An enclave of female fans within a traditionally male-dominated fandom. They tend to focus on a particular character or actor, rather than the entire series. Occasionally both sides butt heads over largely superficial reasons, with buckets of opposite-sex awkwardness, which can get defensive. It should also be noted that not all female fans within such a fandom are necessarily of the Estrogen Brigade.
Unfortunately, it is because of this phenomenon that the female fan is sometimes regarded with suspicion — especially if she admits that she does, in fact, happen to find some of the male cast pleasing to the eye. However, finding certain members of the cast to be attractive does not necessarily preclude a fan from liking other aspects of a particular work — and, thus, should not automatically invalidate her as being a "true fan".
An Estrogen Brigade is easily attracted by hints of Ho Yay, since many members of such brigades seem to agree that Guy on Guy Is Hot.
Not to be confused with Amazon Brigade. Its Spear Counterpart is the Testosterone Brigade, which, while rarer, does exist.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
Code Geass. Many female fans are there for Ho Yay and bishies. And there's no shortage of either.
Yu-Gi-Oh! has one of these, as do its later spinoffs.
The enormous amounts of fangirls virtually every character in Naruto has, principally with the very bishonen characters like Sasuke, Naruto, and Neji (but even Rock Lee isn't without his fans).
Berserk is set in an ultra violent universe where being female is an even worse fate then just being born in it but the deep storyline and compelling characters have universal appeal. That and the fact that Guts and Griffith get naked almost as often as the ladies and have a rather intenserelationship.
Bleach garnered a huge female fan following, primarily due to so many male characters qualifying as Mr. Fanservice, as well as how the guys are more likely to suffer Clothing Damage instead of the gals. The are other reasons to be sure, but on a while, it has not so much an Estrogen Brigade as it does an Estrogen Legion.
Zoro and Sanji from One Piece, being manly and the most conventionally attractive males, tend to be the biggest fangirl-bait in One Piece, which has a significantly-sized female fandom. It's no surprising that those two are also the most commonly paired together in fanfic. It's often suspected that Ace was introduced to show what Luffy will look like once he's aged up a bit. There is no shortage of AceLuffy fanfiction either.
These have been known to crop up in the fandoms of various supposedly seinen series that feature attractive, completely badass male leads; even Onizuka-sensei isn't without a cluster of devoted fangirls.
Though the article says it is rare, it has a substantial male following for two main reasons — it's very funny, and Haruhi is cute.
There's also an in-show Estrogen Brigade for each and every male character, as well as an IRL one.
D. Gray-Man is technically shonen, but with the sheer quantity of bishonen and Mr. Fanservice like Allen, Kanda, Tyki, and Lavi, it's no wonder it tends to have a lot of female fans. But then, it is written by a woman, so maybe it's just Author Appeal lining up with the wishes of the fangirl masses.
With Baccano it's probably easier to count the female fans who aren't into either Claire, Firo, or Luck. Or Ladd, or Graham, or Czeslaw.
The Axis Powers Hetalia fandom is basically one huge Estrogen Brigade, so much that it's mistaken for being part of the Boys Love Genre, made by a woman and entirely for girls. It's actually written by a man and gets serialized in a seinen magazine.
Most of the CLAMP fandom. It helps that CLAMP is basically one themselves.
Saint Seiya maybe is the manga and anime which Clamp drew the doujin as their debut, this series being created by Kurumada guaranteed many bishonen to satisfy fangirls' eyes especially Yaoi Fangirl with it's infamous Libra Temple's scene between Shun and Hyoga. Added that most of the male characters are more attractive than the females. And in sanctuary arc Saga was taking a loong bath time, no wonder there is so many bath scene fanart of him. All of these make one think if this series really created for boys, because there is only one Shower Scene for girl which not all fans even the male one even remember it.
Thanks to estrogen-brigade drawing efforts of Kotetsu, Barnaby, and Keith, many fans of Tiger & Bunny started to suspect that it was specifically geared towards women and Yaoi Fangirls despite statements to the contrarynote Kotetsu, for example, was written to draw in older men.
