ratio fo female to male writers - scary!?

[neith4]

I was discussing this over in another forum and went and rechecked my figures - I tallied up the overall ratio/percentage
as being one on ten

Season one - Katharyn Powers 5 episodes out of 22 = 25%

Season Two - K Powers 3 episodes out of 22 = 15 %

Season Three - K Powers 1 = 5% Heather Ash 3 + 15 %
combining both 20%

and then suddenly a decline !!!

Season Four - Powers - 1 and Ash - 1 2 / 22 = 10%

Season Five - One episode by Ash out of 22 = 1/20 5%

Grand Total - 14 % - actually a little higher than I thought but still worrisome ! and my stats isnt good - that's just the total of episodes they wrote - i think if you correlate to the larger proportion of male writers that actually lowers the over all percentage???

I dont expect a 50 - 50 - proportion of female to male writers
but these stats worry me - any maths stypes want to redo my figures? does a 5 - 1 ratio seem uneven to anyone else?

Especially the sharp decline after the start of season three?

Scary !!!

 

[Rowan]

Numbers

Your numbers are right. If you look at S4-S6, you'll see that a major chunk of the episodes are written by 5 writers.

Joe Mallozzi/Paul Mullie [working as a tem, so seperate episodes] with 6 total and 1 partial in S4, 7 total and 1 partial in S5 and 4 out of the 12 listed with writers in S6.

Next highest is Robert Cooper with 4 episoeds in S4, 4eps and one partiel in S5 and 4 total out of 12 in S6.

Peter DeLuise had 3 in S4, 1 complete and two partials in S5 and 1 complete and a partial in S6.

Brad Wright has 2 total and one partial in S4, 2 total and 1 partial in S5 and 1 total in S6.

Now, I'm not saying ther are the only writers in those season, but they certainly carried the load.

Stats were collected from the episode list at GateWorld www.gateworld.net by hand and may have a glitch, but I'm pretty sure I've got them right.

Over the 6 year run, Stargate has had 34 writers, many with only 1 or 2 scripts or two working on one script.

Rowan

 

[skydiver]

sometimes i dont know if a large writing pool is good or bad. I think back to TNG and their almost 'writer of the week' ( I don't have stats but i do seem to recall that they solicited a lot of 'spec' scripts and had a lot of writers) and the overall quality of that show with the pretty much single handed writing of B5 and the quality of that show. (JMS wrote the vast majority if I recall correctly)

I would think that more writers certainly opens things up to differing points of view, yet i would also think that it makes it harder to keep characterization constant.

And a smaller writing staff might find it easier to keep track of continuite and all, yet i would imagine that they can get a little tunnel vision, less differing points of views.

 

[spookypumpkin]

<<sob>>, that is AWFUL!!!

but try the ratio of fanfic writers, or shipper fanfic writers....? that would produce equally interesting results, but in the other direction....

 

[Texane]

that . . . stinks. :angryfire

 

[spookypumpkin]

i bet there are faaaaaaaar more female shipper writers than male ones.

 

[dena]

I've noticed that too Spookypumpkin!

I'm a shippy writer and all the reviews I get are made by female readers.

(if anyone wants to check out my work go to www.sg1-heliopolis.de or www.fanfiction.net) there is no obligation to do this and I won't kill you if you don't want to read it.

Dena:rolly2: :blah: :blpaw: :monkee: :wave: :blush:

 

[spookypumpkin]

i dont write fic. but i have "borrowed" a couple of fics, and changed the names around for someone who wanted it.

 

[Rowan]

writers

I know in 'Babylon-5', one show that will probably go down in history as having the tightest story arc and continuity of all time, 'The Great Maker', JMS himself, wrote probably 70+% of the scripts over the 5 year span, plus the four movies and most of the Crusade spin-off. His script bible is legendary.

It's been my esperience in fan writing - not just in Stargate, but in other fandoms, that most fan fic readers are female, along with most writers. Never really figured out why, not have I thought overly long about it. It just is.

Also, most slash writers and readers are female - both m/m and f/f slash.

Rowan <a bit of everything and no one will ever believe I've written ship as well as gen and slash ...

 

[spookypumpkin]

JMS?? sorry, im not a big babylon 5 fan. Nothing against it, i just never got into it.

Yeh i realised most fic readers are female. Perhaps we just get into the show more, and men only read things on one level, i dunno.

rebekha <ship, ship, ship and more ship.....

 

[Rowan]

Fans ...

I'd have to say I see one guy for every 100 women at MediwWestCon each year [fan fic & writers con] with the majority in the 35-50 year old range. Or at least it looks like that to me on a quick look around the room.

An interesting dermographic.

Rowan

 

[spookypumpkin]

yeh, thats interesting. sad, but interesting

 

[ysm]

The Sci-Fi genre still has that bias that women don't read or write or even like Sci-Fi. It still holds that many women writers change their name or use initials because they (and the publishers) know that not as many people will buy their books if it's known to be written by a woman! They think we only like soft sci-fi (with a little romance thrown in). Hence, their desperate attempts to attract the young male demographics. Sad, Unfair, but True.

 

[spookypumpkin]

yes, i can relate to that. i dont go for the beating ppl up scenes, but the thinking ones. the ""what if?s""

do you know they used to publish special issues of scientific journals "for women" with easier reading and less "technobabble"

 

[Legal Beagle]

Originally posted by skydiver
sometimes i dont know if a large writing pool is good or bad. I think back to TNG and their almost 'writer of the week' ( I don't have stats but i do seem to recall that they solicited a lot of 'spec' scripts and had a lot of writers) and the overall quality of that show with the pretty much single handed writing of B5 and the quality of that show. (JMS wrote the vast majority if I recall correctly)

I know this is an old comment but I'm still gonna reply.

I think that fact that TNG had such a large, diverse writer pools lead to all the stand alone episodes. Something SG-1 has been severely lacking of late. I like stand alone episodes. They are usually more inivative (sp.) and are usually, in the case of SG-1, off world. I'm not saying the writing staff needs to be 50/50 m/f, but it should represent the audience better including writers from many different backgrounds and/or genres.

 

[Texane]

ditto

 

[spookypumpkin]

yes, the stand alone eps are more innovative, but it is good to have some plot that carries forward, like the tokra thing in s4, and what is happening at the moment.....

 

[imported_storm]

Hmm...

I dunno, i think I'd havta say that stand alone eps (for all my fav sci-fi series, past and present) make up about 90+% of my favorite episodes, and that, for me, it seems that stand alones come less and less as a series develops over time. Which I've always thot of as a shame, partly because they leave less room for character development by focusing on the plot.

BTW, (maybe this is a question that should go in the newbie forum, I dunno) but wots a shipper? (excuse my ignorance )

ST:rain:RM

 

[Texane]

"shipper" is derived from the word "relationship." A shipper is a fan that likes the relationship created within the show between the characters. In Stargate, it usually refers to Jack & Sam.

 

[imported_storm]

Ahhh!

Thanks for that Texane!


Any other technical terms i should know?