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Television Media Sci-Fi

UK Female Sci-Fi Viewers Now Outnumber Males 440

Posted by Zonk from the better-stories-longer-skirts dept.
mosel-saar-ruwer writes "The UK Telegraph is reporting that, due to the popularity of Buffy, Lara Croft, and Xena, female sci-fi viewers now outnumber males, at 51%-49%. From the article: 'People have an impression of sci-fi fans being small men who sit in the dark watching Star Trek but it's not like that now ... There has been an increase in positive female role models, whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts.'"
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UK Female Sci-Fi Viewers Now Outnumber Males More

UK Female Sci-Fi Viewers Now Outnumber Males

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  • Short Skirts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Valcoramizer ( 812232 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:31PM (#13911605) Journal
    ...And they mention Xena?

    • Re:Short Skirts (Score:5, Insightful)

      by moonbender ( 547943 ) <moonbender@@@gmail...com> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:48PM (#13911712)
      Star Trek isn't just TOS, and neither Xena nor Buffy are sci-fi. That is all.

    • This Just In: (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:17PM (#13911848)
      UK lesbians now outnumber male geeks.

    • Re:Short Skirts (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, as well as appealing to men, and a large lesbian fan base, Xena (like Buffy) represented a move towards female empowerment. The women on the show were able to look good and kick butt :)

      • Re:Short Skirts (Score:2, Informative)

        by Robocoastie ( 777066 )
        add in Charmed and that %'age would probably increase. Then this season there's Threshold which has a female as the lead, Invasion which has several females as main characters of varying ages and Surface which also has a female (super-hot Lake Bell) as the lead.

      • Re:Short Skirts (Score:5, Interesting)

        by arivanov ( 12034 ) on Monday October 31, 2005 @09:04AM (#13914585) Homepage

        Xena is not female empowerment

        Now this is female empowerment in Sci Fi:

        "And just one more thing. On your way back, I'd like you to take the time to learn the Babylon 5 mantra: 'Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And, if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out! Babylon control out. Civilians." [Looks at ceiling.]

        Xena isn't.

        Disclaimer - I am male. I am judging by what my wife likes and what makes her frown in disgust and change the channel.

    • Re:Short Skirts (Score:5, Insightful)

      by donscarletti ( 569232 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:59PM (#13912030)
      I don't get that star trek short skirt stereotype. Granted, I've only really watched TNG and not that much of it either, but I was under the impression that Dr Crusher wears a lab coat over trousers and Counselor Troi wears the ugliest frilly lycra jumpsuit I have ever encountered. I also sure as hell wouldn't want to picture Captain/Admiral Janeway or that even older Admiral I can't remember the name of in tiny miniskirts.

      But as far as I can tell, women seem to like miniskirts at least as much as I do. Especially those tiny denim ones that have been popular for the last two years and I used to love until I saw my sister in one. Think about the popularity of Alley McBeal with female audiences even when the popularity of miniskirts was at an all time low. It seems to be the consensus of most women I know that they would wear miniskirts regularly if they could know that they were safe from their bodies being criticized by other women. Of cause men know not to tease, since if he were to encourage an overweight woman to not wear miniskirts all her friends might be lead by peer pressure and of cause he has to think about the welfare of guys who have a thing for fat chicks.

      However, there is one thing to consider about short skirts. In all societies that men and women both did/do wear skirts, including the Greeks up until a century ago, the ancient Egyptians and the Roman empire, it is/was always the women who wear the long garments and the men who wear the very, very short ones. This is of cause because of practicality since it was expected that a man be active in his day and a woman (at least a wealthy women) should be largely sedentary. Thus, it is obvious in todays times of neo-feminism where women neither aspire to masculinity (faded cargo pants with curry stains) nor conform to the oppressive mold of ancient times that a women wears something that is notably feminine in form but with a four millennium documented track record of practicality.

    • I personally found it odd that they mentioned shows whose main characters are generally thought of as "cute girls" and claimed that as the reason more *women* were watching...

      • Re:Short Skirts (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Bush Pig ( 175019 )
        Why are any of those (extremely crappy, in my view) shows mentioned in the same sentence as Science Fiction. Oh, sure, they're fictional, but I don't see any fucking science.

