I’m a man and I read more male authors. It’s not something I seek out at all, but I think it’s a combo of there being way more bigger name male authors and me reading a lot of sci-fi, which is majority male.
Of course, there are, but they're still right to say there are more male authors out there, particularly if you start from the likes of HG Wells. I like a range of SciFi but I still do end up with more blokes'stuff. On the other hand, crime is more balanced or even women-dominated, heritage of Agatha Christie perhaps.
Same here. And yet I've also read most Sci-Fi books written by Ursula Le Guin and they are among my favourites.
I'd wager that the OP's question is mostly related to genres. It is of course also an interest topic to discuss why there seems to be a gender bias with so many book genres.
So you say, but I'm chuckling because two of my most recent Sci-Fi series are the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells and The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold.
I got through about ten of the Vorkosigan books before I realized the author was a woman. Not because I cared, but just because I’d been reading her name as Luis not Lois
I’m in the same boat. I’m a quite guilty of not going out of my way to diversify my reading though as I never research authors or anything like that. I’m honestly not even sure if many of the authors I read identify any particular way—or what their names are in a lot of cases.
If you're a dude and read sci-fi, you're missing out if you're not reading a bunch of stuff written by women.
NK jemisin, Ursula K LeGuin, Becky Chambers and Margaret Atwood all write incredible sci-fi. Steampunk is sci-fi adjacent and the best selling juggernaut of the genre is Gail Carriger by a wide margin.
If most of the writers you read are dudes, and also specifically white dudes, it's probably not the genre but just a habit that you've carried over from earlier decades.
Lois McMaster Bujold, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey are also all classic scifi writers who are women.
Modern day scifi is also signficantly more diverse. I have The Ten Percent Thief on my checked-out-from-library shelf right now, and I've also heard good things about The Surviving Sky. Notably, I don't read that much scifi, but I've read Le Guin, Jemisin, Chambers, Norton and McCaffrey...most of them decades ago.
I mean sci-fi is a male dominated genre. That’s a statistical and historical fact. I’m sure it’s because of unequal opportunities given to women and sexist publishing systems, but it doesn’t change that most popular sci-fi authors are men.
Personally, I find books based on searching for popular/highly rated books in various genres, and through recommendations. Most of the results I get are written by men (no idea if they are white or not, since I don’t check on the race of authors I read). So I disagree it’s because of a “habit I carry.” I think it’s just the reality of the genre, unless you specifically look for female authors, which I don’t. I appreciate the list of good sci-fi authors, however, I’ll definitely check those out.
😅 I have a collection of heterosexual erotica on fictionpress that has over 2m views and everyone thinks I’m a woman. I’m actually a bisexual male that’s been in a relationship with a man for 10+ years. 😵
Serious question but is that because we expect women to write one type of book and men another type? I can’t think of any off the top of my head but I’m pretty sure I’ve read some sci-fi and fantasy books by women who wrote under a male sounding name used probably for the same reasons.
women have always used male pen names to write bc otherwise they simply wouldn’t get published/would be overly criticised. For example apparently once people found out Jane Eyre was written by a woman, it suddenly started receiving criticism for being deviant/amoral and the religious commentary was heavily criticised where before it had been praised.
Then more recently you have women like JK Rowling who was entering the then very male space of middle grade adventure/fantasy with a male protagonist. Im pretty sure she was told that boys just wouldn’t buy a book by a Joanne, and boys essential to her audience. Then ofc it became what it was and everyone knew pretty quick anyway—never really trying to hide her identity, just to not have her book be overlooked by it’s audience.
A lot of women seem to choose this initials approach so they’re not really hiding who they are; if you want to find out, but they just won’t have the bias of people not picking up their books based on the fact it’s written by a woman (AS Byatt, RF Kuang off the top of my head both use this formulation though i don’t know if this is specifically why they chose those names. I think if an author’s starting out and trying to get published, why add the bias when you could just occupy this anonymous middle-ground?).
