Listen ok I know this sounds sooo messed up and I’m definitely not saying that women are better authors no that’s not true but maybe as a woman I just idk can relate more or something to books written by women like maybe I agree with them more or the writing I enjoy more I’m really not sure. I’m not saying that I never enjoy books written by men no there’s some that I do but there’s a lot more written by women that I enjoy.
It actually took me a while to realize that this was a thing for me. But I started noticing that most of the books that I ended up not really enjoying or that I DNF are written by men.
Some of them I can’t say exactly what I didn’t like about the book but other ones I couldn’t tell you it was just not as immersive for me personally.
Maybe it’s truer than we realize that men and women really do see the world differently.
Or maybe it’s just me. Anyone else like this? I only have one guy friend that reads and I have noticed that most of the books he reads and enjoys are written by men. And I have one friend that’s a girl and she does to read books written by women usually.
What is this??!
by MooMooTheDummy
30 Comments
Ibrealozed my bookshelf was bare of women writers. Made a concerted effort the last few years to change that. It’s been wonderful.
Not the case for me, and I disagree that men and women see the world differently in a consistent manner. For example I tend to relate more to how many men see the world despite being a woman.
But how much I enjoy or dislike a book I’d completely unrelated to the sex of the author.
Often you don’t even know the real sex of the author because writers can write under pseudonyms, including names that are commonly associated with the opposite sex.
I read mostly romance these days so naturally it’s pretty much exclusively women.
I used to read more science fiction and fantasy, and even some popular thrillers, and for years those tended to skew male, though less so nowadays, thankfully. So probably for the last decade or so I’ve read more women than men, though maybe not by a lot.
Do you experience this even in the same genre? I (male) like books by men and women. Some of my favorite stories are by women, but I’ve read more from men because they write more in the genres I read.
>maybe as a woman I just idk can relate more or something to books written by women
I looooove my women writers. I have a whole bunch of male writers I really like too, but that’s partly because I’ve been a big reader for more than 50 years. you can’t help but come across more good ones in all that time. the women I like are special though. yes, it’s because I relate. I dont see anything wrong with that.
I don’t have a preference for male or female authors, but I definitely can tell a difference sometimes. One difference that seems consistent to me is that with female authors, the characters spend a lot of time wondering about what other characters are thinking, their feelings and motivations. The characters want to understand each other. With male authors, the characters want to know what the other characters will *do*, but are not especially concerned about why. More of a focus on actions, much less on empathy.
Along with that, I feel like books from male authors are more about the protagonists “career” in a way. The plot is about accomplishing something concrete, like saving the world or winning the war or saving the house from foreclosure. Romance and friendships might arise along the way, but it’s not the point.
Books from female authors seem to have more relationship or self-actualización type goals. The protagonist might save the world, but that was a side effect of her learning to love herself.
I haven’t formally researched this or anything, but that’s the impression I’ve gotten from what I have read.
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I mean, there’s also genre bias. Some genres just have more men than women writing for them and vice versa. Even if they are different genres, maybe look at what it was that lost your attention for each individual book before making that generalization
Try reading books without seeing the authors gender first. I’ve read lots from men and women and unless femininity is a large aspect of the book I would never be able to tell the difference.
To borrow from Virginia Woolf, the androgynous mind also applies to reading. It’s something that can be, and often must be practiced.
I’m gender blind, I don’t care if a book was written by a man or woman.
A good story is a good story, regardless of the gender of the author.
As a man, I feel the other way for some themes, esp crime thrillers written by female authors with male protagonists. These characters have distinct feminine personality traits, high on emotions and empathy and far less of a violent brash persona as compared to the ones written by their male counterparts. For instance, I found this difference clearly in the characters Jack Reacher vs Will Trent.
I’m sure one can’t generalise these aspects, but there must be some truth in it that the male authors could relate more to the masculine world and the female authors to theirs. I’d like to hear more thoughts on this take.