        I can't be bothered with them, despite the cute chicks. (Disclaimer: I'm not a chick.)

    • Re:Short Skirts (Score:3, Insightful)

      by serutan ( 259622 )
      The whole article is utter drivel, written by someone who not only views Xena and Buffy as science fiction, but apparently hasn't noticed how Xena and Lara Croft dress.

      Side note: Nichelle Nichols was thinking about quitting Star Trek TOS because of conflicts with the studio, but Martin Luther King encouraged her to stay with the show because her role as an officer on a spaceship was setting a good example for young black Americans. Somehow I doubt that he would have felt so strongly if she had been playing

  • I'm an overweight man (Score:5, Funny)

    by geoffrobinson ( 109879 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:31PM (#13911606) Homepage
    who watches sci-fi in well-lit rooms. So much for stereotypes.

    • yet some networks want the stereotypes to stay (Score:4, Informative)

      by thepotoo ( 829391 ) <thepotoospam AT yahoo DOT com> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:50PM (#13911721)
      Anyone ever heard of Firefly?


      Thought so, thanks to their recent bout of slashvertising.

      Joss (IIRC, maybe it was Tim) said that one of the main reasons that Fox axed Firefly was that (and I paraphrase here) the women were "too strong" and the men were "too weak".

      Just a cool little factoid for y'all. I'd bet that Firefly did at at least a little bit to help bring in female viewers (the women I've showed it to think that most of the men are pretty good looking). Haven't watched much Sci-fi apart from that and BSG, but I can safely say that my sister watches BSG solely because she likes Lee Adama.

      • Joss (IIRC, maybe it was Tim) said that one of the main reasons that Fox axed Firefly was that (and I paraphrase here) the women were "too strong" and the men were "too weak".

        You would think Fox would appreciate that Firefly had one of the sexiest casts in any SciFi/Fantasy show-- the women were hot, and being strong made them even hotter. Kaylee, anyone? She's even cuter carrying around those tools. The men were hot (Even according to my feminist woman friends), and darnit, Mal and the Doc had a sensitive side, which made them even HOTTER. It was even (*gasp*) a couples show!

        And gosh, and I even liked the plots and the story of the human diaspora.
      • I heard that it was because Firefly (among other shows) were the "babies" of Fox's Original Programming executives, who found themselves at war with the Reality Show executives. Guess who won? The ousted execs' shows were killed off to ensure that no questions about the oustings were asked.

        True? Who knows, but it's as good a story as any others I've heard.

        • That's probably true. A similar thing happens with movie studios - when the studio head changes, the new head looks very unfavourably on projects that were green-lit by their predecessor. It seems to have nothing to do with the quality of the project, merely that they're showing that they're in charge now. At some studios where the studio head has been changed frequently, this has been a real pain for the people working there - it makes it very hard to plan ahead, and also your career can be curtailed by
    • Doesn't this article just basically say that the same percentage of women as men watch Sci-Fi (IE: there are, generallly, 51% women and 49% men in the world, thus a 51/49 split between male / female fans is pretty normal), or, moreover, that it's become genderistically mainstream (no longer strictly a male demographic)

  • First to defend Gene Roddenberry (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Valacosa ( 863657 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:32PM (#13911609)
    "...all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

    Star Trek would have been much more progressive if Roddenberry wasn't teathered by NBC.

    • Re:First to defend Gene Roddenberry (Score:4, Interesting)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:43PM (#13911688) Homepage Journal
      "Star Trek would have been much more progressive if Roddenberry wasn't teathered by NBC."

      Hehe. I have a book about the artwork done for the various Star Trek series. They designed a short skirt for some of the female staff in STNG. They even suggested that in the future, males could wear them too. There actually is a shot somewhere early in the series with a man wearing one of those skirts. They didn't dwell on it. From reading the book, I got the impression that being gay was something that would be around in the 24th century, but not something anybody particularly cared about. They wanted to indicate that it was there, but not have a big dazzling fireworks show about it. The book was vague enough about it, though, that I don't know that I quite interpreted that correctly. Still, it seems fitting.

