Men - do you read books written by female authors?

[nogojones]

I was all "I'll read anything and I'm blind to sex, as long as it's good" a few years back. It may have been this thread, pre-bump, and the reading challenge thread - which made me list the books I'm reading, to see that I was reading far more male authors than female.

I've tried to make an effort to read more female authors, but still it's about 70/30. I think that's because though I mainly read books on the tablet where I have a much wider choice of material, I still usually have a couple of paper books on the go at any given time (bath n bog books). I stopped buying paper books a good few years back and a lot of the ones I have are either modern classics or politics and history from 45-90 which both seem to be heavily weighted to male authors.

Thing is, over the last few years the majority of novels that I REALLY enjoyed were by women, so I only seem to be loosing out by having more male authors in my lists.

 

[shifting gears]

Just looked at the 20 books I’ve read this year and not a single female author on there. Bit of an eye-opener.

Am gonna prioritise borrowing titles from Edna O’Brien and Sally Rooney which I’ve had in my library list for a while…

 

[killer b]

I can't say the the sex of any author has ever made any difference to whether I read their book or not.

I'm sure, but the society we live in is one which is more likely to publish and promote male voices, and even the most right-on of us have depths of internalised biases which - unchecked - will lead us to favour one sex over the the other without us even being aware that it's happening.

We can all think of many female authors we've read, probably enough for us to comfortably say 'I read plenty of female authors' and think that means we don't have a problem. The actual ratio is often surprising - I'd encourage everyone to look at it, and maybe think about whether being more conscious about the diversity of voices they read is a good idea.

 

[nogojones]

Just looked at the 20 books I’ve read this year and not a single female author on there. Bit of an eye-opener.

Am gonna prioritise borrowing titles from Edna O’Brien and Sally Rooney which I’ve had in my library list for a while…

The first Sally Rooney was one of the ones I really enjoyed

 

[shifting gears]

The first Sally Rooney was one of the ones I really enjoyed

I’ve seen her mentioned positively on urban quite a bit I think

 

[MickiQ]

There isn't a quota - but what there is, is a massive cultural bias - especially among men - in favour of male authors (and musicians, and film makers, etc etc), and unless we make a conscious effort to challenge that then it'll stay that way.

My cultural life is richer since I started paying attention to how diverse it is, fwiw. Much richer.

Good for you, my cultural life has probably been enriched by reading women authors as well, however I think that might very well be a result of actually reading rather than the gender of any author.
A person's reading choice is entirely their own, The cultural viewpoint of someone who reads exclusively Mills & Boon is just as valid as that of someone who only reads long boring books by dead Russians.

My most recent bf was / is so right on he’s only reading women writers until 2023. I don’t really think about it much but roughly I do seem to enjoy female writers of fiction more on average, & reckon maybe it has to do with us being inculcated with empathy more than men are, making women better at writing complex & believable 3D characters. This is a massive generalisation yes. Nonfiction there’s nothing in it far as I can see.

Agree with this, I have read books by female authors whose male characters are completely believable from my male viewpoint and male authors whose female characters are completely believable also from my male viewpoint. I suspect that the reverse is not true and that a female reader would probably see through female characters written by a man. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to pull me up on promoting stereotypes but I do think women have more complex personalities than men do.

 

[Gromit]

Fuck off and when you get there, fuck off from there too, then fuck off some more. Keep fucking off until you get back. Then fuck off again, Gromit.

No you.

 

[killer b]

Good for you, my cultural life has probably been enriched by reading women authors as well, however I think that might very well be a result of actually reading rather than the gender of any author.
A person's reading choice is entirely their own, The cultural viewpoint of someone who reads exclusively Mills & Boon is just as valid as that of someone who only reads long boring books by dead Russians.

of course a person's reading choice is entirely their own: but we don't make those choices in a vacuum. Our choices are influenced by the culture around us, and by unconscious biases, etc etc, which favour men, sometimes overwhelmingly. It's possible for us to take a more active role in our choices though, that's all I'm saying.

 

[killer b]

It's a shame that being more conscious of the diversity of authors you're reading is often characterised as a joyless box-ticking exercise, when literally everyone I've spoken to who's given it a go feels they've benefited from it.

 

[bimble]

Men like Poot 's partner, who won't or don't read books by women, i wonder what's going on with them, do they think women just write women's stuff and that's not relevant to them? Or that women are less likely to have anything worthwhile to say? Just seems really bizarre tbh.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I definitely would have been a 'I'm totally indifferent' person about this except a few years ago I decided as a New Year's Resolution to read a book a week for a year, and I kept a list. And when I got a few months in it was obvious that my reading list was overwhelmingly male. I did make an effort for a while to redress the balance and try to keep it in mind now but without actually listing them out I don't really know how successful I am at that.

A lot of it was non-fiction so I think a large element of it was who gets to be a published author on certain subjects as much as my own biases. Well I hope so anyway.

 

[xenon]

The vast majority of stuff I've read over the last few years has been by male authors TBH. Scifi in particular as a genre. I'm not consciously avoiding female authors I don't think. But there's a male bias in terms of the type of books within that genre. My choosing to read them is obviously effected by what I find interesting informed by being a bloke, socialisation and publishing discrimination. I should read more widely though TBF.

 

[Orang Utan]

p.s. You don't even understand the quote do you?!

It’s from As Good As It Gets.

 

[Orang Utan]

Good point. For me can you write about it really.

For me whether ELJames is a guy or Eleanor Roosevelt is a lady?

You what? If you had read more widely, you might have been able to write coherent sentences

 

[nogojones]

The vast majority of stuff I've read over the last few years has been by male authors TBH. Scifi in particular as a genre. I'm not consciously avoiding female authors I don't think. But there's a male bias in terms of the type of books within that genre. My choosing to read them is obviously effected by what I find interesting informed by being a bloke, socialisation and publishing discrimination. I should read more widely though TBF.

