Since I started working from home due to Covid, I am able to listen to a lot of podcasts/youtubers. I was listening to Nerdrotic and he was talking about that new Emilia Clarke comic book, and of course she mentioned that there isn't enough "representation" of comic book creators and said that the ratio of male and female comic book fans is 50/50. Nerdrotic said that the 50/50 stat comes from a facebook poll from a few years back. It honestly sounds like the whole "women make up half of the gaming population" they try to push. Does anyone know the actual stats on comic books?
He was saying that when he owned a comic book shop that at most (and this was with him actively trying to market to women) it was a 70/30 ratio which sounds more accurate to me. There have always been women interested in nerd/geek stuff, but for some reason companies started to think it was a good idea to ignore the mostly male fanbase and cater to women exclusively.
I enjoyed the MCU movies (don't care to watch any more of them) but one downside was that all of a sudden everyone became a comic book fan. I can't tell you how many comic book groups I used to be in only to find out that being a "big comic book fan" only meant that you saw a few MCU movies. It can't be a coincidence that all of a sudden you saw a massive rise of fangirls who claim to have been fans all their lives and talk about evil white nerds and gatekeeping.
I know I have heard the phrase "women ruined comic books" but I would say hiring men and women who are clueless/don't respect the lore/downright hate comic books to write comic books or direct comic book movies is what ruined them. At least there are independent comics still around but we will probably never get another Kirby or Stan Lee on a mainstream level. Marvel will just keep doing workshops to get girls into comic books.
So with my original question, what would you say the ratio is? I would say it skews way more male once you get into the hard core collectors who have stacks of long boxes full of comic books. I personally have only met one woman who is a hard core collector. Like I said, there have always been women in the hobby, but a major red flag is a man or woman who can't shut up about representation. If only I could go back 15 years and warn nerds to beware of the "gospel of representation".
TL;DR Yes (overall), but no (not when you break down WHAT books they are buying).
The problem with these stats is never the medium, but the genre. There may very well be a 50/50 split between male and female participation in the hobby, but they're not going to be interested in the same things.
The only thing these stats reliably tell you about the distribution of male/female purchases is that some people buy comics. There will be some overlap, but most genres will have a strong bias to one sex or the other instead of 50/50 across the board.
1st, the misunderstanding of these stats results in the creative team trying to attract this mythical 'phantom female audience'. 2nd, it's assumed that 'representation' will achieve that even if the 50/50 split were true. The 3rd, and honestly worst part, is that changing the content to appeal to a new audience often results in or even necessitates alienating the original core audience- both men and women.
I would say any autisticly obsessive behaviour would tend to be male regardless, but accounting for that- men and women will be 50/50 overall, but 90% in completely separate areas e.g. teen drama 90% women, ultra-violence 90% men.
Easiest example is gaming: the 50/50 stat includes farmville and other social media/mobile casual games to pump up the numbers of female 'players', but they conflate this number with hardcore, AAA gamers. Then they try to justify changing the games targeted at a 90% male audience to be 'inclusive' of the demographic that isn't even aware, let alone interested in them.
Great points. I remember at one point that Batman was the most popular comic book with both genders. Kinda destroys the “see myself represented narrative”.
you can achieve 50-50 by making the medium unwelcoming to men. So if the percentage is your only goal they are going about it the easiest way possible.
It will drastically decrease the number of potential consumers but I doubt anyone making this decisions has any love for the medium to begin with.