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Sci-fi’s leading female creators talk about their women

In a way, hanging out at AfterEllen.com spoils us. Since we cover the areas of entertainment and pop culture that interest us, we sometimes forget that the rest of the world is less enlightened.

Take, for example, a panel at last week’s Comic-Con called “Her Universe: Shining the Spotlight on Female Fans” that examined science fiction and fantasy through female eyes. The purpose of the panel was to “fight the stereotype that girls aren’t interested in sci-fi.” I’m glad that stereotype doesn’t exist around here. We love our sci-fi for many, many reasons.

The panel, moderated by Star Wars: The Clone Wars voice actress Ashley Eckstein, gathered some of the biggest women in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, including Jane Espenson (Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Buffy), Bonnie Burton (StarWars.com), Melinda Snodgrass (The Edge, Star Trek: The Next Generation), Erika Kennair (SyFy Channel), Katie Cook (Star Wars comics, Gronk), Cat Staggs (Star Wars, Marvel comics) and Mary Franklin (Lucasfilm).

 

Eckstein recently founded Her Universe, an apparel and merchandise line for female sci-fi fans. She hopes, through her line, to attract a community where women can unite in their fandom. Meanwhile, she decided to bring the panel together to discuss the community that already exists. StarWars.com Senior Editor Bonnie Burton gives us some highlights from the panel.

Writer and script consultant Snodgrass talked about what attracts women to read sci-fi books: “Sixty percent of all books are purchased by women,” she said. “So as a novelist, I have to think about how do I appeal to a female audience? And one of those things that’s key are the relationships.”

“When I was a little girl, Spock captured me because I kept thinking, ‘What if I could make him feel something?’ Everyone knew if they could just spend some time with Data, you would find that human emotion. And those are the kinds of things that women are interested in – communication and relationships.”

Kennair, Syfy’s Director of Development, considers her female audience when developing new shows.

“… Forty-nine percent of our audience is actually female, and I was actually very surprised it was that many,” Kennair said. “What I realized was a lot of [the sci-fi shows she enjoys] have kick-ass women which have the escapism of science fiction, but also the empowerment that comes with it. I think that’s the big female appeal of sci-fi. They have that kick-ass, we can do it, step aside feel, but yeah, they’re gonna make out with people from time to time.”

Science fiction’s best known female producer-writer, Jane Espenson, said the key to making women characters powerful is to show their weaknesses.”The thing we have to think about when giving female characters strengths is giving them flaws,” Espenson said. “That’s what makes a whole person. Starbuck is incredibly strong, but she’s also incredibly frakked up. So is Buffy. She’s strong and beloved, but she doesn’t let people in; it’s this great weakness. That’s what makes you believe that a person is fully realized.”

Cook talked about being a female comic book artist for an audience that thinks women don’t create comics. “You already have amazing female comic book creators. People like Gail Simone and Amanda Conner are making people who are reading comics, who are curmudgeons about women writing comics, think that these comics kick ass.”

Writing female characters still seems to be a challenge for some comic book writers, though, because they’re used to writing one-dimensional women.

“A funny thing that was comics-related, happened with the Batwoman book,” said Star Wars illustrator and out comic artist, Staggs. “I had talked to someone who was an editor at DC [comics]. They had just started developing it into what it was going to be. I would hear rumors that a lot of the writers didn’t want to write that book. I don’t know if it was because it was a female character or because it was a lesbian character, but they said they didn’t know how to write it. And I thought, ‘It’s Batman, change the pronoun.’ It’s basically the same character — dark and brooding. I just didn’t understand why that was so difficult.”

 

“We’ve all been trained to write these women who have so few characteristics, [while] we write fully-dimensional men,” Espenson added. “You can trick yourself into being a better writer by switching the gender and see what a fully-realized character looks like.”

Read the rest of what the panel had to say and let us know what you think. Have women found their place in sci-fi yet? What draws you to a sci-fi or fantasy story? How do you like your fantasy women?

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