One thing that I've noticed is that girls are much more into fantasy than sci-fi

Mostly this - although barbarians in loincloths or svelte elf men have plenty to do with it as well.

Like it or not, if you want to feel special or important, being a woman in Star Trek (whether UFP, Klingon, Romulan, basically anything except older Ferengi society) isn't going to do fuck all towards that feeling.

When everyone else is on that same level, you're like a republican senator in states where gay marriage is allowed: Nothing more than a random shmuck with nothing unique about them.

When it's wrong/taboo/illegal, much like the "warrior princess" who isn't letting herself be sold off to some fat bastard thrice her age, then suddenly the exceptions breaking said taboo are a special existence. They are notable. They are important to a narrative - any narrative.

You're asking Veeky Forums why women prefer what and you don't expect neckbeard answers? (Or maybe you do?)

I prefer fantasy to scifi because it's more fun. Though I enjoy history (and science), I avoid low-magic settings because it starts to get into that "low-fun" territory for me.

I don't want to spend time trying to figure out the historical or scientific justification for my bullshit. I'd rather magic-handwave and move on.

Why do I get to dress my dumb elf in silk and gold while going toe to toe with orcs with spikes on their spikes who take pleasure in smashing long-ears? Because it's my kind of power fantasy to be able to wear ballgowns to battle, fuck off.

Space opera/space pulp/sci-fantasy is my preferred method of sci-fi. It allows me similar ballgowns on the battlefield pleasure. I can be a pulp-y Lara Croft robbing space-tombs or a beautiful-but-evil space princess helping the evil empire conquer the galaxy without having to wear practical bullshit and have arguments with Autismo the Great over whether or not I can shoot something in the head with my space laser because the atmospheric pressure wouldn't be strong enough to conduct the bullshit that may not even be able to work at all in the first place.

I'm not a hard science kind of person. I admire people who are. But I'm not going to take pleasure playing in a setting/system where people who are hard science types can make me feel like an idiot just because they get their rocks off in imagining I'm dumb, when I could probably trounce them in many of my chosen fields of experience and education.

I have no idea what hard-science focused chicks are into, btw. Most of the ladies I rp with are artist types and we tend not to maths. I suspect they're the ones that look down their noses at anyone - other female types in particular - who can't grok crunch-heavy systems and need to ask for help. Y'know, the insufferable bitches you guys probably complain about anyway.

Well for one thing, women are far less mature than men. As a result, they are more attracted to fantasy which is a genre of convenience. Tropes and symbolism are representing by literal symbols. It's babby-tier story telling. Fantasy deals with immature themes and content. Sci-fi deals with the mature themes of speculative futurism and the dark side of human nature. Also it relies on knowledge of technology and science, things that women are lacking in. You know all those "Women in STEM" initiatives? That's an attempt to go against human nature. Women cannot handle the internal logic that sci-fi demands. They need plot-hole bullshit like that Veritaserum Incantum shit from Harry Potter because they are children.

Fantasy is about feelings. Sci-fi is about facts. That is why women like fantasy, and men like sci-fi.

>wry

Have you tried asking girls? I mean, you must constantly be in their company based on what you claim to have "noticed" so, it seems really stupid to run to Veeky Forums for answers.

Well?

>Sci-fi deals with the mature themes
lol

But all the most popular sci-fi franchises have mushy soft science.

Oh hush, he might be too unaware to realize women like fantasy for the same reason men like fantasy; it's not a game of technobabble and you can play all sorts of hot races.

...

This is an excellent point. In sci-fi, the central and most invasive problem with modern life for women (ie, living in male-dominated society) has already been taken care of, by society, offscreen. In fantasy, the women herself gets to be the instrument of its overthrow, personally..

That's probably in the vein of what's being spouted over there. But note the Calvin's Dad image. I think it's more tongue in cheek than you'd think. (If not, your image def. applies.)

... Until you realize the vast majority of fantasy settings have gender equality?

You're reading way too hard into this by making it some "empowerment" schtick. Women like fantasy because it isn't a pain in the ass to digest like hard sci and has awesome shit like dragons and horses and magic.

And elves, they're pretty hot.

See: Everyone prefers fantasy, unless you're a Star Wars nerd because then your sci-fi is fantasy.