      • RE: short skirts (Score:5, Funny)

        by Tezkah ( 771144 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:51PM (#13911727)
        They designed a short skirt for some of the female staff in STNG. They even suggested that in the future, males could wear them too.

        Interesting, is that where Futurama gets Zap Brannigan's short short skirt from?
      • I don't quite see how "wearing a skirt" equates with "being gay". Just as one example, plenty of Scots men wore kilts back in the day. Some still do. I doubt they were all gay.
      • Hehe. I have a book about the artwork done for the various Star Trek series. They designed a short skirt for some of the female staff in STNG. They even suggested that in the future, males could wear them too. There actually is a shot somewhere early in the series with a man wearing one of those skirts.

        I think I vaguely recall that the guy wearing the skirt thing was in one of the background shots in the STNG pilot and then never seen again. But as I said, it's a vague memory.

        • There is a shot -- I think during the crowd-in-corridor shots before the saucer sep in "Encounter at Farpoint" with at least one male in a skirt uniform. The Series Bible they sent me when they invited me in to pitch mentioned this. (Even though I was invited in to pitch somewhere around the 3rd or 4th season, the Series Bible hadn't changed and still had a LOT of stuff from the original ideas that were dropped.) There was a reference to the fact that men and women would be wearing skirt uniforms and tha

      • Re:First to defend Gene Roddenberry (Score:5, Informative)

        by nmb3000 ( 741169 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:08PM (#13911815) Journal
        There actually is a shot somewhere early in the series with a man wearing one of those skirts.

        You can see it here [nyud.net].

        Yeah, I think I'm glad they dumped those. What's too bad is they never refer to them later in the series. Why not take a jab at themselves for a laugh? For example when Riker makes a comment to Picard about how he hates the dress uniform, Picard could reply that, "at least he didn't have to wear those awful skirts."

      • Re:First to defend Gene Roddenberry (Score:5, Funny)

        by geminidomino ( 614729 ) * on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:57PM (#13912024) Journal
        It actually did come up in a TNG episode.

        Worf: Why do we have to wear these ridiculous uniforms?
        Riker: It's a formal reception for Admiral Foobar.
        Worf: [mutter] They look like dresses...
        Riker: That's an incredibly outmoded and sexist thing to say! [beat] Besides, you look good in a dress.
        Worf: [Klingon Stare-o-death]

    • Re:First to defend Gene Roddenberry (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hunterx11 ( 778171 ) <hunterx11@NOSpAm.gmail.com> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:28PM (#13911901) Homepage Journal
      Roddenberry originally wanted half of the crew to be female, but NBC said he couldn't do that because it would make it look like "there's a lot of fooling around going on up there." They said he could do one-third women, which he justified by saying, "Well hell, one-third healthy, young women ought to be enough."

  • whoa... (Score:3, Funny)

    by xao gypsie ( 641755 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:32PM (#13911611)
    it's chilly here in Hell.

  • Xena & skirts (Score:4, Insightful)

    by toetagger1 ( 795806 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:32PM (#13911614)
    "...in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."
    And I'm sure Xena is the best example to illustrate how this has changed! Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining!

  • Sweet (Score:3, Funny)

    by Gumpmaster ( 756851 ) <.moc.oohay. .ta. .dliwenogeihcir.> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:32PM (#13911616)
    There's still a chance for me!!!

  • Hmmmm, United Kingdom they say... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Traegorn ( 856071 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:33PM (#13911624) Homepage Journal
    *buys first available plane ticket to England*

  • Ahh.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by irc.goatse.cx troll ( 593289 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:33PM (#13911625) Journal
    Thats a good way to widen your audience -- Just misclassify things as SciFi.

    Laura Croft is no more SciFi than Indiana Jones -- Its adventure.
    Buffy/Xena is Mytho. No Science involved at all, just adjusted beliefs leading to an alternate reality.

    • Re:Ahh.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Xzzy ( 111297 )
      > Just misclassify things as SciFi.

      While this may be true for the shows offered as evidence, it doesn't mean the point being made is wrong. To me it just seems like the article is misattributing what is causing the rise in female viewership.

      In some interview on the Firefly DVD set, there were comments made that Fox had concerns that they weren't getting reactions from the audiences they wanted. They said they got a "much bigger" reaction from female viewers than they did male ones.

