A question for readers of Chunga

[randy_byers]

So why does Chunga get so few letters of comment from women? Almost none, in fact. Is there something ineluctably masculine about our enterprise? Please advise.

Comments

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Cos the women are too busy in the kitchen, natch.

:-P

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Or busy watching naff cooking shows anyway.

[wrdnrd]

That's an interesting question! Hmm, do you have an idea of what your m/f ratio is in readership? Do you simply have more dudes reading than ladies?

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That's a good question. I should do a count at some point. (Or have Mark Plummer do it, since he's so good at things like that.) I'm willing to say before counting, however, that the mailing list gender ratio is certainly more even than the LOC ratio. For example, of the 21 responses we've received so far on our latest issue, only one is from a woman. Our mailing list isn't *that* male-centric! (Hm, is there an article that could be composed under the title "Male Mail"? Or wait, maybe it should be "The Female Mail", thus making it a Joanna Russ reference too.)

Okay, time to watch Kiki now.

[wrdnrd]

Another interesting question is: What's the m/f ratio of SF fanzine fandom in general? You might have a sense of that from running Corflu last year.

For example. My corner of the zine world is heavily female because i'm largely interested in perzines. Most of the orders i've gotten for Cipher have been from women (or, to be excruciatingly accurate, from people i get the sense are women from names, handwriting, et cetera). I don't think this necessarily means Cipher doesn't/wouldn't appeal to men -- i think it means in general my natural audience is composed of other perzine writers, and they're predominantly women. Tho' overall, however, i think that the zine world is probably close to a 50/50 gender balance, based upon visual analyses at the Portland Zine Symposium every year.

Enjoy "Kiki"!! The conversations between Kiki and the artist she meets in the woods (named Ursula, tho' i'm not sure it's ever mentioned in the English subtitles) are really interesting for those of us who work on creative endeavors.

[kim-huett.livejournal.com]

This is not a useful question given the lack of context. For all I know there are only three women on the Chunga mailing list so if you receive a loc from one of the three every other issue you're actually doing quite well. At the very least you need to tell us how large your mailing list is and how many of them are women for us to have any chance of responding in a useful manner.

Here, I'll show you how it's done. According to some work I did on Banana Wings #22 to #30 there were letters published in those issues by 100 different writers. Of these 27 are definitely female and the rest definitely male (I don't think there's anybody on the list I'm whose sex I'm usure of). So that gives you at least some idea of their ratio of response. Of course to be more accurate I could count up the number of published letters by each sex but that sounds like rather a lot of work so if you're really interested I'll email you the spreadsheet instead. Even that isn't completely accurate because the information is taken from my index which doesn't letter writers who were noted but not quoted. None the less knowing BW had a 75/25 ratio of male to female respondents is a useful start.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

See my reply to wrdnrd above for a partial answer. I'll try to do a more thorough count at some point for better data.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I've been doing my best to keep the number of male LoCers smaller, but One Of These Days I'm sure to break down and write a LoC. *sigh*

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Well, I certainly don't mean to discourage anybody from writing a LOC based on their gender or anything else! But I don't write as many LOCs as I think I should either, so I know how you feel. Sometimes it's just the right thing to do.

[spikeiowa.livejournal.com]

Well, to be honest, the lettercol is the last part of a fanzine that I read, and I tend to skip it or lose steam long before reading through it. Coupla reasons for that, but I wonder if I'm the only one.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

But could it be that you lose interest because it's just a bunch of men yammering away, so it becomes a feedback loop? But for that matter, there's no reason you have to read the letters in order to write a letter of comment on the articles. Unless what you're saying is that the very concept of a letter of comment is uninteresting to you.

[spikeiowa.livejournal.com]

"...a bunch of men yammering away.." Yeah, that's part of it. It only takes one comment from an idiot to drive me off if I am reading the lettercol. There's also the "quiz" aspect. Do I remember last ish sufficiently to comprehend the letter, am I willing to haul it out and embark on a reread to ascertain that yes, this person is an idiot. A third reason not to read would be Guilt, that I haven't sent a letter. I should write locs. These days, almost everyone posts their zines to the internet. What used to be egoboo, for me now feels like an invasion of my privacy. Are you still posting the zine with the letter-writers' home addresses and email addresses? I can hear carl laughing at me now...

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

That's true. At this point probably the only fanzine it's safe for you to LOC (from your perspective) is Banana Wings. But you know, carl laughs at me all the time. You get used to it.

[spikeiowa.livejournal.com]

Meant to ask: why the interest in locs and gender? From your perspective, do the locs represent more feedback (dare I say "appreciation") from readers? Are you keen to have more content, content that lends itself to conversation with readers? What is the use/value of locs to you? Honestly curious.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yes, we love getting locs from our readers. It's good to get appreciation, but I've come to see it as another way for people to contribute to the zine. Locs don't even have to comment on the content of the zine. They can be mini-articles in themselves. It's part of the way that a zine becomes a kind of community within the community. It's another place where people can express themselves and have a voice.

As for the gender of loccers, it's something that I've gradually become aware of and curious about. That is, the fact that most of our loccers are male. It makes me wonder if women are subtly (or even unsubtly) discouraged from participating, or if they just aren't interested in that kind of forum.

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

I have pondered this question about Banana Wings too. (See #32, about 2½ years ago.) I looked at other contributions as well, compared to the gender ratio of our mailing list. I think in response everyone told me that it doesn't matter, that they're never bothered about the gender of people writing things they enjoy, and that I should run along and not bother my pretty little head about it.

What interests me is that it's then Mark you pinpoint as being good at this sort of thing. He has written about the gender ratio of con attendees, a bit more recently than I wrote about correspondents. But, well...

I have vague theories about fans who have time and why that is; I think age may be a factor along with gender here. But I haven't done further research to explore that one, and it could just be my increasing resentment of those who've been able to retire already.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Now that you mention it, it all comes flooding back to me, and I see I was channeling your past comments while attributing them to Mark. Oh dear, oh dear. Nothing like being hoist on one's own cognitive biases while writing about that very topic. Well, my apologies for looking right past you.

I've wondered whether the maleness of lettercols had to do with where women feel comfortable "taking the stage," as it were, but I'm not really getting anywhere with the theory. It has seemed to me that discussion lists such as trufen and fmzfen are dominated by men, whereas I didn't really notice it on Usenet groups like rasseff. I've thought LiveJournal was more comfortable for women because it gives you a room of your own -- that is, your own personal journal -- where you can voice your thoughts without having to compete with blowhards alpha males for attention.

The age factor is an interesting consideration, and I wonder whether the fannish old boy's network connects with that. Maybe trufen!group and fanzine lettercols are simply dominated by the traditional old guard?