Comic Books
The Green Lantern Corps has a surprisingly strong following in the Feminist Comics Blogosphere, only in part because of the franchise's 50-year tradition of spandex-clad butt shots. Hal is "endearingly sexist", John is "the serious one", Guy is the "gruff den mother", Kyle is The Woobie, and Alan is the sexy older guy.
Deadpool has had an Estrogen Brigade of fun, quirky, female geeks for a few years now, mostly because they get a kick out of his Black Comedy sense of humor. Now he's getting a more traditional Estrogen Brigade, since he's being portrayed by Ryan Reynolds.
The female Batman fandom is still very small, but type any combination of male characters into the search bar on Deviant ART some time, if you dare. With all the Foe Yay, the fact Bruce Wayne is generally depicted as a rather handsome fellow, ass-kicking female characters, Nightwing, and a huge cast of interesting villains, many of whom are just begging for Draco in Leather Pants treatment… it's sort of a wonder the Estrogen Brigade for Batman isn't bigger.
X-Men: Nightcrawler and Gambit are probably the two most popular Marvel characters for fangirls.
The Lorax made the Once-ler a human. A very cute human. A very cute human with a sympatheticPOV. Cue the fangirls.
Jack Frost from Rise Of The Guardians is very, very attractive to the female fan base. His attractiveness is further solidified when Tooth Fairy swoons over his snow-white teeth while her baby fairies make heart shapes around him and faint whenever he smiles.
From Wreck It Ralph, Ralph and Fix it Felix Jr are getting more and more fangirls. So are the three male Sugar Rush racers (especially Rancis Fluggerbutter), and even King Candy/ Turbo himself.
Film - Live Action
The Phantom Menace Darth Maul has an Estrogen Brigade. At least one "Estrogen Brigade" site for Darth Maul that was done mostly tongue-in-cheek, and it was brilliant.
Star Wars: Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke, and Anakin can also be considered popular with ladies. All males except Palpatine and Dooku. Wedge has one in the Star Wars Expanded Universe; in one of the comics it's mentioned that he gets marriage proposals in the mail. Canonically, Luke has about six Zeltron fangirls, and one Zeltron fanboy in Marvel Star Wars.
Rumor has it that the only reason those of the female persuasion agreed to sit through 300 with their boyfriends was the highly buff, almost entirely-male cast who seemed unacquainted with the concept of a shirt.
Pictured is the cover to a FoxTrot collection, showing how a good portion of Lord of the Rings viewers were fangirls oogling Orlando Bloom (many others differed chiefly in that they preferred Viggo Mortensen). Then there was the embarrassing fawning over an extra that female fans christened "Figwit."
The "mud wrestling" fight in Thor does a lot for the ladies in the audience...
... although not as much as Chris Emsworth's Shirtless Scene.
Thor has fans, but Loki's (and by extension, Tom Hiddleston's) Estrogen Brigade is incredibly vocal and devoted. They call themselves "Hiddlestoners." You can read a (very profane) Affectionate Parody of their behavior here. Tom Hiddleston's fanbase just exploded into existence after Thor, even though the film mostly presented Chris Hemsworth as the default hunk totty. However, thanks to Loki's characterisation and his Bishonen looks (and Hiddleston's Mean Character, Nice Actor personality), Hiddleston became the Ensemble Dark Horse at least where the ladies were concerned. To the point where it took Marvel and the rest of the world by surprise. At the NYC Comic Con 2011, with plenty of stars and producers from the Avengers attending a panel, 99% of the audience questions were directed at Hiddleston, with audible gushing from the lady fans. And with plenty of awkwardness for the hosts and the rest of the panel members. It's notable because the hosts and the co-stars were clearly not expecting it, and even Hiddleston himself seems to have been overwhelmed by it. See it yourself, here.