      Though Firefly is only

      • Re:Ahh.. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fireboy1919 ( 257783 ) <(rustyp) (at) (freeshell.org)> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:33PM (#13911921) Homepage Journal
        Firefly is only barely science fiction

        Yeah...and the pope's only barely Catholic. Microsoft's only a little power hungry.

        They've got a consistent mechanism powering the ships (spinning matter/energy converter things). They've got a complete future history that includes the mixing of all peoples (so that everyone now speaks the two widest used languages- Chinese and English), colonization of another galaxy, and a civil war. Then they deal with the results of this - including the law of supply and demand, and variations in society.

        Heck, they even went so far as to explain (**MINOR SPOILER WARNING***) which part of the brain the people who experimented with River used to do it, and why.

        If this isn't Sci-Fi, then what is? You don't have to explain things using the particle-of-the-week (like Star Trek: TNG) just for it to be Sci-Fi.

        In all seriousness, I think you've hit upon the root of the problem. Its sort of hard to classify Sci-Fi because it means different things to different people.

        I would personally consider Firefly/Serenity to be pure, uncut, and mainstream Sci-Fi. I'd go so far as to say that you could use it as an paragon example when someone asks "What is Sci-Fi?"

        But I guess that's just me.

        • Re:Ahh.. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:49PM (#13911993) Homepage Journal
          FireFly is more Sci-Fi than StarTrek as Joss Whedon decided he didn't need to throw out Einstein (there's no faster than light travel) and he didn't need to speculate about aliens (as if it is possible to ever realistically present alien life).

          So when you see Captain Kirk go down to random-planet-X-that-always-looks-like-a-californi a-backlot think about how far we've progressed in Sci-Fi by taking the fantasy out of the show, not putting more in.

          • Re:Ahh.. (Score:3, Insightful)

            by fireboy1919 ( 257783 )
            decided he didn't need to throw out Einstein

            This is not a good comparison. Star Trek has an explaination for most of their phenomena in a way that fits in with current theory, and this is no exception. Its just that they'd never try to explain modern space-time theory in a 1-hour long episode that also has to have a plot.

            But why don't we do it here? Warp drives are called that because they warp space by changing the mass of the ship. Generally speaking, the idea is that the distance between two points i
    • Buffy/Xena is Mytho. No Science involved at all, just adjusted beliefs leading to an alternate reality.

      C'mon... What about Warren's girlfriend-bots?

    • Depends on the classification (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:25PM (#13911885) Homepage Journal
      Buffy and Xena do borrow from mythology, but neither is true to established mythology. Most of the monsters on Buffy were invented for the show, and Xena considers mythological characters (and also historical characters, such as Julius Caesar) to be outlines they can impose their own stories on, without being at all faithful to the originals. (Note that Xena is on a first-name basis with both Julius Caesar and Helen of Troy. Helen was probably not a real person, but the Siege of Troy did happen — at least a thousand years before Caesar was born.) Both Buffy and Xena are more fantasy than mythology.

      Lara Croft and Indiana Jones also rate as fantasy, since their backstories have only token connections to the real world.

      Now, here's the thing: most people don't distinguish between fantasy and science fiction. It may be obvious to you and me that, say, Buffy and Star Trek are different genres. That's because we see vampires as purely imaginary, and interstellar travel as something that could happen someday. But to most people, one is not "more real" than the other, either because they're very credulous about vampires, or they're very skeptical about starships.

      The problem here is that most people who read or watch (or even write) fantasy and SF just don't give a shit about what's scientifically possible and what's not. They just want to escape from reality for a while. Vampires and spaceships, magic and time travel — it's all the same to them. And to someone like that, any precise definition of what's SF and what's not is boring, dweebish nitpicking.

    • Re:Ahh.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AJWM ( 19027 )
      I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Stargate SG-1, which certainly is sci-fi, and Captain/Major/Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter is not only a babe who can kick butt, she's smart. No miniskirts or skintight body suits, either (more's the pity ;-).

  • i need clarification (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:36PM (#13911648)
    do they outnumber the men in mass or in numbers?

    -Sj53
  • Buffy and Xena are sci-fi? At least Tomb Raider had robots! Hehe.

