Tabor 2
"Sir, I am not just some token bunny."
-Judy Hopps from Disney's "Zootopia"
What do you mean by token girl?
Token girl/token female is defined by urbandictionary.com as the one female in an tight-knit group otherwise made up of men (usually the sister or girlfriend of one of the guys in the group though it can also be a female friend of theirs as well). Basically, it's what Wendy was to the Lost Boys in Peter Pan or what Penny is to Howard, Sheldon, Leonard, and Raj on The Big Bang Theory.
This is mostly a trope that's applied to both film and television, and it is also known as "The Smurfette Principle". It's named after Smurfette, the one lone female in all of Smurf Village on the popular 1980s/1990s cartoon series The Smurfs . The term was first coined by Katia Pollitt in her 1991 New York Times article "The Smurfette Principle" in which she wrote about how having only one solitary female character in a children's television series can send a negative message to its young viewers that 'states' that males can go off and have thrilling adventures while females are a deviation from hat and only exist in relation to the males. This term can be averted or disregarded altogether from a show when and if another female joins the shows primary cast of characters like it happened with The Smurfs when they added another female surf in the form of a little girl smurf named Sassette in its latter seasons.
How did this become a socially and culturally accepted thing?
In a 2009 Newsarama article, writer Vaneta Rogers talks about how the term 'geek' was once strictly applied to guys but gradually and recently at events like San Diego more and more women have been in attendance and most of the men there all seemed to be just fine with it. Yet there were some that were a bit conflicted about it and debated and put into question the possible sexism of the convention's 'booth babes' and also let their grievances be known about the increase of fans of a particular series of both books and movies at the time-Twlight (this was 2009 after all). Rogers also goes into a brief 'history' of how the tide of pop culture has shifted from comics and movies that show off superheroes and the events that celebrate them as well as the other aspects of geek culture being exclusively an all guys event to ones for both guys and girls. These days there are some booth babes but not like there was back in 2009, now women are out at these conventions en masse and in full force proudly showing off their geekiness to the world.
To read the whole story about the changing face of fandom (and a bit about the 'booth babes') go here: http://www.today.com/id/32586742/ns/today-today_entertainment/t/emerging-face-geek-fandom-female/#.WiAWEUqnGUk
In this age of female empowerment where young women everywhere are being encouraged to go for their dreams and that they can grow up to be anything they want to be it's become extremely important to show girls that they are as strong and as fierce as any other guy out there no matter what.
What are the drawbacks to this evolution of fandom?
With every sort of change there is a good amount of resistance as well as fear and in the case of the influx of female fans in the 'universes' of Marvel, DC, Stars Wars, and Doctor Who just to name a few there's been such instances. I am personally not a fan of Doctor Who (aka a "Whovian') but I've seen some of the recoiling some fans have done in response to the idea of the next doctor being a female and it's a bit of a sad sight to see but things like this do occur. The Learned Fangirl blogger Kendra Chaney also noticed this drawback and discussed it and her personal thoughts when it comes to both this issue and to the whole notion of a fandom and how one belongs to it in her piece " Fandom and Identity/ Fandom as Identity" . In it she discusses how racial and gender identity can play into not only the sense of belonging to a fandom or something belonging to a character based solely on their gender. Essentially, she is talking about how some parts of pop culture are still seen as being men only in terms of identity while female fans are just there as fans and nothing else. In the article, which you can find and read in its entirety right here: http://thelearnedfangirl.com/2013/08/fandom-and-identityfandom-as-identity/ , she poses a very good question that those of us in the geek community and as a collective society should ask ourselves- Just because a character fits a certain description- for example white, British male- does that truly mean he only belongs to that sect of the society/fandom culture and no one else with no room or 'hope' for change...OR does he belong to everyone and can be someone other than white, British, male or whatever?
This kind of debate is also going on among fans of the James Bond franchise when the topic of who should take over the role of 007 when Daniel Craig turns in his Walther PPK and license to kill is brought up.and it has lead to some heated discussions and debates amongst fans in recent months. Believe me, as a female Bond fan, I've seen it go down on Facebook and YouTube a lot since the last 007 film, "Spectre", came out a couple of years ago.
No one really likes change even though we get used to i0t regardless of how hard we fought against it. Everything new sometimes becomes the norm over time and such is the case with this fandom world where both men and women can come together and share a love of the same things and pass that on down to the next generation. One such instance of this happened over the summer with the release of "Wonder Woman", a film that was directed by a woman and was about a female superhero..in fact one of the most longstanding and popular heroes out there so it was both refreshing and momentous to see this film hit the silver screen as hard as it did. both men and women have praised it as being one of the best superhero films ever if not in recent years. Fans young and old have since become inspired by this Amazonian princess and she's continued to be a prime example of what was called 'girl power' back in the '90s only there was nothing cutesy or fluffy about the Wonder woman brand of girl power and it resonated with many a young girl (and even adult women as well).