Your T-wolf merch collection may be impressive, but it won’t outmatch the first fangirls who built their own fandoms from scratch. From handwritten Star Trek zines to the BTS ARMY, women have used fandom culture to push back against industries that rarely saw them as creators.
A fandom is a self-organizing community built on shared enthusiasm for a cultural object, like a band, show or franchise. In the 1930s, early science-fiction fans launched fan magazines, or fanzines, full of technical debates and world-building ideas. The Star Trek franchise, a popular case study for the rise of modern fandom culture, spawned its own print culture in the Spockanalia fan magazine. The 1967 fanzine was headed by women editors Devra Langsam and Sherna Comerford, foregrounding female creativity and contributions.
Works grounded in media scholar Henry Jenkins’ concept of participatory culture, where fans are not just consumers but active creators of work, let female fans reclaim narrative agency by rewriting male-centric plots to center women’s perspectives. University of Texas at Austin associate professor Suzanne Scott’s book chapter “A Fangirl’s Place Is in the Resistance” sharpens that point by framing fangirl creativity as an act that challenges industry gatekeeping by producing alternative stories.
While fan works allow women to rewrite the narratives of popular fandoms, often, their mere presence in the space sparks controversy.
Female fans, especially those participating in male-dominant subcultures, face backlash. Scott documents how the “fake geek girl” and other variations of the insult invalidate women’s supposed devotion to the fandom, policing women who claim space in comics, gaming or sci-fi and branding their work as lesser than male commentary.
The 2014 Gamergate campaign’s doxxing and death threats towards women in the video game industry exemplified the harassment women continue to face in fandoms today. In the campaign, gamers attacked media critic Anita Sarkeesian and game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu for advocating for a more inclusive gaming space.
Subcultures that tend to have more BIPOC, queer-identifying or female-aligned members are also consistently trivialized by mainstream media despite their measurable real-world impact.
The BTS fan base, dubbed ARMY, provides a good look into the mobilization of fandoms often dismissed for being female-dominated. A 2022 ARMY census conducted by the Korea Times found that over 96% of fans identify as female. Though often dismissed as frivolous or obsessive, female-led fan communities like ARMY have demonstrated their power. When BTS donated $1 million to the Black Lives Matter movement on June 5, 2020, ARMY organizers launched #MatchAMillion and were able to meet their goal in just 25 hours.
And it isn’t one isolated event. In 2017, BTS and South Korean music label Big Hit Music kicked off a partnership with UNICEF for the “Love Myself” campaign to end violence against children worldwide. A viral March 2018 tweet by a 16-year-old Brazilian fan drove fellow ARMYs to found the charity collective One In An ARMY, which still hosts donation drives for many global causes.
When women walk into a fandom, they pick up the pen, redraw the boundaries and help the industry move forward. Marginalizing women and women’s spaces robs a subculture of a vital engine for creativity and success.
