alias_sqbr

I have to agree with you. As a ficcer, and one who's witness a number of ham-fisted attempts by TPTB to stop fanworks, I love and support OTW for the archive and history project's sakes. But, at the same time, I have serious reservations about the way they're approaching the gender issue. It doesn't help that the fandom where I'm currently most active - comics - is dominated by men, and that the commentary I read is written by women who are analysing the ways comicdom intentionally and unintentionally excludes women.

In fandoms where women are the majority group, and, indeed, fandom as a whole, I don’t think we should be turning around and doing exactly the sorts of things we’ve been lambasting men in male dominated fandoms (or, for that matter, in larger society) for doing. I can’t even being to imagine the kind of uproar that would occur if, say, Dan Didio (head of DC Comics) said that he valued comic fandom as a predominantly male space, because it would tantamount to him telling all his female readers to take a hike. There seems to be a nasty undercurrent of ‘let’s see how you men like being the minority’ in the OTW support base. It’s hypocritical at best.

I'd be really interested to see where and when most of the board came into fandom, because I think that has a strong bearing on how aware they are of the true gender spectrum of fandom. A couple of them seem to be straight out of Harry Potter, and that's a 99% female fandom. Do we have any trekkies? Any anime-nuts? Much higher female/male ratio in those two. Any vidders? Artists? Modders? Traditionally, you'll find more men producing those sorts of works.