The Avengers. All of them. Special mention goes to Mark Ruffalo's Shirtless Scene, who already won the Estrogen Brigade over with his Stoic Woobie performance. It's almost unfair — the guys just get Scarlett Johansson, while the girls get an entire team of strong, muscular, virile men in either tight-fitting or sleeveless costumes. Kudos to Paramount for shattering the comic book hero fanservice gender barrier!
Prince Nuada, from Hellboy II, also has an Estrogen Brigade. There's even a community to bring him back in a prequel movie.
"Junior got a theoretically exciting movie about swords and monsters and heroes, while Mom got... ideas. Filthy, filthy ideas. And now you know what Dr. Frank-N-Furter was talking about when he said "we could take in an old Steve Reeves movie!"
The Estrogen Brigade launched by David Bowie (or, more accurately, his crotch) in Labyrinth is downright legendary. There's even an internet religion based around it.
Master and Commander: A lot of appeal came from the original source — the Aubrey Maturin series. The film also comes with Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, and a scene with a half-naked injured Stephen moaning in a way that sounds a tad erotic. While Jack's hands press down on his naked abdomen. No wonder fangirls love it.
While perhaps falling short of this trope, Terry Pratchett says in The Art of Discworld that Greebo (yep, that Greebo) garnered a lot of female fans after his first appearance in human form. He also says of Vetinari "I hear he has his own, all-female, fan club." (The "Sisters of Vetinari").
Les Amis de l'ABC from Les Misérables: A group of 9 young revolutionaries, some of whom are very close, results in a pretty much all-female fandom. While there is a preference for Enjolras, fangirls often write slash involving any pairings of these. Hell, an almost entirely male cast of characters pretty much guarantees fangirls will find someone to Squee about!
In the first volume of Ivanhoe, the narrator spends a lot of time repeatedly pointing out how much the ladies enjoy tournaments and matches between knights even more enthusiastically than many men. Lampshade Hanging or just Genre Savvy?
Live Action TV
The David Duchovny Estrogen Brigade (The X-Files) was epically famous. The X-Files fandom was one of the first that was massively discussed on-line. It got to the point where there was a one-hit wonder by Bree Sharp called "David Duchovny, Why Won't You Love Me?", and several singers tried to copy that concept.
The episode "The Shakespeare Code" even had the bard joining the Tennant Brigade in-universe.
There was a Sylvester McCoy Estrogen Brigade on rec.arts.drwho.
Christopher Eccleston still has his own, slightly more mature, college-age following. Impressive, considering he only got one season.
Consider that Paul McGann only had one TV movie, yet still got a Brigade. It's called Paul McGann's Estrogen Brigade. Some of the fangals recruited from Hornblower fandom. His Lt. Bush is frequently considered the hottest among the Navy guys, and the competition was very tough with Ioan Gruffudd and Jamie Bamber aboard.
The John Crichton Estrogen Brigate was very vocal during the run of Farscape.
For an example of this phenomenon at its peak, go visit a Supernatural convention. Guaranteed at least 90% women. One notable convention, Wincon (formerly known as WinchesterCon) used to have a women-only policy — male fans were only admitted if they were accompanied by a female fan. They've relaxed that restriction, but still maintain a strict anti-harrassment policy to create a "safe space" for female fans to express themselves. Female fans andqueer fans too. For a sample of Supernatural's appeal to the GBTQ community, check the recaps on on Television Without Pity, where longtime recapper Demian (a gay man) provides strong story analysis while calling Jensen Ackles "Ducky Lips."
The Sliders fandom came to be referred to as JODSers, short for "Jerry O'Connell Droolers Society".
The Star Trek franchise has had one from the beginning and every incarnation of the show is guaranteed to create one.
Jamie Bamber has a posse of girl fans known in the community as "Bamber Bunnies", and yet people still misspell his name as "Barber".
"Baltar's Nymph Brigade". Note that by the final season, he had gained an in-show, religiously fanatical Estrogen Brigade derided as a "nymph-squad" by the President.
"Trucco's Troops" is another one.
