Gendered Reading

[Dark Muse]

The thread upon chick-lit is what got me thinking about this, as within the thread the idea of the alternative "boy-lit" was brought up, which then raised some questions of what boy-lit might be, and a few people used examples of books which simply lacked female characters as a possible example of what could be considered as "boy-lit" and this got me to thinking.

While it may be true the classic male authors who wrote books primarily focused on male characters may in fact have been appealing to the male audience, is the lack of female characters really a deterrent to women readers? Is having female characters predominately within a work a particular attraction to draw women readers?

I myself, being that I do read a lot of classics find that many of the books I read do tend to predominantly feature male characters, but I never really thought twice about this, and in fact it never caused me to enjoy a book less, nor have used the ratio of male to female characters in consideration while trying to decide if I want to read a book or not.

But then I have always had a preference for adventure type stories, in movies I love action-adventure but steer clear of chick-flicks" I rather have harrowing tales and war and other acts of excitement and adventure than something romantic or focused on emotion and sentimentality.

At the same time though, I am a big Jane Austin fan, and I love the Victorian women authors in general so I do have varied tastes which are filled with exceptions (I am not a one-trick pony).

But I was just curious as does the presence or lack of presence of female or male characters affect readers of either gender? And do most women in general feel that books with predominately male characters are indeed geared more toward men?

Do most women in general enjoy a book more or less based upon the presence of female characters?

[meh!]

boy-lit : hi-fidelity

[Manchegan]

other boy lit: fight club, choke...anything palanuk (check spelling)

Not to sound too sexist, but I generally don't care for books by women. I can tell that the authors are talented, but the subject matter usually fails to interest me. The only thing I've ever really liked by a woman was The Yellow Wall Paper, oh and a short story whose name I forgot by Dinnesen. Oh! and Frankenstein...ok, maybe there's a few, But bronte, austen, wolf ...none of em do it for me.
Many of my favorite characters are female - Sue from Jude, Marie-Sophie from Texaco...

[papayahed]

Do most women in general enjoy a book more or less based upon the presence of female characters?


I don't know, I don't think I've ever thought about the gender of the characters. Except of course for Orlando but that was a big stinker all the way around.

[weltanschauung]

me neither, i focus much more on the writing and the story than on the gender of the characters. i usually dislike novels that display cliche social roles as a means of salvation of the characters, and although i hate male chauvinism i cant help reading writters like kundera and bukowski and enjoying it with a sacred hatred because it feels like spying.

[Helga]

I have read two books by Matthew Reilly 'the temple' and 'ice station' I think they are what could be called boy-lit. mainly male characters and it's set up like an action movie. they are definitely written for a male reader. I thought 'the temple' was OK but 'ice station' was to Bruce Willis for me.

[Bastable]

Doesn't really bother me what gender the characters are. It's the themes covered in the text. The Bell Jar is one of my favorite books, so too is Fight Club. they both have writers and main characters of different genders, yet the themes of both appeal to me. The Bell Jar, i think, can be easily read and enjoyed by both genders and still mean something. Fight Club, not so much, more of a mans book for men. So I think the reason most men aren't very fond of Austen or the Brontes is not because they have female leads or a are written by women, but because they deal with themes women would care for more. most likely the same with many female writers

[kelby_lake]

Yeah, I'm a bit put off Hemingway by the machoness of his books. Although saying that, I get equally put off by too many women.

[Mathor]

The thread upon chick-lit is what got me thinking about this, as within the thread the idea of the alternative "boy-lit" was brought up, which then raised some questions of what boy-lit might be, and a few people used examples of books which simply lacked female characters as a possible example of what could be considered as "boy-lit" and this got me to thinking.

While it may be true the classic male authors who wrote books primarily focused on male characters may in fact have been appealing to the male audience, is the lack of female characters really a deterrent to women readers? Is having female characters predominately within a work a particular attraction to draw women readers?

I myself, being that I do read a lot of classics find that many of the books I read do tend to predominantly feature male characters, but I never really thought twice about this, and in fact it never caused me to enjoy a book less, nor have used the ratio of male to female characters in consideration while trying to decide if I want to read a book or not.

But then I have always had a preference for adventure type stories, in movies I love action-adventure but steer clear of chick-flicks" I rather have harrowing tales and war and other acts of excitement and adventure than something romantic or focused on emotion and sentimentality.

At the same time though, I am a big Jane Austin fan, and I love the Victorian women authors in general so I do have varied tastes which are filled with exceptions (I am not a one-trick pony).

But I was just curious as does the presence or lack of presence of female or male characters affect readers of either gender? And do most women in general feel that books with predominately male characters are indeed geared more toward men?

Do most women in general enjoy a book more or less based upon the presence of female characters?

Well, women who put a lot into feminism will see that the majority of authors almost intentionally make males stronger, more intelligent, more interesting, and they flesh these characters out more. Even in Jane Austen, male characters take up the majority of the dialogue and the majority of the description. The fact that few books have good female characters kind of shows this to you. As a male, I can often side with the male characters in a story. But as a woman, finding you can rarely connect with the females in the book would certainly discourage you from reading.

[Dark Muse]

Well, women who put a lot into feminism will see that the majority of authors almost intentionally make males stronger, more intelligent, more interesting, and they flesh these characters out more. Even in Jane Austen, male characters take up the majority of the dialogue and the majority of the description. The fact that few books have good female characters kind of shows this to you. As a male, I can often side with the men. But as a woman, finding you can rarely connect with the females in the book would certainly discourage you from reading.

Maybe it is just because in really life I have a tendency to get along better with guys then girls and connect more with men than I do with women, that I never really have that problem. And I can enjoy a book even if it is primarily all male characters within the story. In the books I read the women often do tend to annoy me, and I find myself often siding with the men. Though not always. Though even in the classics, I haven't founded that difficult to connect with some of the female characters even if perhaps they were shadowed by the men. But then I find that sometimes I am often drawn to women, which I do not think one is necessarily intended to be sympathetic with.

[papayahed]

Well, women who put a lot into feminism will see that the majority of authors almost intentionally make males stronger, more intelligent, more interesting, and they flesh these characters out more. Even in Jane Austen, male characters take up the majority of the dialogue and the majority of the description. The fact that few books have good female characters kind of shows this to you. As a male, I can often side with the male characters in a story. But as a woman, finding you can rarely connect with the females in the book would certainly discourage you from reading.


I think this site show that not to be true, I think the ratio of women to men is around 2:1. If that was the case a lot less women would be reading or we would have a lot more threads about Harlequin romances (Mills and Boon to ya'll across the pond). I think good charaters at just good characters male or female.

[FanofdeBeauvoir]

I don't think not being able to connect with the female characters disincourages from reading, but for me at least, if the book is sexist (girls = weak), I'll only continue reading if it's otherwise impecable.

[mollie]

I doesn't put me off when there are no or few female characters in a book. It puts me off when the author knows nothing about women, and tries to write them anyway. I'd much rather read a book with all male characters than read a book with female characters who are ciphers or badly written.