandom history.

The advent of the internet changed fandom in some ways, but in many ways, it stayed the same. The greatest gift of the internet to fandom was accessibility, which allowed more people than ever to connect to a larger community and even discover new fandoms to join. In the 21st century, the relevance of fan subcultures cannot be understated. Many fandoms, particularly of TV shows, have used their collective power to make demands of the creators to varying levels of success. The Trekkies managed this through letter campaigns in the 1960s, but the digital age allowed for new methods of demonstrating fan support. Fans of Firefly, a show that was cancelled before the first and only season fully aired, successfully campaigned for a theatrical movie release. Similarly, the Veronica Mars film was funded through a Kickstarter campaign by fans. Even normal fannish activities like fanart, edits, and fanvids can inadvertently become advertisements for the media they are based on.

Some fans graduate from the subculture into creators of their own and have major influences on their favorite media. When Ed Brubaker, a comic book writer and cartoonist, was hired by Marvel Comics, he took the opportunity to bring back Bucky Barnes, a character that had been killed off when he was a child. That character has now become one of the most consequential characters of a multi-billion-dollar movie franchise. I haven’t even touched on the power of music fandoms, in which fanbases like Directioners and Swifties stand as fascinating pop culture phenomenons. Fan subcultures have evolved greatly and in unpredictable ways since the humble beginnings of book clubs and fanzines.

Sources:

Virginia Heffernan, The Pride and Prejudice of Online Fan Culture (2019). https://www.wired.com/story/the-pride-and-prejudice-of-online-fan-culture/

Joan Marie Verba, Boldly Writing: A Trekker Fan and Zine History, 1967-1987 (2003). https://web.archive.org/web/20160910042451/http:/www.ftlpublications.com/bwebook.pdf