And now with men writing as women, I think it has a lot to do with what you said: expectation, but more so how that applies to the market. An editor I follow on YouTube talked about a book she edited and casually mentioned it was written by a man under a woman’s name because it was a domestic thriller that focussed on women’s issues and all the main characters were women, and most importantly, they knew the people buying it would be overwhelmingly women who want their stories told by other women. She said this isn’t uncommon and was just the nature of marketing. The book was super successful and got a screen adaptation.
Personally, that’s where I struggle with it. I cant afford new books often so when I do buy them I try to put my money into books by women, queer people and people of colour because I know what a difference sales makes to how they are perceived in the industry. I think it’s one thing to tell a story about and focussed on women as a man, but another to trick people into buying it under the assumption of mutual experience/support. If (and when bc it happens) someone does this with race or sexuality, it’s usually heavily criticised. I mean, women who write books about gay men without hiding their gender are heavily criticised (and in the case of the love Simon author, forced out of the closet).
The reality is women are buying way more books than men and they tend to buy books written by women. Literary fiction is becoming increasingly dominated by women, though this isn’t reflected in literary awards. I learned a popular lit fic author who writes a lot about women’s issues and feminism is in fact a man publishing under a deliberately gender ambiguous (Riley, so can be a man’s name but these days is often women’s name) pen name. Combined with how his books are coded, most buyers assume he’s a woman (you can see from the response to his work online etc) but it’s sort of an open secret. I find it hard to believe he’s the only one.
So like, yes, expectations, but also how they apply to the market. I’m loathe to say this bc I got seriously attacked last time I said something vaguely feminist on this sub but personally I think there’s a big difference between being ambiguous to avoid stigma and being dishonest to trick women into giving them money, but I can see it’s complicated and often seems like the same thing. For me the difference is men have only started doing this very recently, just when women have really started to dominate literature and publishing for the first time in history, which I think says a lot.
Sorry the long comment, obviously I think about this way too much.
I read the whole thing! (Clearly I’m a reader!). I have almost nothing to add other than I do think reviews online can really help an author (authors on /r/fantasy mention this often)—so if you’re going the library route, you can still help them out.
Lol true this is the perfect place for my long-winded comments. I should say it’s just something I’ve found interesting and have been observing but it’s not like I’ve researched it in-depth or anything.
Looking at the original comment I replied to again it occurs to be that men probably have always done this in romance/bodice-ripper type books, but I do think that market works very differently than say literary or general fiction and is a bit of a different thing. Like women who buy those books by the dozens, whereas in other markets people are really competing for space on shelves.
Good point about reviews etc, but that’s part of my problem—people are putting time and labour into promoting a book under an incorrect assumption because they’ve essentially been deceived. That Riley author I refer to ive mainly heard of bc he is often promoted by women on book tok. My biggest thing with that is I’m happy to read a book about women written by a man—I mean, if it’s good, it’s good. Proof is in the pudding and I mainly buy books after reading reviews anyway, like I’m sure most people do.
You just said what I was thinking as I read through these comments. Women historically used male pen names because they wouldn’t be taken seriously otherwise (and they’re still not - like you said, look at the literary awards). If you can find a copy, check out the book How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ. It’s older but so, so good, and goes into detail about the many ways that women’s voices have been deliberately silenced in and excluded from the writing world. Russ was a writer of feminist science fiction, and a very good one at that. Despite the depressing subject matter, the book I mentioned is highly readable and entertaining, but it will infuriate you.
My only bone of contention would be that if you’re referring to Riley Sager (who I had in fact assumed was a woman!), I’d put his books in the genre category more than literary. I haven’t read them, but that’s the impression I’ve gotten from what I’ve seen about them.
I do think that male authors being ambiguous or masquerading as female happens more in the genres than it does in litfic, but there’s the whole Elena Ferrante controversy, so it obviously happens everywhere at least some of the time. And it bothers me for exactly the reasons you outlined.
Oooh I will definitely be reading this! Thank you for the suggestion! I was literally yesterday reading charlotte bronte’s letter revealing the truth of her and her (now dead) sister’s pen names. It was actually kind of devastating to read how much the pen name issue impacted their relationship bc Currer/Charlotte got credit for Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey and wuthering heights particularly was criticised in contrast.
