Femmefans

Femmefans are the opposite of fanboys, both in gender and demeanor.

The term femmefans or femmefen for female fans dates back to the days when there weren't too many, but old-time fans still use it when a distinction between genders matters.

Men outnumbered women in early fandom enough that when Lee Hoffman began to correspond with other fans, everyone thought she was male. Bob Tucker wrote that, in 1951, when she and two other fans trooped into his Nolacon 1 hotel room and introduced themselves, he had just stepped out of the bath and was so flabbergasted that he dropped his towel.

In the early years, it was a rare girl who entered fandom other than “via the 3 routine routes of masculinity; i.e., brother, boyfriend or breadwinner,” as Forry Ackerman put it in 1942. More women joined fandom in their own right rather than as a companion to a boyfriend or husband beginning in the late 1960s and early '70s, when the microcosm expanded exponentially in the wake of Star Trek. However, despite being in the minority, women nevertheless made an impact on fandom before then, among them Morojo, Barbara Bovard, Tigrina, Judith Merril, Helen Cloukey and Virginia Kidd, who were among the First Fans, and Julian May, Noreen Falasca, Anna Sinclare Moffatt and Dirce Archer, who chaired Worldcons.

Also see fanne.

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

Explaining everything is contrary to our philosophy of education.

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Fanspeak

This is a fanspeak page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was coined, whether it’s still in use, etc.