    My girlfriend isn't too interested in sci-fi. She doesn't hate it, just bores her. She did get into Red Dwarf and Hitchhiker's Guide, though. Comedy aside, I think she liked seeing characters react more than plots about investigating whispy wibbly warbly things in space. I think the main difference between men and women in this field is that the guys tend to be more interested in the technical stuff (what guy wouldn't want to pilot a Vip

  • Except (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:36PM (#13911653) Homepage
    that Star Trek is actual science fiction.

    The others aren't.

    • Re:Except (Score:5, Informative)

      by fyngyrz ( 762201 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:12PM (#13911831) Homepage Journal
      Star Trek is actual science fiction.

      Technically, Star Trek was fantasy. This is because the plot line contains multiple elements of plot-critical fantasy, on purpose — viewers spent years pointing out that the Enterprise would not "whoosh" as it went by a viewpoint in space, that there is no science behind warp drive, that there are no nerve pathways in the neck that would allow Spock to drop humans (not to mention aliens) right and left, and so on.

      Frankly, I can think of very few honest SF efforts on either video or film. It seems that as soon as Hollywood gets involved, the whole concept of SF flies right out the window. On fairy wings, no less.

      It's that whole science thing. Of course, this is a nation that apparently wants to put "Intelligent Design" into our schools and is led by an extremely superstitious man, so the surprise level is pretty low here. As a nation, we're not very aware of what science is, much less being able to discern what extrapolation from current science might be reasonably considered legitimate.

  • That's not Sci-Fi (Score:5, Insightful)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:37PM (#13911657) Journal
    Since when does Buffy, Lara Croft, or Xena count as Sci-Fi? It's "FIction" of course, but I don't see any SCIence in any of them.

    • Re:That's not Sci-Fi (Score:5, Funny)

      by iapetus ( 24050 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:57PM (#13911758) Homepage
      Meh. Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science, so it works out the same anyway...
    • Shhhhh! Stop saying that. If we let them believe that stuff is SciFi, then we are that much closer to the all-girl SciFi convention I fantasize about every night.
      • If we let them believe that stuff is SciFi, then we are that much closer to the all-girl SciFi convention I fantasize about every night.

        Unless you're female, you wouldn't be able to get in.

        And if that's true, unless you're lesbian or bisexual, why would you care?

        And if you're female and bisexual, what are you doing next weekend? :o)

  • Really? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Doomedsnowball ( 921841 ) <doomedsnowballs@yahoo.com> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:38PM (#13911661)
    Are you sure?
    Maybe they just "say" they are women.
    Maybe they really are aliens in short skirts!

    *runs and hides*

  • I'll be glad to see the old stereotypes go. (Score:5, Funny)

    by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:39PM (#13911665)
    It's nice to see that people are finally realizing that all the old sci-fi fan stereotypes aren't really accurate. I, for one, am a mature, emotionally well-developed thirty-four year old male with a life and I-

    -hold on, Mom wants me to clean out my room in the basement. Be right back.

  • People have an impression of sci-fi fans being small men who sit in the dark watching Star Trek but it's not like that now

    So, what they're saying is that sci-fi fans are now small men who sit in the dark watching Star Trek, and women. Nice. The men still suck, according to the article, but now they're accompanied by women, who may or may not suck.

  • Trek women (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wumpus ( 9548 ) <IAmWumpus&gmail,com> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:42PM (#13911680)
    "whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

    Or were starship captains for a full 7 season run. At least give them points for trying, OK?

  • ahem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xpatiate ( 111717 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:43PM (#13911686) Homepage
    speaking as a female sci-fi fan, I feel the need to point out that women can be aliens *and* wear short skirts *and* be positive role models, all at the same time.

    Linking the increase in women viewers to shows being more 'character-led' might seem like a stereotypical generalisation but it rings true for me. The sci-fi I've always been most into is the kind that uses speculative, imaginary environments to explore big ideas and hopefully arrive at some interesting truths about human personalities... rather than the car-chases-in-outer-space kind.

  • Freedom (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:45PM (#13911695) Homepage Journal
    Uhura [humanlanguages.com]: black, female before a 1964 audience... a receptionist, sure, but never got anyone coffee.
    • She did answer the phone rather a lot though.

