Misogyny in Fan Culture?

Lately, it seems that more and more women have been speaking out about their experiences in fan culture. Does misogyny exist in fan culture? Or is this another excuse to complain?

By Caitlin Baker | @c8linbaker

Pictures by Drew Bexon and Joel Newton Brown

Yes, misogyny does exist in fan culture.

It's one of the more acceptable ways of getting away with misogyny, because no one questions it, right?

"Ugh those Taylor Swift fans, how crazy and weird."

"Obsessed and emotional."

"Literally no one needs to go to her concert several times."

You might not think this sounds like misogyny. Ok, compare it to this.

"I've been to several games this year, even went to one then watched it when I got home."

"I cried when we lost that game."

"He's not aggressive, it's just the passion of the game."

Can you see my point? The way you speak about fan girls is not ok.

Urban Dictionary is a site that lets individuals upload definitions of popular used terms: 'slang'. It allows us to see generalisations of certain terms, essentially what the majority thinks. The website states the definition of a fan girl is 'A fan of something (female) who is obsessed with the said subject to a certain degree (normally unhealthy).' Yet it states that a fan boy is, 'An extreme fan or follower of a particular medium or concept, whether it be sports, television, film directors, video games.'

Isn't it funny how the boys definition doesn't include the word unhealthy?

A question I've been asking myself as of late is: "Why is there a different language used for fan girls and fan boys?"

To answer this I spoke to Leora Hadas, who is a researcher and teacher at the University of Nottingham, Department of Cultural Media and Visual Studies. She is the ideal expert: "I have a background in fan studies and fan cultures, especially online fandoms" she tells me.

"When you write in the paper 'this girl said that she would do this because of one direction', it sounds dramatic and for me they've just dramatised the whole thing. I think it's incredibly unethical." - Louis Tomlinson

"There is this assumption that the fan girl is one thing, a screaming, horny, sixteen year old and whereas the football fan he can be a man, old, young, he can be whatever he wants really...the assumption is that you can be a fan without being a fan boy if you're a man, whereas if you're a fan and you're a woman there isn't a fan woman you're just a girl."

With this in mind does that mean generalisations are our enemy? Without generalisations and stereotypes would we be in this current position?

"It is obviously a stereotype, the idea of...what the fan girl is: she's young, she's white, semi attractive sixteen year old girl who's very very into stuff and specifically into men maybe characters or musicians, she's loud, she's high pitched, she's screaming, she's squealing, she's bubbly, and she's nuts right?"

"She's got her body pillow and she throws her - insert item of clothing here - at the star and yell 'DO ME'...it's a derogatory stereotype of this very silly young woman and it's a derogatory stereotype that has a long history and the notion of a silly young woman is a very old notion you know we'd be going back to Liszt the classical musician, he had Liszt girls that's all the way back to the 19th, 18th century. Oscar Wilde, there was this Wilde mania around him so you can go quite a long time back."

Generalisations and stereotypes have lead us over time to the devaluation of women's interests. We don't get taken seriously, any interest we have is a joke to all of you. Take music for example, how could we as women possibly be interested in music?

"Name me 5 songs or you're not a real fan."

"But do you know exactly how many streams their first single got?"

"I bet you haven't heard of this song", 'proceeds to name one of their most popular songs'.

Honestly, I forgot for a second that women can't actually like music, no no we don't like music, we want to see him because we think he's attractive, we were never here for the music.

Obviously we don't know the answers to these questions, it's not like we have a deep interest in this musician and relate to the music, no, we all collectively like him because he's hot.

Women funnily enough can have interests without fawning over a man, but this leads me to ask why is there such a demand to devalue our interests? Is it because we express our emotions so openly and men don't like that?

Dr Hadas explains, "I think there is a level in which it does sit upon the idea of women expressing their emotions in an open way is cringy...it's too much because it's the taking up of space, you know when you're expressing your emotions loudly and explicitly and passionately you're taking up space that you know for men taking up that kind of space is considered well, normal you know the football fans that go out onto the street whether they're breaking windows or getting hella drunk and painting the whole city in the colours of their team or whatever it's taking up space."

"That is considered legit whereas when women take up space in that same fashion lining up the street and screaming it leads to resentment like how dare they be so vocal and open about it?"

I don't want to make it seem like women can't be attracted to the men they support in bands, football teams, tv shows etc. It's just not the main focus. We need to be able to have interests without you assuming I'm only a fan because there's an attractive man.

We need to be able to express our sexuality freely without you making a fuss, "another thing that's important here is sexuality...so much of the cringe aspect of the fan girl is her open and announced sexual attraction to this unattainable figure, and again that's something that men do all the time. You go into any comic shop you see all the covers and you go 'half of this is softcore porn', so the expression of male sexuality in the public space, heterosexual male sexuality, is conventional it's...normalised but...the women who are so loudly saying I would like to bang...maybe Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, it's like 'oh no loose female sexuality in a public space whatever shall we do' because it's...impinging upon a male privilege."

While my focus has been - throughout personal experience - on sexism within music fan girls, misogyny is directed at women no matter what they're a fan of. In a survey by Her Game Too, 371 female football fans were surveyed, with 91.9 per cent saying they had seen online abuse being directed at other women, while 63.1 per cent said they had been abused online themselves.

Women are seen as less than men everywhere we go. However this perception is not related to reality, we have never been and never will be less than men. We have had an impact on pop culture that men would rather not educate themselves on, and why is that?

It's because women are not as small as we are made out to be, but the truth is we are some of the founding fathers of pop culture,

"Women invented pop music, women invented science fiction. You go back and really look at the history, it's actually pretty funny when people are saying 'oh what are women doing here they weren't here to begin with' no, literally women created so many of the institutions that you are building yourself on so please maybe learn your history before you view women in fandom as an alien thing."

Women have been here from the beginning, and to deny that fact makes you look foolish. To deny that a women could possibly have the same interests as you and then proceed to make misogynistic comments makes you look twice as foolish.

I will let Dr Hadas conclude, "There's this lack of understanding to what degree women were creators, producers who created so much of what we think about today as popular culture, music, film, etc. and I really do wish that the men who say 'oh you're not a real Star Wars fan' knew about knew who edited the original Star Wars."

Want more content? Be sure to check out this TV segment where I ask six individuals their opinions on if misogyny exists in fan culture.