It's only appropriate that Jamie Bamber get his own brigade for Battletar Galactica, because he had one during his run in the Horatio Hornblower TV movies, probably due to his Pretty Boy looks and proclivity to wavering between being a daring hero and a complete woobie. The Nineties fandoms are weirdly dedicated, and Crumpeteers — his character Archie Kennedy was fondly called "Crumpet" — swoon over Archie and write fan fic about him in The New Tens.
The Colbert Report, being primarily political satire, has more or less equal gender appeal — but Colbert's personal Estrogen Brigade has to be seen to be believed. There are threads on the show's official forum dedicated solely to collecting pictures of his fingers.
Jon Stewart The Daily Show gets some of this, usually in response to the latest episode where he rips some douchebag a new one.
The Marcus Cole Estrogen Brigade, honoring the Ranger from Babylon 5, is still in existence. It doesn't talk about Marcus very much any more, but it has a distinctive voice and staying power.
Vincent D'Onofrio has acquired a brigade based on his work in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, though his weight gain seems to have caused a lot of internal friction among them. The beard has also led to raised eyebrows.
One of the earliest Estrogen Brigades was David McCallum's, which sprang to life when the 60s spy series The Man From UNCLE introduced us to minor character Illya Kuryakin. Kuryakin almost immediately caught the attention of (mostly) female fans, and McCallum went from mere Recurring Character to series regular to second billing (behind series lead Robert Vaughn) in the first season alone. By the second season, McCallum shared equal billing with Vaughn.
All three presenters on Top Gear (Clarkson sometimes jokes about Hammond being on the show solely to attract female viewers). And The Stig. And producer Andy Wilman. And James May's blue-patterned flowery shirt…
The Magnificent Seven has seven of these, one for each character. They are: Larabee's Ladies, Buck's Babes, Vin's Vixens, Josiah's Jezebels, Nathan's Nightingales, Dunne's Darlins, and (the only non-alliterative one) Ezra's Brigadears.
Angel: Angel and Wesley have the biggest Brigades in this fandom.
The men from Mystery Science Theater 3000 all seem to have their own little pockets of fangirls if one puts enough effort into finding them (i.e.: head onto Deviant ART or LiveJournal, for starters). Joel, Mike, Forrester, Frank… even Torgo has his fangirls. And if you look on youtube, you will find that Crow and Tom both have their fair share of fangirls too. Despite (or because?) being robots.
Iron Chef, particularly in the later years. Sakai, Chen, Kobe, and Morimoto all have their fangirls. Kaga's got some as well, naturally, but surprisingly there are quite a few for the announcer, Kenji Fukui.
Iron Chef's successor, Iron Chef America is the same way.
Methos of Highlander: The Series had/has a Boxer Brigade, due to his appearing in his underwear in an episode.
During the run of Beauty and the Beast, Ron Perlman acquired one. On account of Perlman rarely giving interviews and being a virtual nobody at the time, most viewers didn't even know what he looked like out of makeup and the Brigade was therefore based on sheer romanticism.
Martin Freeman's John Watson is developing a bit of this too.
"The Giddies", a group of female The Goodies fans, described in The Clue Bible as having a shared interest in the shortness of Graeme's shorts in "Scoutrageous".
Conan's HCPN (Hot Coco Picture Night) Wenches. Go to the Team Coco Facebook page on a Sunday night to witness lots of R-rated drooling over photos of him.
In Once Upon a Time, both Robert Carlyle and (in a rare female example) Lana Parilla have developed sizeable, occasionally combative, Estrogen Brigades.
Merlin has Arthur, Merlin, grown-up Mordred, and all the Knights. Take your pick.
Music
The Beatles, especially compared to their indie years.
Most men in Heavy Metal bands tend to have rugged looks and long-flowing hair. Do the math.
Some historians credit Elvis Presley with advancing the feminist movement because his concerts were places that female fans could go crazy and it was totally okay.