      It was probably all they could swallow in 1964...

      Remember that the first officer in the pilot was female, but they changed it for the series because of audience reaction.

  • Scientists... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:46PM (#13911697)
    Studies show that British women watch more sci-fi than British men do. The key reasons the researches found for this were that British men are less entertaining than sci-fi and that British women aren't worth taking out on a Friday night, anyhow.

  • Money? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Cave_Monster ( 918103 )
    I'm only speculating since I'm not from the UK, but is this article an indication that perhaps the Sci-Fi channel was heading downhill with respect to other channels and not generating the necessary revenue? To combat this, the management has decided to broadcast a few popular shows, that while don't fall under the category of Sci-Fi, cause people to pay for the channel because they would like to watch those shows?

  • I'm not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:51PM (#13911726) Homepage
    The last (and so far, first time) I went to Comic-Con was this summer of 2005, and I was surprised by how many women were there. And not just the classical "geek girl" (bad haircut, bad acne, overweight, etc, etc, etc), but how many smart, excited, interesting, and - to display an unfortunate level of sexism perhaps - cute geek girls there were running booths, going to events, buying things, and the like. There were whole sections that seemed to be made just for women. Not in a "ooo - pink!" kind of way or trashy romance, but stories that appeal to more than guys looking for giant breasts, but stories about relationships, or the infamous yaoi booths.

    But girl geekhood is not just regulated to "romance". One lady I went with drooled with me over the Terminator 2 arm replica, and this was a woman that most slashdotters would not pick out as the "geek" of a group of similiar attractive women.

    Personally, I think it's a great thing. Not just because it increases the chances of future geeks to breed and multiply, but it gives an extra dimension to geek hood. Sure, Star Trek was good, but once the sexes became more equal and women could wear more than short skirts, it got better. I've never liked my heroines with just big giggly breasts and chain mail bikinis. With more geek girls, we still have the stereotypes, but I've been seeing deeper and more interesting stories in my geek world. I wonder how well "Serenity" and "Buffy" would have been if Mr. Whedon hadn't tapped into both the male and female side of geekhood. It's been easier to show my wife good geek stuff (like "Battlestar Gallactica") as it looks to include the sexes instead of pretend one doesn't exist.

    So, welcome to our new female geek overlords! While I love my wife dearly, I do wish you ladies had been in greater numbers a decade ago - but at least now I have hope for my two boys, and most importantly, my lovely little geek daughter - because now she can play in my world too.

  • Immigration to UK Website ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cpu_fusion ( 705735 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @07:55PM (#13911745)
    Immigration to UK website soon to be slashdotted.

  • Its True! (Score:4, Informative)

    by wizzdude ( 755000 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:03PM (#13911786)
    I recently started uni and from what I have seen here, girls are far more into sci-fi and fantasy than boys. I've even got two girls who regularly come to watch SG1 with me and another who is lending me her Firefly boxset in exchange for my BSG.

    Good ol' blighty.

  • socially challenged geeks = early adopters (Score:3, Interesting)

    by spoogle ( 874602 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:08PM (#13911811)
    Sometimes nasty things come up out of your past and bite you. Those embarassing messages you posted 15 years ago to alt.sex.bdsm, for example. Or the terrible songs you used to listen to 15 years ago while posting to alt.sex.bdsm, for some reason put onto your ipod, and which pop up in random shuffle only when you are having really hoopy froods to tea.

    There is an awful song by Kate Bush (lyrics here) [gaffa.org] about socially challenged geeks spending late nights with their computers. Now, of course, everybody spends late nights with their computers, logged on to chat rooms and sending email.

    Likewise, the socially challenged geeks used to be the only ones who watched scifi. And now everyone does.

    What next...?

  • Drama? (Score:2, Informative)

    by bariumLanthanide ( 816960 )
    Has anyone else also noticed the increase in personal drama and more plots that are focused on emotion and intra-crew arguments in all of the current so-called "Science"-fiction TV shows?

    Most of them are like soap operas now, perhaps there is a relationship...
  • 49% of the sci-fi viewership *still* has trouble getting a date.