Some of the best sci-fi I've read recently has been by women

Margret Atwood
Ann Leckie
NK Jemisin
Ursula Le Guin

Just off the top of my head

 

[strung out]

I'm sure, but the society we live in is one which is more likely to publish and promote male voices, and even the most right-on of us have depths of internalised biases which - unchecked - will lead us to favour one sex over the the other without us even being aware that it's happening.

We can all think of many female authors we've read, probably enough for us to comfortably say 'I read plenty of female authors' and think that means we don't have a problem. The actual ratio is often surprising - I'd encourage everyone to look at it, and maybe think about whether being more conscious about the diversity of voices they read is a good idea.

A common argument I've heard - which isn't completely without merit- is that the authors published in a reader's favoured genre are overwhelmingly male. This is undoubtedly true for things like history, crime, sci-fi etc,, but while commissioning editors obviously have a fair amount of power in changing this, they will react to what sells, and as the consumer, the easy way to ensure that we have more diverse voices available to us in our chosen genre is to read and support the authors writing in that genre who don't come from that dominating demographic.

 

[flypanam]

My wife has really pushed me to read more women and black authors. Have so say That while I found Girl, Women, Other an entirely dull read, the essays of Rachel Kushner are fucking fantastic and worth every household having a copy.

We buy a lot of fiction and this year the standout book so far are the short stories of Vanessa Onwuemezi Dark Neighbourhood and we’re really looking forward to Olga Tokarczuk’s The books of Jacob.

It has been an eye opener broadening the scope of what I read, and I do feel I have a richer cultural life.

 

[xenon]

Some of the best sci-fi I've read recently has been by women

Margret Atwood
Ann Leckie
NK Jemisin
Ursula Le Guin

Just off the top of my head

I've read one of those. Not got round to the others but mean to at some point.

Currently reading this if anyone's interested.

A Memory Called Empire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But of the particular techie scifi sub genre, the male bias is more pronounced.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

It's a shame that being more conscious of the diversity of authors you're reading is often characterised as a joyless box-ticking exercise, when literally everyone I've spoken to who's given it a go feels they've benefited from it.

Agreed. The thing is the alternative is presented as some sort of objective book quality maximisation exercise whereas actually what you're doing a lot of the time is just taking a punt, I'd have thought. If I pick a book by an author I haven't read before I don't know how good it's going to be.

 

[Signal 11]

The actual ratio is often surprising - I'd encourage everyone to look at it, and maybe think about whether being more conscious about the diversity of voices they read is a good idea.

Just tried this and it's worse than I expected:

2014: 0/17
2015: 2/15
2016: 4/15
2017: 4/21
2018: 1/11
2019: 2/14
2020: 1/12
2021: 4/10

 

[BoatieBird]

So far this year I've read 41 books, 22 of them have been by female authors.
Not a conscious thing, but a fairly even split

 

[killer b]

Just tried this and it's worse than I expected:

2014: 0/17
2015: 2/15
2016: 4/15
2017: 4/21
2018: 1/11
2019: 2/14
2020: 1/12
2021: 4/10

Yep - it's always a really interesting exercise IME: you can learn a lot of unexpected things about yourself by looking at the actual statistics.

 

[RoyReed]

I've just had a look through my bookshelves and the split is about 40/60 (women/men). It includes:

Jane Austen
Charlotte Bronte
Emily Bronte
Virginia Wolfe
Mary Shelley
Zadie Smith
Harper Lee
Anaias Nin
Susan Sontag
Arundhati Roy
Edna O'Brien
Beryl Bainbridge
Lyn Reid Banks
Caitlin Moran
Barbara Tuchman
Margery Kempe
Simone de Beauvoir
Nancy Mitford
Stella Gibbons
Hilary Mantel
Mary Beard
Toni Mount
Henrietta Leyser

 

[platinumsage]

Enid Blyton, Susan Cooper, Joanna Trollope, Ursula le Guin off the top of my head.

I don’t read much fiction.

 

[killer b]

I don’t read much fiction.

I have heard that some non-fiction books are written by women too.

 

[bimble]

This seems un-great, just found when looking for stats.


it is from 'goodreads' which i have an idea is a bit like richard & judy bookclub so not sure if it means very much really but still.

 

[seeformiles]

Like some others here, as long as it’s a good book I don’t really care. I love crime fiction and find those written by women (and esp. the descriptions of the crimes) are pretty visceral compared to most of the male authors in the same genre. Val McDermid I find requires a very strong stomach but I’m currently reading my way through Sharon Bolton’s Lacey Flint series which are brilliantly plotted and marginally less gory than Ms McDermid.

 

[hitmouse]

I have heard that some non-fiction books are written by women too.

It's interesting though - I've just broken down my numbers for this year so far, and mine come to:
Fiction - 11 by women, 6 by men
Non-fiction - 6 by women, 9 by men
Plus two poetry books by women, and two books with multiple authors of mixed gender. So that fiction/non-fiction split does definitely seem to be a noticeable thing, at least in my reading. Also worth acknowledging that my numbers are probably a bit thrown off because I decided that this was going to be the year I read that big sequence of five Doris Lessing books, so my numbers would look worse if you narrowed it down to "books by women who aren't Doris Lessing."

 

[killer b]

Like some others here, as long as it’s a good book I don’t really care.

what's the ratio?

 

[Pickman's model]

This seems un-great, just found when looking for stats.

View attachment 293248
it is from 'goodreads' which i have an idea is a bit like richard & judy bookclub so not sure if it means very much really but still.

wonder what it'd be like several years down the line