The May 1 issue of Library Journal presented its annual “Men’s Summer Fiction” roundup, featuring the latest books from Ace Atkins, Gregg Hurwitz, and Mike Lawson, among others. That list stopped me cold—I have read and enjoyed most of the included authors. Curious, I looked at the “Women’s Summer Fiction” piece in the same issue and found Mary Kay Andrews and Claire Cook, whom I adore, and several other writers I haven’t read. But what was more upsetting to me than the presence of gender-specific collections was that all the writers on the women’s list were women and vice versa.
As a woman who reads a lot of crime fiction and not a lot of women’s fiction, I have long been accused of reading “guy books,” which, considering my gender, is inaccurate. In close to two decades of dealing with the reading public, the only thing I’ve learned about what men and women read is not to assume anything. So why does LJ feel the need to continue to pigeonhole readers?
From the horse’s mouth
I decided to go to the source on this one: authors. Do they write for gender? Do they want their books to be categorized that way? I received thoughtful and passionate responses, like this from best-selling author M.J. Rose (The Hypnotist): “I am continually horrified by sexual divide in the way books are marketed. Books by men are marketed to men and women. Books by women are only marketed to women.”
Thriller author Meg Gardiner (The Nightmare Thief) captured my feelings exactly: “[I’m] really surprised that they’d concoct two lists playing so deeply to stereotypes. They might as well have stamped each list with ‘Warning: contains cooties.’ ” And Tess Gerritsen, who writes the popular Rizzoli & Isles crime series (The Silent Girl) expressed her astonishment: “I can’t imagine anyone [in this day and age] would think to classify my books as ‘women’s summer fiction.’ ”
Robin Burcell (The Bone Chamber) told me that when she first started writing, she geared her books more toward women because statistically they buy more books. “What I discovered (happily) was that I was picking up a strong male readership...I get more fan emails from men than women these days.”
Do dudes write just for dudes?
I also checked in with a few men whose books would never find their way onto a “women’s summer fiction” list. Joseph Finder (Buried Secrets) had the most scientific answer: “I actually have more female readers than male. I know this from a good survey I did of my readership recently (over 60% female, and not female buyers but female “readers”), and also from some Google Analytics my web manager did.” Even the creator of that most macho of characters, Rambo, doesn’t see one gender dominating his readership. David Morrell said, “I believe that my readers [are] evenly divided in terms of male/female…. It’s a stereotype that men and women can easily be categorized in terms of the kinds of books they read (or films they prefer). When I write, I never consider the gender of my readers.” Lawrence Block (A Drop of the Hard Stuff) put it most succinctly: “I never think about it.”
S.J. Rozan, whose popular mysteries revolve around New York sleuths Lydia Chin and Bill Smith (The Shanghai Moon), took the lists to heart. She said, “First- and second-wave feminism have come and gone, and emotion-forward or lighthearted stories are still ‘women’s’ while action is ‘men’s?’ I despair. No, I don’t write to gender. I don’t read that way, either. And with the exception of those men who don’t read women, I don’t think readers generally do, either. Though I must say, I bet one reason some of those men won’t read women is because they see lists like this.” Still, there is that small contingent of men who refuse to read women authors, hence the popularity of writers who use initials rather than first names. J.D. Robb was an unknown with her first book—what man would pick up a Nora Roberts title? Turns out, plenty of them.
Fiction by genre, not gender
Alafair Burke, the daughter of crime writer James Lee Burke and an acclaimed thriller writer (Long Gone), recently blogged about this on the mystery site Murderati, writing, “To say ‘I don’t read women’ is very different than preferring certain types of books over other types of books. Some of the most inventive, brilliant, and, yes, bad-ass crime fiction being written today comes from women. Using gender as a proxy for subgenre is a darn lazy way to choose books.”
What troubles me most about these segregated summer reading lists is that they just perpetuate the same old stereotypes. Need I remind anyone that most writers strive to achieve the success of that best-selling women’s fiction author, the male Nicholas Sparks?
This is the 21st century, people! Why haven’t we moved past this? Librarians are smarter than this, aren’t we? Do we really need LJ or anyone else to spoon-feed us books by gender? We do love our lists, and I would never suggest doing away with them, but why can’t we have summer reading lists by genre instead of gender?
This article originally appeared in the newsletter BookSmack!Click here to subscribe.
