In a conversation I recently had with a girl, I mentioned that my favorite genre of literature was Science Fiction. I guess I could have more accurately said that the vast majority of things I have read that appealed to my sense of wonder and imagination happened to fall under the category of Science Fiction. Her response was, and I quote:

“It must be a male thing- I’ve yet to meet a member of your gender who is not an avid Sci Fi fan.�

I really can’t make the same claim, myself. But one thing I can say with certainty is that I rarely meet a woman who is a science fiction fan. Now taking into account that this hasn’t been done as an official study with a significant cross-section of the population tested and charted across a bell-curve with documented outliers, we are going to assume that Science Fiction IS more appealing to guys than it is to women. Why is that?

Well, lets try on a few simple explanations and see how they sound:

1.) It allows for unrealistically fantastic violence. Guys are aggressive creatures. This was helpful when saber-tooth tigers, or more recently barbarians, threatened to invade our homes and steal our babies. However lately there haven’t been too many opportunities for us to vent our aggression in any constructive or helpful sort of way. As a result we like to sublimate our violence through our entertainment. And Science Fiction gives us excuses to take violence to an unrealistic level through the magic of Future Technology. Who wants to see a gun fight when you can watch a LASER BATTLE? Or who wants to see a sword fight when we can be wowed by a light saber duel? Point being that guys like tools and gizmos, and science fiction is all about technology that we can really dig into.

2.) Science is about logic, not emotion. Yes, I know, I am treading on thin ice here, but just hear me out. Guys like to be able to understand things to the point where they can explain it. Girls, on the other hand, like to be able to feel things. Guys like cool things, girls like beautiful things. A guy will read something because it gets him thinking, whereas a woman will read something because it excites her emotions. I don’t think anyone will argue with me if I say that women read more romance novels than guys do. Just so, guys read more science fiction novels than women do because science fiction tends to explore new concepts and take us to exciting new places intellectually.

3.) Guys like power. Let’s face reality, folks: behind science lies the belief that we cannot only come to understand the universe, but through understanding, control it. Swaggering on the bridge of his mighty starship, the man’s man, Captain Kirk outwits god-like entity after god-like entity. Momma’s boy, Luke Skywalker, leaves his dirt farm and discovers that he has within him a raw and universal power and that his dad is a kick-butt cyborg master of the universe. In each popular science fiction saga the idea that the human race will inherit the universe is pushed upon us in some way. And we like it.
Now I am not saying women DON’T like power, but they tend to like it in a different form. Women, generally, pursue attention. They want to be noticed, to rise above the crowd, to stand out in some way. This is their particular power trip.

Okay, I guess I am in a load of trouble now. Good thing for me that no one reads these things.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2004 at 12:12 am and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.