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alone. 41 That the response of women fans was not as bad as the editors
feared may have been due to the fact that many had secretly not found
“Joan” as enticing as the men. As fan Pam Bulmer commented:
The success of Sandy’s hoax lay in the reality of Joan’s
personality. Not everyone liked Joan wholeheartedly. My
own reaction was that she was another of those masculine
sergeant -type women — horribly competent and out to prove
they are as good as any man by acting like a man! (cited in
Warner Jr. 1977: 90-91)
Inevitably, a hoax of this kind was detrimental to the growing
strength and independence of the female fan community promised by
Femizine’s beginnings. In Hansen’s view,
[h]aving such a prominent “female” fan and the editor of the
fanzine they had taken as their rallying point turn out to be
a man was to take the wind out of the sails of the emerging
female fandom of the fifties. That issue of FEMIZINE was
the last for two years, and revealing the hoax was to have just
the effect that had been feared. (Hansen 1993)
The verdict of the American Fancyclopedia II in 1959 was even more
dire: “When the hoax was revealed it dealt British female fandom a
jolt from which it has yet to recover” (Eney and Speer 1959: 26). This
was a rather harsh judgment; while the potential for a more solidified
community of female fans may well have been undermined, women
continued to publish their own zines and were active in various
organizations (especially the London circle and OMPA). Femizine
itself made a comeback, appearing as Distaff in September 1958
under editor Ethel Lindsay. Hansen reports that “[t]he fanzine was
welcomed by Britain’s female fans but the name-change wasn’t,” so
the title reverted to Femizine and it “continued to be a showcase for the
talents of female fans, until its fifteenth and final issue in September
1960” (Hansen 1993). 42
41 Though apparently the photo of Joan (actually Sanderson’s young cousin) that
circulated amongst fans (on request) reinforced many male fans’ positive views of
her. See Hansen, “The Mid 1950s: Man and Supermancon” (1993).
42 This was quite a respectably long run for a fanzine. The numbering followed on
from the original Femizine; thus Distaff was no. 10, the new Femizine began with
no. 11 and so on.