Stacy Alesi worked for Borders before moving to the Palm Beach County Library System in 2001, and is the guiding force behind the popular “Writers Live!” program, bringing best-selling authors to the library to discuss their work. She created and maintains the BookBitch.com and the BookBitchBlog, as well as the Florida Authors Wiki. Stacy is a regular reviewer for Library Journal and contributed a chapter to Nonfiction Readers’ Advisory, edited by Robert Burgin (2004). Stacy is an MLIS candidate, August 2011, from the University of South Florida
Reader Comments (12)
And let's not forget fiction by collaborators who are also male/female teams: two
I can recommend with enthusiasm are the mother/son team who write as
"Charles Todd" and the Princeton writing partners who under the pen name
"Dana Hand" created the excellent historical thriller "Deep Creek."
Posted by Lee Chandler on June 2, 2011 05:01:59PM
Well... the list is not saying it's JUST for women, it's that it happens to be made up of Women's Fiction titles. A specific style of writing. (I always hate to call it a genre, because it's the least genre-y genre I know.)
Women's Fiction, by definition, means stories written by women, about women's lives and relationships. One could argue that a man could write Women's Fiction, but I would argue back just as hard that nope, they don't.
These lists used to be referred to as "beach reads", which is pretty neutral, but let's face it, women read women's fiction. Most men do not.
Also, Tess Gerritsen writes mystery/thrillers, not Women's Fiction, so she doesn't have to worry about being on such a list. (actually, none of the authors quoted here write Women's Fiction.)
Posted by Rebecca Vnuk on June 2, 2011 07:57:03PM
Rebecca, I really appreciate your response. I do understand where you're coming from and I agree with you about the whole "women's fiction" genre. But if LJ had just called the list "women's fiction" and left off the more all encompassing "summer" heading, and hadn't joined it with the "men's summer fiction" list, I probably wouldn't have had such a visceral reaction. But because it is the only "summmer" women's fiction list, and both lists play directly into old stereotypes, it was just too last century for me.
Honestly, I think the best solution would be to just combine the lists into one big "beach reads" or "summer fiction" list and just lose the gender stereotypes all together.
You're also right about me not asking any of the women's fiction writers about it, but really, what was the point? That list catered to their audience, but my point was that women read much more than that, and those other genres should also be included on a women's summer fiction list.
Finally, I do disagree about only women writing women's fiction, as I pointed out with my Nicholas Sparks reference. Off the top my head, I know that Al Hudler also writes women's fiction, and I'd bet the farm that these guys aren't alone.
Posted by Stacy Alesi on June 3, 2011 07:12:59AM
Oops, pardon my flying fingers. It's AD Hudler, author of Southern Living, Man of the House, Househusband, etc., all terrific, fun, and definitely women's fiction reads - not that enlightened men wouldn't enjoy them too.
Posted by Stacy Alesi on June 3, 2011 07:16:06AM
Maybe I'm way off here, but I see the list as a way to get more men reading, by specifically saying, "Here are some books you might like to read on topics typically of interest to men or presented from a male point of view." I think the list is likely made irrespective of the author's gender. In actuality of course, all books are written for everyone who wants to read them--the more the merrier!
Posted by Lucy Boyd on June 3, 2011 09:33:44AM
Thanks, Stacy. : )
I actually agree with you too and think a more generic "summer reads" is a fine idea - but I suspect then the question will be, how do the books get chosen? Just because they are coming out in the summer? More "fun" reads than literary? You'll have a hue and cry from the literati claiming that they read "summer" fiction too, LOL.
Re: Sparks - nope. His books are solidly in the romantic fiction camp.(I'd suspect though that romance readers will likely argue here too. Quite frankly, I vote for a new category of fiction - perhaps, "sentimental fiction"? I don't mean that in a derogatory way, either.) I'll be exploring the definition of WF more in depth in my next book on the subject for Genreflecting, but the issue is that a lot of people think Women's Fiction is anything that women would enjoy, or is geared to women readers. Not true. Women's Fiction, as a "genre", is a specific type of story, always featuring a woman as the main character, and following her life, relationships, career, family, whatnot. Sparks doesn't only focus on a female main character, and his plots revolve around the love story. That knocks Mr. Hudler's books out, as well, although they sound great and I'm interested in reading some! (Southern Living might qualify... but even he calls it "southern fiction".) Anyway, this is a problem I'm grappling with right now with Maeve Binchy as well. Her last few books have not had a main female character (last one was a man), they've been a lot more community-centered plots. So do I still refer to her as a women's fiction author, or not? Sigh.