A 2014 Goodreads survey of 40,000 found that:
>male authors accounted for 90% of men’s 50 most-read titles this year. Before female writers rush to find a new male pseudonym, however, the converse is also true: according to Goodreads, “of the 50 books published in 2014 that were most read by women, 45 are by women, and five are by men”. And one of those men was Robert Galbraith, or JK Rowling.
>The analysis also found that in the first year of publication, 80% of a female author’s audience will be women, compared to 50% of a male author’s audience. But while women appear more open to reading books by both male and female authors, they like books by women more – and so do men. “On average, women rated books by women 4 out of 5 and books by men 3.8 out of 5. Surprise! Men like women authors more, too – on average men rated books by women 3.9 out of 5 and books by men 3.8 out of five,” said Goodreads.
It’s an interesting read [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/25/readers-prefer-authors-own-sex-goodreads-survey](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/25/readers-prefer-authors-own-sex-goodreads-survey)
Survivorship bias or something
I have noticed that about myself as well though to be fair I read a lot of romance. Still I have to wonder why men just don’t write romance or why even if they include a love story in their books it usually sucks. I do read some classics and nonfiction books written by men, but often times even in classics the female characters feel flat.
I actually read more works by men. The sex of the author is irrelevant to me.
I mean, for me it’s the other way around, so you’re probably pretty normal. My last bunch have been pretty gender balanced, but there were pretty steep imbalances when younger as I used to read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, and this was before the ‘romantasy’ and #ownvoices era (think Eddings and Salvatore).
The sexes are different (on average, of course), and that tends to be reflected in average reading preferences.
I am actually somewhat unusual in having read at least a few romance novels (I avoid visual porn; has led to a few funny situations), and it’s kind of funny how the guys are all female fantasies (muscular, flowing hair), kind of the inverse of the stuff I used to read. (Let’s take the notorious Christian Grey; he is a billionaire solving world hunger *and* he has lots of time for you? Yeah, right. You would think he was a vampire or something.) But overall, the pattern remains.
I know how you feel. I’ve withdrawn several books and audiobooks and I don’t pay attention to names either and I’ve found I pay more attention to books by men than women. A few times the author’s name doesn’t betray gender so I don’t THINK it’s conscious or subconscious.
And I don’t like it. I’ve stuck through a few because I really want to read about the topic (I read nonfiction) and to give them both a fair chance but I’ve found myself having a harder time. And as a scientist, saying women have a different inherent writing style than men sounds illogical.
I keep trying though, and going back to the older ones and giving them a second chance.
There’s always a chance that it’s just those specific authors and not in general of course
I used to feel this way, and I still understand to an extent. A lot of the recently published books by men are written as if they’re TV scripts or something, all action and activity with little contemplation.
That being said, you should try broadening your horizons. I found I felt the same way so I started reading different stuff. Some absolutely amazing and emotional books by men:
A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
All Quiet on the Western Front, Eric Maria Remarque
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keys
1984, George Orwell
Last Summer in the City, Gianfranco Calligarch
Lolita, Nabokov
I’m gonna give you the advice that I would give (and have given) to men who confessed to the exact opposite feeling.
Do it anyway. Women are 50% of the world and there is no way that in the 4 billion women out there, there aren’t any who write things that resonate with you. If you think you’ve identified a trend or a general vibe in women’s writing that you don’t like, exclude books that seem to fall into that category, and read around it. Find the women writers you like. If the women writers you read keep doing things that you don’t like and you’re sure it’s because they’re women, not for some other reason: Sit with it. If all the women writers do it, it is worth doing to some people. Try to gain access. If you’re purposefully only exposing yourself to commentary / vibes / thoughts / emotions by one half of humanity, you’re excising half of what it means to be human.