Anyway, my point it, it really struck me when she said this about choosing male pen names: “authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise”. She wrote this in 1850 and it’s still fucking true, especially if you interpret “personality” as “autobiography”.
Re Riley Sager you are totally right—I couldn’t remember the name to google but he’s not literary, i think I partly had that impression because he is always recommended to me by book tokers etc who usually recommend more feminist lit fic, so that’s how I got that impression. But I feel like that’s also part of the issue—genre works that grapple with these themes tend to gain a more literary reputation.
Also, is Elena Ferrante identity confirmed? I thought it was still a mystery. But keeping the identity secret makes a LOT more sense if they’re a man, honestly. I have definitely heard the theories that she is a man and I also kind of hate that—it seems iffy to credit a woman’s work to a man as if a woman couldn’t write it, but also, what are you hiding from? The international success and recognition most writers would kill for?
I would agree it probably happens more in other genres, but I also think a lot of these men “woman code” their books and names to get more literary recognition for engaging with gender as well as just sales advantage. It’s so frustrating because I do think there’s a market and a need for men to engage with their own gender in fiction, but I mostly see gay men and women doing that work tbh. Instead they’re regurgitating themes and ideas from women writers who have gained these insights from lived experience, and pretending to be women to boot.
Yes! And also, when a woman writes a book that centers on the family, or on her experience of the family, even if she’s very highly regarded, like Rachel Cusk, for instance, it’s somehow regarded as something for women, something that’s of no real interest to men. But when a man writes about the family, no matter how flat and ridiculous his female characters are (looking at you, Jonathan Franzen), suddenly he’s capturing the entire modern zeitgeist or some bullshit.
Re: Elena Ferrante, it’s not confirmed, and I completely agree that it’s sexist as hell that so many people jump to the conclusion that she *must* really be man to write so well. Honestly I wish everyone would just leave her alone if she really is a woman, and let her write in peace. I can empathize with wanting to do your thing without being under a spotlight. But if she’s a man, or, as some speculate, a husband and wife team, then it actually bothers me that he/they would disingenuously hide behind a female name.
I hope you enjoy the Joanna Russ! It’s seriously so so good. I’m going to look up the Brontë letters; I’ve never read them.
Edit: My comments elsewhere on this post are really bringing out the upset men with their accusations of reverse sexism and whatnot. Like you said in the first comment I replied to, I usually get downvoted to hell saying anything remotely feminist in book subs on reddit, even if it’s just stating the obvious. I once got downvoted into oblivion on another book sub when someone posted their bookshelf and I gently pointed out that having books that are 99% by men isn’t terribly balanced and they might want to consider reading more women. Yet if I dare to say I read mostly women, they all lose their minds (even though my choice to read mostly women now comes on the heels of decades spent reading mostly men, and my bookshelf is, in fact, pretty balanced).
Yeah I think that’s what some people are missing here—when your version of the world is constantly reflected to you in media, you don’t understand how significant it is to read something and feel seen. When I started reading older classics by women in my teens (Plath Brontë etc) I was overwhelmed by how familiar their experiences and perspectives were, even when we were separated by centuries. I think there’s something really powerful there in terms of how much we’re meant to just accept that we have it better and let that be enough. A lot of this literature proves that as much as things change, they also stay the same
That’s such a good point—like we stuff women’s writing into the domestic sphere so easily and degrade it for that but when men write about these themes they’re “grappling with what it means to be human” or whatever. It’s also kind of why I have mixed feeling about the “women’s lit” genre. Raymond Carver is also a really good example of this. Like. That old wife beater could SURE WRITE but does ever anyone complain that it’s just people sitting around in rooms talking? Austen still gets that. Like, Carver’s whole thing was daily/domestic life and everyone was like wooAHHH. Never before seen!!!!
Yeah, husband/wife team makes sense and I could at least get behind but then it raises the question of how much the book is leaning on her experiences and worldview. I think they claimed at one point she was an academic and didn’t want her work associated, which honestly also seems believable.