I'm sure that's a draw for some women, but not all women consider their lives as being oppressed by the patriarchy. I actually prefer universes where genders are more or less equal and it is not typically unusual for a person of any gender to be [whatever]. If the most interesting thing about my character is his or her gender, then I dun fucked up.

Doesn't matter. It can still scare people off. It's how its represented, not how it really is.

Take Titan AE for instance.

Action Adventure film, really not for young children. But it was a cartoon and it was definitely marketed without hitting on the darker issues, so its target audience never went to theatres to see it and the audience that did walked out on it.

As a male who prefers sci-fi, I agree. the fuck is this shit that 'women want everything magic cause they can't handle the sciences like our masculine minds' shit? I prefer my sci-fi soft and gooey as far as science is concerned. It's unrelatable. Hard sci-fi is a pain in the ass to communicate to an audience that has no background in a STEM field, made all the worse by the fact that those who argue in favor of the rock-hard science in sci fi are often insufferable crustbeards. Sometimes people like concepts and themes that are familiar to them with a coat of space paint, you autistic fucks.

That's a marketing fault though.

This is not surprising. Men tend to be more fascinated by technology than women.

This is the only reasonable answer.

Well said, user.

Grace Hopper faggot

Son, you have no idea what pain in the ass can i-phone be. From developers point of view at least - the environment is straight up hostile and you have to make everything 200% idiotproof.

Because fantasy is more popular right now generally, than sci-fi and virtually all women are profoundly influenced by trend. Whatever is more popular at any given moment, is what increasingly more women will show interest in. When Star Trek TNG or Star Wars Episode #1 were all the rage, women loved them.

In short, what a typical man likes, he likes regardless...what a typical woman likes, is what her peer group likes.

I fucking love Veeky Forums for posts like this.

Where else can you see such boundless hate paired with such purposeful ignorance?

Virtposting is back on the menu I see...

>Every bad guy is virt

nick off

Mainstream fantasy's got more confident, rounded protagonists and intrigue and bants and all that gay stuff while a lot of mainstream sci-fi lately tends to focus on big explosions and impressive ways to kill each other in space. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, but y'know.

I was so close to agreeing with them too. Humans, rather than women are largely influenced by trends. There are always outliers, of course, but for the most part, we get caught in trends because they make us part of the in group.

And idiot STILL manage to fuck up their 200% idiotproof I-phones.

I actually haven't really noticed that particular trend amongst the girls I know. For each girl I know who strongly favors fantasy over sci-fi I can think of at least one counterexample who strongly favors sci-fi over fantasy.

Assuming that the trend does exist and my sample size is too small, I'd say probably just lingering bias against women doing STEM. I know this isn't Tumblr, but I've definitely noticed that when given an equally-competent guy and girl, the girl will probably consider herself worse at math.

Because women haven't yet found an easy way to exploit sci-fi on a large scale because it's a smaller, and less popular genre than fantasy, which is easy to understand, and doesn't often call for one to think about difficult concepts.
Also machines with their complexity scares them away.

Fucking fight me, Veeky Forums

Princess
Magic
Heroic Knight

Scifi has traditionally been a very male-dominated genre. There's always been women writing fantasy, and honestly by number I wonder if there may be more fantasy written by women than men, but lady scifi authors are more rare.

There is also the fact that fantasy tends to be about characters whereas in most hard scifi the characters are literally dressing and plot vehicles. With social mores that push women really fucking hard towards being social and caring about people and you're a failure if you're not social in the "proper" way (I have a little sister, and seeing her grow up has been incredibly informative on the sheer shit a growing girl has to put up with. You have no idea how often I've wanted the ability to punch entire television networks), it's not terribly surprising that people that have been groomed this way would feel more at ease with the genre where characters and character development is important, over the one where the high concept is the thing and the characters are largely cutouts.

I like scifi too user.

I know I'm the exception though and not the rule.

I'm not 100% sure on that. The Hunger Games is part of a larer context of girl's YA novels inoling Dystopian Sci-fi futures. My sister was into some of these for a while. I've noticed genetic engineering is one of the themes that pops up a lot, interestingly.

It's because of your confirmation bias and/or insufficient sample.

