We are the 40ish%: Women and demographics
Female athletes will comprise over 40% of Olympic athletes, are 40% of San Diego Comic-Con attendees, made up 40% of The Avengers’ audience, 57% of Brave’s audience, 60+% of The Hunger Games’ audience, 51% of Amazing Spider-Man’s audience.Yet we still have to fight to be recognized. Why? Why is it so shocking that women will not only show up for the things we love, but that we do so as roughly half the audience or better? Why is it so hard for licensees to seek out our commerce, not by making things pink or expecting us to be satisfied with things made for boys and men, but by putting thought and care into marketing to us? Why is half the population presumed to be unimportant, so often?
I wish I had answers. I wish I knew why the lie of conventional wisdom in the entertainment industry is still held up as valid even as it is repeatedly disproved. I do know, that we are rapidly reaching a point where the failure to pursue a female audience is pure folly, and disregard/alienation of a female audience is tantamount to PR suicide. We are the 40ish %, for now.