Posted by Rebecca Vnuk on June 3, 2011 04:02:57PM
Here's something else depressing: Pulitzer-prize winner VS Naipaul says a woman's writing is unequal to his own. :(
http://www.salon.com/books/2011/06/02/naipaul_slams_jane_austen_women_writers/index.html
Posted by Amanda Coppedge on June 3, 2011 02:53:54PM
I don't know what your hang up is, beyond a surfeit of political correctness
perhaps? It's rather inconsistent to say that it's "old stereotypes" to make a list of
Womens's summer reading" but perfectly fine to make a list called "women's
fiction." That's confusing. Why is "too last century" and "old stereotypes" to speak
of a womens summer reading list, but not to speak of "women's fiction"?
Would it also offend you if someone pointed out that in this century, there are
magazines read primarily by women? Or entire tv networks directed at women?
How about websites?
Posted by S.L. Framm on June 3, 2011 05:43:51PM
I think you are partly wrong on this. The lists are made for librarians - mostly fiction selectors. Alot of these selectors wear other hats and don't know many aspects of fiction as well as they should even though they might think that they do. At the system I work at all the fiction is selected by women - and no they don't know who Thomas Perry or Gregg Hurwitz are. And since 75% of our adult fiction checkouts are from females - they deal mostly with female RA questions.
The particular list on the LJ issue you are referring to wasn't well chosen in my view.I didn't think the titles were very representative.
So no I'm not offended when I see these lists and find a title in the female section that I liked. I'm more offended at how poor the Gregg Hurwitz books are of late - but I digress.
I think these lists and columns do a great service. Keep it up LJ.
Posted by Mike K on June 4, 2011 09:57:27AM
S.L., my "hangup" goes way beyond political correctness. In
library literature, "women's fiction" is a recognized genre,
but there are always some gray areas in defining any genre,
not to mention all the books that cross genres. Librarians
have been arguing about these definitions for years. That
said, "summer fiction" is not a genre, and shouldn't be
pigeonholed by sex, and that's as simple as I can make it.
Obviously I am aware that there are websites, television
networks, magazines and more that are aimed at specific
genders, but something as broad as "summer reading" should
be held to a higher standard in a professional journal.
Librarians earn graduate degrees in Library & Information
Science, which to me, speaks to a higher principle,
deserving of more exactitude, especially from Library
Journal.
Posted by Stacy Alesi on June 5, 2011 12:31:19PM
This is a sticky wicket indeed, and I think there's merit on all sides of it. Librarians and other bookies looking for ways to promote or market books to men (it seems almost redundant to speak of marketing books to women, per se) may be forgiven for presenting content through that rubric. It was with something very much like this in mind that we pitched the idea of the occassional He Reads / She Reads column to Booklist some - (lord!) - seven years ago. Since then Kaite Stover and I have been gleefully perpetuating stereotypes in ways that I daresay make both of us wince from time to time, since as reader's advisors we know that stereotypes - gender or otherwise - are misleading and limiting, and just don't correspond with the great diversity of readers we see. It is some comfort that our influence is no doubt miniscule, and our stage is a specialized one set apart from the main flow of things; your point about divvying up something as broad as Summer Reads this same way is very well taken, Stacy: context is everything here.
I think there's a curious imbalance in the problem, as I've often maintained - mostly anecdotally, but I think there's some marketing research that backs it up - that on the whole women are far more ominivorous in their reading taste than men. Outlining classes or genres of books that women won't like - with the possible exception of porn westerns - just seems silly; outlining the same for men seems far more feasible: there are a depressing number of men who won't read women authors at all, especially if they're women authors writing about women protagonists. The reverse is not at all true.
So you make a really good point, Stacy, that applying these assumptions of gender preference in any kind of big broad way is mainly a problem not because of any ideals or political correctness or whatever: it is a problem because it fails to reflect reality.
Posted by David Wright on June 14, 2011 08:37:25PM
David is right, or is that wright? Men, in my experience, read less broadly than women. We don't (broadly speaking) read chicklit, women's fiction, romance, etc. We do read thrillers, mysteries, scifi, nonfiction and other "manly" (that does not mean these genres are not "womanly", just manly as opposed to women's fiction) genres written by female authors. Unbroken by Hillenbrand, for example. I know very few men who have said they will not read female authors; they just will not read women's fiction, romance, etc. Some men will even read cozies (Sparks, Karon, etc) or other books that jumpr from being women's fiction to more mainstream focus into the more-"manly" (Remember!!! "manly" means -not women's fiction-) Best Seller List, Thousand Splendid Suns, (I cannot believe I am writing this) the Twilight series, even...The Help. There are men who read women's fiction, lit, romance...but not as a general rule. Hence, when I see...Men's Summer Fiction (I think...women can read it too!) Women's Summer Fiction (Men, [me, included] beware!)