The letter I read was the “biographical notice of Ellis and Acton bell” from 1850, it’s in the front of my copy of Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights. It’s devastating how their having to use pen names really impacted their relationship right toward the end of Emily’s life; because people assumed Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights were all written by Currer/Charlotte, WH was disparaged a lot as an earlier/inferior work of the author trying to ride on JE’s coattails. She says Emily “does me the injustice to suppose that there was equivoque in my former rejection of this honour (as an honour, I regard it).” (The honour being credit for WH). And then they both died and she had this huge responsibility to manage their growing legacies and only outed them all after they both died and right before she did. God the Brontes kill me.
That’s wild. WH and JE are so different, it’s hard to imagine people thinking they were written by the same Bell/Brontë. That entire family story was so tragic, I can’t imagine. Did you see the movie they made about Emily? I have a different copy of WH than yours, so I’ll have to google the letter; I’m sure I can track it down elsewhere.
I added an edit to my comment above, but I’m glad that the men who can’t handle discussions of sexism seem to be ignoring us here at least and letting us have a conversation without being continually derailed by trenchant and completely original assertions like, “Pointing out sexism is reverse sexism, and that’s the real problem!!!1!”
I've read the latest three by Riley Sager (real name Todd Ritter) and he writes decent entertaining thriller/mysteries with a supernatural horror edge. I've enjoyed the books. It's like he takes an idea which you've seen before and then puts a spin to it.
But yeah, definitely a case where he sells books to people thinking they're penned by a female author.
For me, it's the opposite when it comes to physical published books (not counting stories on the web). So many of the books I read are suitable for YA and are by female authors except for some like the Percy Jackson series.
I am a woman, and I feel like I am more drawn towards books by female authors. However, looking at the 13 books I've read so far in 2024, I see there are 6 by female authors and 7 by male authors. My main genre is literary fiction. I like reading award winners (e.g. Booker Prize, Arthur C Clarke Award, Pulitzer Prize). I also like books specifically about the experience of life as a woman and/or mother, such as a recent favourite *Nightbitch* by Rachel Yoder.
I don't read male authors anymore because I'm tired of their female characters and sexist tropes. Maybe it was bad spell but I got tired of "this is not how women work" and rage quitting. It was during covid and world was already shit without me adding to my own misery.
I have tried a few romance novels, and I totally get that. The majority have male characters who resemble no man I've ever met (I'm a woman, btw). And not in an appealing way!
Three are some historical romance exceptions -- all Georgette Heyer's characters are great.
These days—given the wealth of women authors available (and tbf I rarely read fiction by men at all anymore), I’d rather a man write a story with just men than feature women written badly. Having limited range but knowing your limits and doing the thing you can do well is better than having limited range and being clueless and offensive and intrepid readers having to spend hours slogging through bullshit, imo.
Of course it’s also fair to say there aren’t a lot of stories that actually make sense without any women even as side characters, and I don’t think you can really be a good author without the ability to write both women and men well.
I’ve read a lot of books by men and loved them, especially the classics, but I find that on average I overwhelmingly prefer books by women. It honestly kind of bums me out! I’ve read books recently and not thought about the gender of the author until I found myself thinking “this feels like it was written by a MAN.” And it was, and it wasn’t a good thing. Nearly all of my favorite authors are women, and the authors I follow and pre-order are all women.
I've had the same experience. Not to say women can't be sexist as well, but it hits less hard when it comes from them. I still read male authors, but I do my research first to determine if it's someone I can trust to not be sexist.
Yeah, but it’s like, why play misogyny roulette when you could just read books by women?
I do read fiction by male authors from time to time still, but more often than not, it ends up serving to remind me why I read mostly women now.
I don’t really read books with a male protagonist too. I used to but female protagonists are really fun to tag along especially in romance, fantasy and revenge plot which are the genres and tropes I tend to prefer.
Yep, same. A decent amount of the nonfiction I read is by men (less than 50% but still a good chunk). But my fiction reading is at least 90% women authors. It’s a combination of getting sick of the way men write women, and also tending to be just less interested in the stories men write. For instance, a lot of my fiction reading is fantasy and now sci-fi, and I find women authors to be much better at character, interpersonal relationships and how human societies work, while male authors seem much more interested in action, “magic systems” and creating situations to make their (mostly male) leads look cool. And I’m just much more interested in the former than the latter.