Sounds like a made up fact for troll/fun posting but

Sci-fi is liberal, logical in thought, atheistic, confrontational, societal, and often more cerebral

Fantasy is conservative, emotional in thought, religious/mystical, wish fulfilling, personal, intuitive and symbolic

Women are...

>The problem is males
>It's not poverty
>It's not resource scarcity
>It's not any of the factors that *cause* all of those inequalities to even happen in the first place
>It must be the penis

What is Jumping on a trampoline in really skimpy outfits!

I'll take Stuff that's on Tv for 800, Alex.

Man, you just make both sound boring as fuck. Fantasy only barely sounds interesting when you describe it, but at least it's not plastic and static like you describe sci-fi.

Sci-fi deals with high technology and complicated logically-founded topics. Medieval times let women be what they all long to be, genetically.

>white knights/barbarians

>scantily clad men

But remember, all of this is just a "male power fantasy" that in no way appeals to women.

>One thing that I've noticed is that girls are much more into fantasy than sci-fi

I'm gonna drop a truth bomb and remind you that fantasy dwarfs scifi right now and that this will inevitably to skewer your impression.

That's an oddly reasonable point of view. Not for a woman, specifically, but for a 4channer.

But barbarians are fun for everyone.

Life's too short to try butting heads against something you're not having fun doing. On the other hand, it's dumb to limit yourself by being narrow-minded. Being reasonable is the only reasonable thing to do.

Fucking this.

I remember when Veeky Forums was so much this.

I haven't noticed that.

It's almost like anecdotes aren't evidence or something.

I don't necessarily think that this is true, but I wouldn't know for sure since I don't actually interact a lot with women (or a large circle of people at all, generally - pretty much a massive introvert).

I'm also not going to speculate on if the trend if true, or why it might be true. But I will say this: Sci-fi in general is less popular than it was 30-40 years ago. So, it's probably less popular among ALL demographics, rather than one sex or the other.

I do however, really hate the tumblr/community college female demographic that seems to think we need more female sci-fi writers, and when confronted, can't name LeGuinn, McCaffrey Cherryh, Brackett, or Norton. They're all a huge influence on post 60's SF, and people who don't read SF should shut the fuck up about shit they don't know.

Yes, more female SF writers is good. But not knowing about the existing ones is a cardinal sin.

I personally prefer fantasy because I'm a forever GM and it's what I'm best at. I'm quite into medieval literature and religion/myths, so medieval settings are easier to write. I have many sources to draw from, I'm comfortable with the genre.

I've been GMing my first sci-fi game for my boyfriend because that's what he's into, and it's quite difficult for me. I don't have the scientific knowledge and I refuse to handwave things, so I have to do a lot of research. Even then I don't think I'm handling this too well, I'm not showing the science aspect as much as the political and cultural elements.

I think my case is common. Women are more likely to be into literature/anthropology than sciences, it makes sense many of us would be more comfortable with fantasy. It's what we know.

Strawman much? I didn't say males were the problem.

>I've noticed genetic engineering is one of the themes that pops up a lot, interestingly.

Women are natural geneticists, they have selectively bred the human race since the beginning while men are simply content to jizz in almost anything.

As has frequently been pointed out, the male stereotypes we see in fantasy are ALSO male power fantasy. They're not "great dad, nimble tongue" they're "rippling pecs, huge sword." Its the male idea of what a woman wants, not the real thing.

>Its the male idea of what a woman wants, not the real thing.
No, it's what men want to be for themselves, dumbass.

But I love playing the handsome dad who's great with kids and has a clever tongue.

Male power fantasy is indivisible from female sexual fantasy.
Females want to fuck powerful males, especially when in oestrus.

>implying men care about their appearance for reasons other than sex

NIMBLE. Not a clever tongue. I'm not saying its euphemistically nimble. I'm saying its literally nimble. For eating pussy.

I'm sure your vast wealth of experience with women's sexuality has brought you to this stunning conclusion, user.

>implying men do not enjoy being intimidating to rivals and impressive to peers
>implying appearance has anything to do with it and that men simply don't find the idea of being physically powerful a very pleasant one
What are you, a woman?

>nimble for eating pussy

That's what I was saying as well, a clever tongue is a tongue that's good at figuring out just the right places to touch.

It's kind of like saying how a man could have cruel fingers even though they're doing exactly what the woman wants, they're cruel because they leave her wanting more.

