Feminist Ca

Mothers of the Revolution \ 73
often without parental knowledge. Author Katherine MacLean provides
a wonderful description of her furtive and fascinated discovery
of the pulps and the less than approving reaction from her parents:
“When I got home my mother burned the science fiction magazine,
and pledged my brothers to take my bike away if they caught me
with another” (MacLean 1981: 87; see also A. Sheldon 1988: 43-58).
Apart from such tacit obstacles to women’s involvement, there may
well have been, as the last chapter suggested, much to actively alienate
women from the magazines, particularly the attitude of male fans.
The possibility that many female readers and potential fans are
“hidden from history” is also suggested by the fact that most subscribers
to the magazines would have been male, even though female members
of the family may also have been avid readers. Indeed, a number
of letters noted by Larbalestier make reference to whole families reading
sf (discussed below). Such considerations complicate the figures
drawn from surveys conducted since the 1940s by the magazines in
their attempt to build up profiles of the average sf reader/fan. One
would assume that the number of female readers would necessarily
be higher than that of female fans, as readers provided the base for
fandom. Yet surveys of readers may be even more misleading than
fan surveys (where chances were everyone knew each other), because
magazine questionnaires presumed only a single respondent, so in the
case of a household of multiple readers, the survey would most likely
be filled out by the male subscriber. As sf reader and fan Mildred D.
Broxon pointed out in the 1970s, estimates of readership have relied
on, for example, magazine subscription lists which, “if sent to a couple,
[are often] in the man’s name… Since it was my husband’s subscription
he filled it out. Does this mean I don’t read Locus?” (Broxon 1974:
22). The number of readers “hidden” by the subscriber who usually
filled out such surveys is indicated by a 1971 Locus readers’ poll, which
asked the question: “How many other people read your copy of Locus?”
Fifty-five percent replied that one other person read their copy,
23 percent that two others did, and 16 percent more than two. 3
One of the earliest fan surveys that considered the proportion
of women, conducted in 1944 by Bob Tucker, showed that out of 74
3 Locus, #79, Apr. 4, 1971, p. 7 (survey, 3-8); the sample for this survey was 201.
The poll did not always include this question, and such “invisible readers” were
unlikely to be included in demographic statistics of readership.