The Double Standard of Female Fanbases
By Irene Koch
During my freshman year of high school, Zayn Malik left One Direction. I was heartbroken as were many of my classmates, but fortunately, the counselors at my high school picked up a few boxes of cookies at the grocery store and left them in the counseling center for anyone who needed them. The cookies and company were fantastic, but the boys I knew looked at us condescendingly. “Y’all are pathetic!” “One Direction fans are insane!” “Don’t you have more important things to do?”
I’ve come to terms with the “hiatus” at this point, but now, as One Direction’s former members continue to dominate charts and break their own world records, they and their fans continue to receive this treatment from others. Whether we listen casually to their debut album or invest in front-row tickets to Harry Styles, we’re often met with the response of, “Okay, yeah, that’s your guilty pleasure, but what about real music?” It’s not just a One Direction thing either. Fans of artists like Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and 5 Seconds of Summer are often referred to as childish and frivolous despite these artists’ popularity and evident musical talent. The common thread has nothing to do with these artists’ music styles or personalities but the fact that their fan bases consist of primarily women.
Before you accuse me of unjustly playing the sexism card, consider the word commonly used to describe fans of these artists: “hysterical.” The word derives from the same Greek root “hustera,” meaning womb, as “hysterectomy.” The use of this word associated with the female reproductive system to describe a woman excited about something downplays her genuine joy as a sign of her victimhood to her own body and incapability of making decisions, particularly decisions men don’t agree with. Even language like “Bieber Fever” and “One Direction Infection” continues this disease imagery, implying their fanaticism is a disease that happens to them instead of fans voluntarily listening to Justin Bieber’s music because God forbid they actually like it.
If you’re still questioning if it’s a gendered phenomenon, look at male sports fans. Blocking off every weekend in the fall for football watch parties with the boys, memorizing baseball stats like we memorize song lyrics, painting their faces and stomachs with the team’s colors, crying after a particularly nail-biting game, and even taking over downtown Philly when their team wins the Superbowl. Male sports fans—male fans of any stereotypical male interests—rarely receive the same descriptors of “crazy,” “hysterical,” or “silly” that female fans of any stereotypically female interests receive. Yes, this goes beyond music. From “basic” Starbucks drinks to painstakingly curated VSCOs to brightly colored Lily Pulitzer dresses to chick flicks, this phenomenon of treating any and all traditionally feminine interests as a joke is one perpetuated by members of all genders and dismisses women as incapable of making rational decisions about what they do and don’t like.
I wish I had a fantastic solution to this problem of how to make outsiders take the opinions of Directioners, Swifties, Beliebers, Jane Austen readers, Grey’s Anatomy stans, and so many other genres of fangirls seriously, but I don’t. I do know that as long as fanaticism doesn’t objectify or disrespect the private life of individuals, there’s nothing wrong with being passionate about one’s interests. The exhilaration we feel when we see our favorite celebrities in person or the season finale of our favorite show airs reminds us that there are good things in life that can pick us up on cloudy days, and these bursts of sunshine are worth celebrating, no matter who the fanbase is. So go binge Gossip Girl, display your romance novel collection with pride, wear whatever clothes make you feel confident, update your VSCO feed, and blast “No Control” until your speakers break because a) just because you like something that a lot of women also like doesn’t mean it’s bad or insignificant (it just means you have good taste) and b) it’s an absolute banger.