Professional Wrestling
Tends to be rather obvious in Professional Wrestling, and tend to have their own favorites apart from the rest of the crowd. Ever notice how the cheers for a Jeff Hardy, or a Randy Orton, or especially John Cena are much higher-pitched than the cheers for any other wrestler? Especially when Jeff takes off his shirt…
This can certainly be traced back to Ricky Morton of the Rock 'n' Roll Express, who was one of the first wrestlers to be continually beat up to appeal to the mothering instincts of female fans.
"Clique"-era Shawn Michaels was blatantly marketed at female fans, to the point of doing a spread in Playgirl. Of course, the result was the male fans turning against him in a way that makes the current reaction to John Cena seem positively tame, culminating in Madison Square Garden rabidly cheering Sid of all wrestlers at Survivor Series 1996. In the pre-Attitude era, that type of fan revolt was shocking. Many male fans take great pleasure in the stunned reaction of a female fan in the front row of that match when Sid pins Michaels clean in the middle as MSG erupts in cheers.
Jeff Hardy made an appearance for Ring of Honor. At the time Jeff's popularity with the smark crowd was at a low ebb. Hardy's Estrogen Brigade came to the RoH show just to see Jeff Hardy, and their shrieking seemed to set the RoH regulars off. They booed literally everything Jeff did, and at one point started a "shut the fuck up" chant against the estrogen brigade.
Sports
Formula One. Ask a girl why she's watching it, most likely she'll say for the pretty boys.
Rugby — a few years ago, the most commonly cited reason from female English fans as to why they like rugby would have been "Johnny Wilkinson's legs! Phwoar".
Rugby has a fairly large Brigade in New Zealand, as well. The most popular seems to be Dan Carter, flyhalf/underwear model, Richie McCaw, Captain of the All Blacks, and inside centre Sonny Bill Williams, who caused quite a stir when he changed his jersey in the middle of the game in the opening match of 2011 World Cup.
A few soccer players. Helps that the players usually exchange shirts at the end of a game. In the 70s and 80s, the size of the shorts also helped.
Ice-hockey. There is nothing like tough man, most of them total Hunks, who fight on ice. So hot!
Theater
Roger from RENT definitely has one! As does Mark to a lesser extent.
The title character of The Phantom of the Opera has a pretty large one, resulting in an almost all-female fandom. And if you don't like Erik, there's always Raoul...
Les Misérables probably got its initial female fanbase almost entirely from Michael Ball (the West End's original Marius), Michael Maguire (Broadway's original Enjolras), and/or Colm Wilkinson (the original Jean Valjean). Although it's fair to say that all the barricade boys have become immensely popular, with Grantaire as a particular breakout.
Video Games
Tomb Raider has the "Kurtis Trent Estrogen Brigade". Larson's getting pretty popular as well.
Raziel from Legacy of Kain has this, despite lacking a lower jaw. And well, every single male character in Legacy of Kain have female fanbase.
The vast majority of Star Control II fans are male, but the FrungyLoversLiveJournal community is almost 100 percent female, and was 100 percent female until recently. Several of them are Admiral ZEX fangirls (unsurprising if you've played the games, but if you think it's only because of the Ho Yay, you have no idea). They like to call themselves Deviant Schoolgirls On Speed, thanks to a colorful description of them made by a poster on a more... 'conservative' forum.
Zelda has had a pretty damn big one ever since The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The reason why shouldbeobvious. This is even referenced in The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess. If the player finishes the STAR minigame in Hyrule Castle Town, a group of girls will squee and run away every time Link goes by. You get a couple of free hearts from the pure power of estrogen left in their wake.
They are extremely... vocal about prosecutor Miles Edgeworth. The "Edgey Fan Base" on the biggest fansite's forum takes up literally more than half the posts in the section about Edgeworth's game in the series.
Apollo gathers fangirls too, especially from the more disturbing fan sections.
Godot/ Diego Armando has a smaller but vehemently loyal fangirlbase. Even though (and sometimes because of) his relationship with Mia Fey.
Devil May Cry. Sexy Sparda Syndrome. Dante, Vergil and Nero, who stack RIDICULOUS amounts of of fangirls. On their own and in any combination. Slash Fic abound.
