Why are so many remaining (older) monster fans men? in Monster Kid Memories Forum

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Why are so many remaining (older) monster fans men?

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cosmicjim	Why are so many remaining (older) monster fans men?	Lead	[-]
Feb 27 12 7:32 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	That is, when I look at past issues of FM, CoF, etc., during the big monster 'boom' years there were many young women who wrote letters, sent photos, drew cartoons, etc. I realize there are very many younger women now who are fans, but what about that earlier generation? Even recall firsthand knowing some fans (in the very early '70s) who were girls of the same age...are they still out there and interested in this stuff, too? Or have they passed on into other realms?
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Hausenfan		#1	[-]
Feb 28 12 9:45 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Maybe it's because the girls of the 70's are now moms, and they tend to be more involved in their children's lives, thus sheltering them from monsters. While the dads can wallow in their horror in their man-caves.
cosmicjim		#2	[-]
Feb 28 12 6:09 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	that makes sense. back then i'm guessing possibly more than 10% of the responding fans were girls and women. younger women today are definitely involved, but not that earlier generation, anymore.
bipolarber		#3	[-]
Mar 2 12 11:24 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Back in the day, Men were the bread winners, and often controlled the bank accounts... so the whole scociety was geared more toward attracting their attention, and their money. So... more war movies, westerns and science fiction/horror. Thus, more fandom growing up around the targeted product. Besides, girls back then were expected to become home makers, wives, and mothers... They have boards that cater to their fandom of "Mystery Date", Barbie, and other such toys and products that targeted them. It still hangs on, even today. Try strolling down the "pink asile" of a Toy's R' Us sometime, and try to tell yourself that we've erased gender based marketing... yeah, right! "[The audiance] will populate the darkness with more horrors than all the horror writers in Hollywood could think of. If you make the screen dark enough, the mind's eye will read anything into it you want! We're great ones for the dark patches." -VAL LEWTON
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Spoiler II		#4	[-]
Mar 3 12 5:32 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	bipolarber wrote: It still hangs on, even today. Try strolling down the "pink asile" of a Toy's R' Us sometime, and try to tell yourself that we've erased gender based marketing... yeah, right! Although oddly enough,any toy store i visit with my daughter can't seem to keep MONSTER HIGH merchandise on the shelves and have signage for limits on how many items you can buy. Even with all that stuff in the "pink aisle" to choose from,many little girls would rather play with dolls based on Frankenstein monster,mummies,zombies and werewolves. Even if they are still fashion dolls in most respects,i'its nice to see them playing with those rather than the standard bearers. Gotta start somewhere.
austex23		#5	[-]
Mar 9 12 7:04 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Just a guess, but I bet that the monster mags tended to print nearly every letter they received from girls and that the real ratio of male to female readers of, say, Famous Monsters was much higher than 10:1. Although I knew girls who liked comics and horror movies in the 60s (mostly sisters of guys who did), the ratio was enormously weighted toward men. Not true with science fiction...it was a great day the first time I attended an SF club meeting and found the numbers pretty close to 50/50, and the girls were smart and pretty too.
cosmicjim		#6	[-]
Mar 19 12 12:07 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Good point, Austex. Photos of cute-faced girl fans would have pleased the many boy readers, so any which arrived may have been considered for publication. The first time I heard of King Kong's plot, though, it was from a young girl when we both were around 6 or 7 years old, and she somehow had seen a print with all the censored scenes in it, as she described them in good detail. I recall many comic cons in the 70s where it was heavily a male attendance present, but that's definitely no longer true.
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