  • Voyager? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anubis350 ( 772791 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:14PM (#13911838)
    "whereas in Star Trek, all the women were either aliens or wore short skirts."

    Captain Janeway? Say what you want, that character had more balls than Kirk, Picard, and Archer put together!

    And I really don't think she wouldve allowed herself to be caught dead in a mini-skirt (though since I havent seen every episode of voyager I could be wrong on that one).

  • I can't believe... (Score:5, Informative)

    by PFritz21 ( 766949 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:15PM (#13911843) Homepage Journal
    ...that anyone hasn't mentioned http://www.sg1archive.com/bios/at.shtml [sg1archive.com]USAF Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, Ph. D.
  • Explains why I cant find a like-minded women, as there all watching TV.

    Can see it now, multi-millionare geeks advertising singles AD's on the SCIFI channel, and i thought the Crazy frog was bad enough.

  • I for one (Score:3, Funny)

    by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:20PM (#13911862) Homepage Journal
    I for one welcome our British, sci-fi watching, FEMALE overlords. Really, really welcome them :-)

    My first girlfriend was a sci-fi and fan-fiction fanatic, which turned out to be the basis of our relationship. Don't base your relationship on Star Trek, it gets cancelled too much. :-)

    [yes, I'm exagerating, slightly]

  • SciFi? Not really. Maybe speculative fiction... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ericr ( 89741 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:23PM (#13911877) Homepage
    Uh, Buffy isn't scifi. At best it's fantasy. Xena? Same thing, although I suppose you could call Xena something like "historical dramatic fiction", if you really want to stretch the definition. Lara Croft? Fantasy. See, the problem with too many writers, networks, producers, et al, is that they don't understand the if you want to call something scifi, it needs have some SCIENCE in it. Even 2001 went from scifi to fantasy about halfway through.

    Sure, I'm being pedantic and purist. But it does keep Harlan Ellison from trying to kill me...

  • Answer could be... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by salesgeek ( 263995 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:27PM (#13911891) Homepage
    Most modern science fiction TV shows have much more deeper characters, more sophisticated intercharacter relationships and often have plot arcs that last more than 60 minutes. It also helps that 90% of everything else is recycled and rehashed.

  • Another measure of equality? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Safe Sex Goddess ( 910415 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:29PM (#13911906) Homepage Journal
    Wow, who would have thought having strong women roles would make women more interested in those shows?

    We still have a long way to go to reach equality. I know some of you may disagree...but I've recently decided that a purely scientific measure of gender equality can be attained through clothing. Now if only some social scientist would work out the scale and do the research. Following is an example of what I mean.

    What is your reaction to seeing a man in clothing traditionally reserved for women, such as a skirt? If it illicits no different a reaction, apart from sexual attraction, than seeing a woman in pants then that's when you'll know you have achieved true equality.

    When women are viewed as having equal power with men, then women's clothing will carry the same status as men's clothing for any gender.

  • I didn't realize that Xena, Buffy, or Laura Croft were science fiction?

  • /.ers that go to sci-fi cons now have a 2% better chance of getting laid by an actual earth girl! Wooohooo!
  • Cos if Lara, Xena and Buffy are scifi then I am not a scifi fan.

  • Blasphemy! (Score:5, Funny)

    by RyoShin ( 610051 ) <tukaro@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Sunday October 30, 2005 @08:47PM (#13911981) Homepage Journal
    Are you implying that there's something wrong with short skirts?

  • these are role models? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dlasley ( 221447 ) on Sunday October 30, 2005 @09:05PM (#13912055) Homepage
    Buffy?
    Xena?
    Lara Croft?
    Ok, I'll grant a weak maybe on Lara Croft, but the first two as role models, nope sorry. Plus, as many have pointed out, none of the three are really scifi!

    How about these instead:
    Samantha Carter [imdb.com]
    Aeryn Sun [imdb.com]
    (I will grant that Claudia Black did guest on Xena once, but her integral role in Farscape should far and away excuse that transgression)

    What we really need are more good role models in every genre, not just scifi, but that will get me on an offtopic rant ...

    John Crichton: That's my underwear!
    Aeryn Sun: What does this say?
    John Crichton: Calvin.
    Aeryn Sun: Well, they're not yours ...

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