A BioWare series, Mass Effect, has a substantial female fanbase, despite sci-fi action-adventure Space Opera stuff being stereotyped as a traditionally male-appealing genre. This likely has a lot to do with BioWare's excellent writing, compelling characters, and the fact that the Player Character has a selectable Purely Aesthetic Gender. Fem!Shep kicks just as much ass as Male!Shep. Even though Fem!Shep has the body more of a photomodel than a soldier.
Team Fortress 2 sure has a lot of slashy fanart and fanfics for a gratuitously violent first person shooter with (seemingly) no plot, doesn't it?
The Arbiter and possibly Sangheili/Elitesas a whole, have their own Estrogen Brigade. Not to mention of course, the ''MasterChief.'' Despite how hard it is to find a Halo fangirl (not just a casual player, but a straight-up fangirl) they are out there.
Sengoku Basara all the way. If the hot, predominantly male cast isn't enough to satisfy you, then the ridiculous amounts of Ho Yay and/or Foe Yay will.
Back in the heyday of the Sierra adventure game fandom, you'd be hard-pressed to find a Kings Quest fangirl that didn't have a crush on Prince Alexander, and you'd be equally hard-pressed to find a Gabriel Knight fangirl that didn't have the hots for Von Glower. Probably no coincidence that they were both written (or largely written) by the same creator.
Ben 10 and its sequel are both aimed at preteen boys, but the shows have garnered a fair amount of teenage-and-up female fans. Some of them enjoy the show as an entity, but others just watch it for one of the male characters (or for the Shipping…). Kevin is the most popular (particularly when he grows up), but some girls prefer Grandpa Max. This seems to be a recurring theme for Man of Action, with similar fanbase for Generator Rex and one already developing for Ultimate Spider-Man.
Avatar The Last Airbender's target demographic is 6-11 year old boys, so how do they explain this? Perhaps to answer this question one should partake in a bit of a drinking game. Whenever you see a male character on Avatar lack a shirt take one shot. If you can see their chest but they still have their clothes on, take half a shot. There is your answer. note Don't go through with this drinking game. Your liver will die before you're halfway through the episode. It isLiveJournal and Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls.
Transformers has always been aimed at boys, with female characters in the franchise few and far-between. Despite this, the series has a female fanbase — which is commonly portrayed in the fandom as being full of fangirls who ship Megatron/Starscream. Starscream in general seems to be fangirl bait, no matter the continuity. Nobody's really sure why.
Dragon Booster was also aimed at boys, with only a smattering of female characters. The message board which provided the nexus point for most of the fandom, however, has a substantial female population.
Storm Hawks was aimed at boys. Girls have fallen for it as well, however.
The Warden from Superjail, and by extension, David Wain in Wainy Days. David Wain joined deviantART. He spends his time there adding sexy fanart of his character to his favourites. It's… unsettling.
Fan Art of South Park tells a lot! It got parodied in the episode "The Ring", where they point out that most girls for the Jonas Brothers (or any boy band for that matter) just go to their concerts to look at them rather than listening to their music.
In King Arthur's Disasters, Lancelot has his own little cult of ladies following him around in "The Yodeling Dolphin of Kirkwall" and "Mission: Implausible." Hell, some guards were hired in one episode to drive 'em away.
Random girl takes a lock of Lancelot's hair Random Girl: I'VE GOT SOME OF HIS HAIR!!!!!!
Similarly to Avatar The Last Airbender, Teen Titans, despite being originally aimed at boys aged below 12, has attracted many older female fans, mainly due to a crapload of characters serving the role of Estrogen Brigade Baits.
Danny Phantom apparently has a huge college age female following. A lot of that has to do with Vlad and Dark Danny.
Camille Desmoulins also qualifies in a slightly cuter, revolutionary-next-door way. Shouting love letters to his wife while he was being led to the guillotine? Awwwwwwww!
Barack Obama, his chief of staff, and for that matter most of his administration. True story. At least two entries in thisCracked Photoshop Contest prove it as well.