Personally, I know about myself that if I don’t course correct, I tend to read about 80% male writers. It’s just what happens if I take my hands off the wheel. I have many theories about why that is – media representation, prestige and “classic status” still massively favor men and wash more male authors onto the shores of my TBR – but the reason is beside the point. I don’t want it. Some of my favorite authors are women, and some of the best books I’ve read – some of the best words I’ve seen and thought – have been by women writers. Now, for example, I detest romance and romantasy, genres dominated by women. So I don’t read those (I’ve given them both a fair try though, to see if something shakes loose). But I make it a point to challenge myself to read more women writers, and to search specifically for women writers I like, and when I find one, to find out who else she likes and who she draws inspiration from and who else she would have me read, because that makes sense to me. I don’t want to read 80% male authors. I’m sitting at 48 books this year, and 23 of those where by female writers, so I’m 1 book off from 50/50. 11 of those books were fucking excellent, and I would regret it if I’d missed them. Two of them are by a woman who is now one of my favorite authors of all time (Almudena Grandes). Three of them are by Elena Ferrante, one of my favorite authors since the first work I read by her. I would be poorer if I didn’t know these two writers.
If men and women really see the world differently, then *I want to see what women see*. I’m here for that. I read books because they work my empathy muscles. Because I want to be able to relate to more people, in more situations, from more backgrounds. It would be absurd to limit that to men.
I almost never pay attention to the author’s gender. Sometimes though I will notice that authors writing the opposite gender write them in a distasteful manner.
I can’t even watch TV right now because of the way female writers are absolutely crapping on everything men like purely *because men like those things*. The difference between the two situations is the men who fail to write stories that are compelling to you aren’t writing books to be spiteful to women, but the women ARE writing specifically to spite men.
Having a hard time empathizing with your position.
Your problem is solved by picking up another book. My problem is that the fiction I already liked is being maliciously and spitefully torpedoed by incompetent, talent-free, man-hating women.
I definitely think people tend to gravitate to what they relate to when it comes to media and books are no exception. I’m a guy and while I tend to read largely non-fiction the fiction I do read is mostly written by men. This wasn’t a conscious thing it just happened that way so I would imagine that’s normal for a lot of readers. I don’t think it’s a bad thing I still read books written from different perspectives but everyone has their preferences.
I personally like to read things that I can’t relate to very much so I can get a new understanding of how different the world is perceived by different people.
At first I had my hackles up reading this but I started thinking about it. I think you’re right about men and woman seeing the world differently or, at least, are interested in different things. For me, I’m always trying to replicate the experience I had reading Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law series. I can’t name a single female author that writes grimdark fantasy, though, so I find I don’t read a lot of female writers.
That said, when I recommend books to people, Educated by Tara Westover is always one of them. It has some of the nicest prose I’ve ever read. I’m also reading R. F. Kuang, I read Babel and I am currently reading The Poppy War. For whatever reason, I can tell these books were written by a woman. I don’t know why, I certainly can’t put my finger on it but I can feel it.
I’ll often put a good effort into reading anything anyone recommends me but more often than not I don’t care for the books woman recommend me. My sister burned me with Forth Wing recently… lol. Maybe it’s just one of those things, men and woman are different and we like different things.
It depends, I’ve read a few books where you can tell it’s a dude writing it. I prefer when the author tries to write from both perspectives but sometimes it’s just hard to read. Examples of (IMO bad series) Anything by Kim Newman and the Monster Hunter series
I don’t think it’s a problem anymore. I used to. I think we simply have different tastes based on gender, and that’s totally fine. The world would be a boring place if everyone was the same. Also, age changes your taste as well, so that will probably change later in life as well.
I have this but for men. I practically only read men. The only book I am reading that I enjoy which is written by a female author is Jane Eyre. I think it’s just because you seek out male authors because they write from the same perspective of the world and experience as you. The woman won’t fully understand the man’s role model and visa versa.
Was speaking to a student about manga one day (i was a substitute so I didn’t really know him). I suggested the manga Claymore because it was like, swords and demons, seemed up his alley. He flat out said he won’t read stories about women because he can’t relate.
Interesting, because I don’t really care about who’s written the book. If it’s good, it’s good. If it’s bad, it’s bad.
Though, funnily enough, most of the books I’ve read this year are by women.