Yes.
There's a reason women go powerful males and not omegas even though both would happily fuck them.

I've literally never noticed this. Have you seen how popular New-Who was among women?

dunno it was one of my favorite films as a kid, I even had some action figures, I need to watch it again for the nostalgia value

Doctor Who is hardly sci-fi.

>ITT:
Ctrl-F "vampir": 0 results
Ctrl-F "werew": 0 results

It's like Twilight wasn't even a thing.

Well, I have noticed that boys are more into fantasy than sci-fi.
It may just be that fantasy is more popular than sci-fi.

desu, I'd rather a clever tongue than a nimble one. Bedroom antics can only last so long.* I want to be entertained the larger portion of the time.

*Any man who claims he could eat a peach for hours gets an eye roll from me. Excellent taste in bad movies, but I got shit to do than lounge around in bed having my ass go numb because you want to pretend you're somehow an excellent lover.

It's not that women love fantasy more than sci-fi --most sci-fi is practically fantasy, after all -- it's that they tend to be more into stuff with a heavy focus on romance, sexuality, or interpersonal relationships, which fantasy tends to focus more on. Most sci-fi focuses on lofty speculation of the future and its societies or simply warfare, and while the former might potentially be interesting to most women, the writers of sci-fi are generally awful at depicting relationships and human interaction. That's not to say that there isn't plenty of literature popular among women set in a science fiction setting, though -- in fact, if I'm not mistaken, there have been far more movie adaptations from chick-lit sci-fi than there have been from chick-lit fantasy.

Did you know that eating a woman out increases a man's risk for getting mouth cancer?

It's like God is telling us something.

Your mom can only last so long.

Some men will make up any excuse to avoid doing it?

Classic insult, but not clever.

It's true though, I'd much rather have a man that can make me laugh than one who's kind of good at eating me out.

Jessica Rabbit knew what's what.

Have you or anybody else in the thread tries actually talking to women and finding out yourself?

I'm guessing not by the neckbeardy truism replies...

In general true Sci Fi ( as opposed to Science Fantasy like Star Wars) is less popular as it deals with more complex subject matter that you can't as easily squeeze into a Hollywood plot. This means less easily digestible media exists in the genre as most of the best stuff is written in books which people don't read. Star Trek is really the only good mainstream example and even the latest films are more fantasy blockbuster than traditional Sci Fi. This is nothing to do with gender. More men prefer fantasy too.

Neither is anything else we commonly think of as sci-fi.

>Using Carlos without making shitty pun

They like sci-fi but they dont know.
Show gataca to any your female friends, they are gonna like it.

Also the majority of sci-fi hard book follow a pattern in wich the protagonist is used to carry the narrative that describe an utopian/distopian/weird society/situation/war and then he solves the problem/live with it/adapts. And in the process the protagonist find the chick and sleep with her.
Science fiction or early science fiction is specially dependable of the point of view of the protagonist, an the majority of targets are teenager/adult males.

Less technobabble and autists whining about "muh realism"

guns are bad and kill people

swords are manly and kill monsters

that is why my favourite author is philip K Dick.

No techno shit, the weird stuff simply is, how the people reacts to the weird stuff is the important thing.

Elf boys

That is just one particular type of fantasy. As a man, i don't fantasize about slutty bad girls all the time either. Human beings have various fantasies at different times.

Space fashion is less appealing.

It's not mutually exclusive. However, females that have an entertain me attitude are not particularly fun to hang out with anyway.

Gay marriage is allowed in all states. Supreme Court said so.

We're talking about legbeards, so a neckbeard seems a reasonable expert.

>it's more fun
Way to start with a total fucking non-answer. Fun is subjective, the question is WHY vagina people find it more enjoyable.

And then you wrote a bunch of lines that just amounted to

>(I have a little sister, and seeing her grow up has been incredibly informative on the sheer shit a growing girl has to put up with. You have no idea how often I've wanted the ability to punch entire television networks)
Did you ever consider turning the television off?

Scifi is full of girly boys in tight suits, though.

The word "skewer" is totally unrelated to the word "skew" which I'm pretty sure is what you meant.

>I like it because I like it
>probably most women also like it because they like it
ITT: We see how women answer questions.

That stuff is ancillary to the genres we're currently discussing.