Blogged: Do Men Avoid Books by Women?
Prompted by a discussion I read on Reddit, the answer seems to be probably not, or at least not on purpose, but there are a number of factors leading to the readership of female authors being mostly women anyway.
@jayeless Also (Western) men are indeed less likely to read fiction but not necessarily narrative non-fiction, which is often heavily coded as male.
And even the YA split is something of a circular cultural argument: “teen boys are reluctant readers” so few novels specifically aimed at them, so less interest… but also many adults are comfortable with kids reading “adult” Action Adventure but not “adult” Romance…
@hugh Yeah, all of these are great points to add. It's definitely true that publishers aren't making their decisions in a vacuum, and my apologies if I implied otherwise in my post – I really meant the whole complex of the book industry, like you mention. Fully agreed with your points on male reading preferences, as well.
@jayeless lol no need to apologise, just drawing on my time in public libraries. Don't disagree with anything you wrote! Some school teachers really don't help here either with their assumptions and shorthands 😞
@jayeless You touched on this but on the demand-inducing side it’s not just publisher marketing decisions. There’s a whole self-driving system of Award committees, reviewers, bookstore and librarian recommendations, and journalistic editorial that promotes certain types of writing as for and by men, and others as for and by women. And heaven help anyone with a non-binary gender identity.