Writerly Ways and other stuff

[cornerofmadness]

Since I'm still too sick to do much of interest though I am a little annoyed my 50% off heart of chocolate wasn't 50% off (but the box is so pretty with actual lace and stuff I'm keeping it)

First off -I got my first review and you can find out about it and more about what I'm up to Here 4 out of 5 stars? Could I ask for more? I think not. (okay that fifth star but seriously, this is such a nice review).

So for the writerly ways, let's talk a little gender bias. I saw this article encouraging us to read more women here read women Which reminds me I need to tweet a few more books with the #readwomen2014 hash tag. So I thought about this for a moment and came up with two things. 1. I never even bother looking at author names, let alone their genders, when I'm scanning blurbs while buying. 2. I rarely if ever look at the gender of the protagonist while I'm looking at those blurbs.

I don't know what that says about me. I look at personality. Gender, religion, race rarely play into my decisions on whether to buy a book. So I went back over the last 3 years to see if I had a gender bias in my reading. Guess what I do and it's IN the favor of women and not against, unless you count 2010 (I could have gone back another 5 years but at that point I wasn't dividing out manga book count from actual book count and I'm too lazy to do it now). in 2010 40% were women (and I'm not sure, it could be higher, i was trying to do the math in my head), 2011 - 59% women, 2012 67% women and 2013 54% women.

So it got me thinking, why don't I have this horrible gender bias that I'm apparently supposed to have because apparently no one reads women. I'm not saying this bias doesn't exist since obviously someone thinks they have proof of it. I'm wondering more does it GENRE play a role. I think there is where the bias lies, more so than some readers avoiding women (though I DO know that there is a definitely gender bias in gay literature, as women couldn't possibly know what a gay man is thinking/feeling).

I don't read romance but I don't have to to know that it a highly female dominated field. In fact, it wasn't all that long ago men had to hide their genders to write romance (I still couldn't name more male romance writers than I have fingers but it's not my genre so...).

I DO read mysteries more than anything else. Women have always always had a strong presence practically since the beginning. We owe Dame Agatha a lot. Women authors, women characters. I never understood when others said 'I have no role models.' I had them a plenty in female detectives, cozy or otherwise. Without mysteries would I have more gender bias in my reading, probably.

I also love urban fantasy and again, heavy female presence there, Mercedes Lackey, Laurell Hamilton, Charlene Harris, Patricia Briggs and so many more. Even high fantasy has had a lot of female authors in the last 30 years. You'd have to be trying hard to avoid them. Again Mercedes, Anne McCaffrey, Barbara Hambly, Dianne Wynn Jones and many more.

Now if SF were my main reading then yes, I think there would be a definite male bias. Women broke SF don't you know with all our feelings and lovey-dovey stuff. Seriously, there have been papers written by men with threatened testicles. Horror is more male-driven as well but three of the last four horror books I've read were written by women.

I don't know about contemporary writing since well I avoid it. I wouldn't have thought a huge gender bias existed but apparently it does.

So what am I saying with all this, if you're worried about it, do something about it. Support your female authors (I am one. What else WOULD I say?) They are there and they want your support. Read something good by a woman and you have twitter then share it with the #readwomen2014 hash tag. And regardless of gender, if you have a book you love then REVIEW it on Amazon/Goodreads etc. It matters. It REALLY does (that review came out today and my sales jumped).

Yearly Count -

and I've done dick all on every thing else.

Comments

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Congratulations at the review!

I read more books written by women than by men, at least, I think I do. But I generally don't check on author's names when I pick up a book; I go by the storyline blurb and the cover.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm happy.

Yes, that's mostly what I do. What I THINK they're trying to say is that men outnumber women as authors. I believe that. I also believe it varies wildly by genre and in my genres (at least 2 of them) it's not as prevalent.

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I think I've always read about the same amount of books by women or by men authors. I'd look for them when I was a kid (women authors). Didn't always mean I agreed with the story once I read it. And I remember this weird SF story where a woman was kidnapped by the king of another planet, which was kind of like reading a Gor book, but written from a woman's point of view, so less rapey, but still iffy about whether it was non-con or not, since the king and the woman fell in luuuuurf.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Same here.

oh geez. I remember those Gor books too...

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

My cousin gave me some to read. I was horrified. Well, less horrified than, 'You know, this is really bad stuff, right?'

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I believe that

[ital-gal.livejournal.com]

congratulations on the review. hope you feel better soon

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thanks on both accounts