Really, people? Really?

[meridian_rose]

Young girl bullied for liking Star Wars. Story at Star Wars Blog; also Go to Geek Girls, ACTIVATE!! has the details and you can leave a comment in support of Katie. If you tweet, add the hashtag: #MayTheForceBeWithKatie to show love for girls loving scifi.

Is it me or is bullying starting earlier than ever? And to be bullied for liking something that's "for boys" so a girl feels she has to conform by getting a pink water bottle rather than one from her favourite fandom - just makes me rage.

Comments

[meridian_rose]

Yes, at least that's something good to come out of this, so many people supporting her by saying they are fans too! Because I was raised in a household that loved scifi I had no idea this was not a "normal" thing for people generally or girls in particular; even now in fandom I meet many more females than males so I find it odd that people still imagine Star Wars or any other scifi or fantasy is somehow "for boys/men".

[ale-rambles.livejournal.com]

I actually grew up in a culture that didn't understand scifi much, but it was certainly Not-for Girls! XD

So I grew up watching Boy-Shows and never even met another girl who liked any kind of scifi until I was about 20something and joined a fanclub (A Trek club to be exact, but that was before internet fandoming ROFL).

I was still the only girl into Star Trek, for example, but the Star Wars club had a pretty equal amount of boys and girls (and we were not enemies, in fact, we did a lot of scifi events together :P)

[meridian_rose]

Life before the internet! However did we manage :D
I'm so glad you found other fans to connect with!

[16beckyb.livejournal.com]

Women have been active in science fiction fandoms for years.

The Star Trek fandom brought back a cancelled TV series from the 60's - they kept it alive, they arranged conventions, they wrote fan fics. Finally their pressure brought the show back for 9 movies (another one in the works) and 3 more television series.

What does this have to do with anything? The ST fandom, despite the stereotype that has been generated over the years, was completely dominated by women.

[meridian_rose]

Exactly! And yet the myth persists that scifi is for boys or that girls will only watch if there's more romance than action - or that men won't watch it if it's appealing to women! In RL it's harder to find women who watch anything other than soap operas and reality tv but in fandom generally it's easy to find other women to connect with.