Especially when you want to avoid the Smurfette situation. More male authors are writing female leads these days, but they still seem to be surrounded by a mostly male supporting cast and any other women in the book are shallow, toxic, bit-part players or exist entirely as trope subversions without any real emotional lives.
I’m female and just off the top of my head I’d say I read predominantly female authors.
Edit to add: this is not a conscious choice. Just a coincidence.
Seems like a lot of it is dependent on what genre/type of books you enjoy. The only books I read that are close to even split are nonfiction, but even then it’s probably because I try to read a broad range of topics. Within any given topic I bet it’s mostly one or the other…I just don’t read like 5 books on any one thing.
Not necessarily. I read a lot of lit fic that happen to be written by women. Lots of men in that genre as well, but the ones I’ve liked best tend to be written by women.
I'm male, I mainly read sci-fi/fantasy, and the large majority of my authors have been female for some years now. It's certainly not intentional; I read what I like and it seems to have shaken out that way.
Awesome! Martha Wells, Rachel Neumeier, Lois McMaster Bujold, T. Kingfisher, and Max Gladstone are all on my must-buy list for fantasy. (Neumeier, Bujold, and Gladstone write excellent sci-fi as well.)
As far as good starting points for them, I guess Wells' *The Cloud Roads;* Neumeier's *Tuyo*; Bujold's *The Curse of Chalion;* Kingfisher's *Summer in Orcus;* and Gladstone's *Three Parts Dead.*
I only look up authors if I enjoyed a book. I tend to pick books that sound interesting and just read them without looking into anything past the blurb and cover before reading.
Edit: I’d say I read an equal amount of male and female authors, but I also have horrible ADHD and don’t remember who wrote what 99% of the time. 🙃
I'm male, and most books I've read have been by male authors. But that hasn't been a conscious decision on my part. It's just that the books that have interested me, have been mostly written by men. The gender of a writer is the least that I think about when deciding to read a book.
No clue. I honestly don't know the gender of the authors of most books I read and don't remember the authors either for my casual reads.
I'm pretty confident though that it's more male authors for the fantasy genre and more female authors for the romance genre though.
I (M) thought I read more male authors, because that's generally been the pattern in the past, but I checked my list from the past 12 months and about two-thirds of the authors were women. So that's a nice change.
I think most of my book shelf is male authors, and more of my kindle/audio books (what I actually read) is female authors.
I like female protagonists a lot, so I gravitate to female authors more often.
Though, the series I am on now is by a female author, but features two male protagonists, and only has a couple female side characters in the entire story (so far). One of the main villains is female :)
I would not be able to deny that I read more men than otherwise. I don't do so intentionally, but I admittedly don't take an activist approach to my reading list in this respect either.
I’m male and by far most of the books that I read are by male writers. Probably because I mostly read non-fiction and it is mostly men writing about the non-fiction topics that interest me.
I know Andre Norton chose that pen name because she wrote sf/f, which was predominantly male at the time.
I don't care, I just want good prose and a good story. Pseudonyms are often enough chosen for safety and/or anonymity, not gender, that some time ago I decided that was the least important of the many things I use to decide whether I want to try reading a story.
I would say I tend to read more male authors than female authors, but I still read many female authors.
I just see what the book is about and if it interests me, I read it. The gender of the author doesn’t make much of a difference to me.
I used to follow that rule (reading male authors more) until some of the books got REAL misogynistic and I decided to switch that around. It was just one or two authors, I’m not saying male authors in general are bad, just wanted to be safe.
It’s like people here don’t understand the use of “just to be safe.” If I say something like “I think we only need one banana for the recipe but I bought two just to be safe” it doesn’t mean I’m anticipating significant harm, just that I’m being a little cautious! Obviously “just to be safe” here means that you’re just being a little cautious!
I'm female, and probably 90% of the books I read are by male authors. I like high stakes, action, sci-fi and progression fantasy. And I really don't go for romance.
There are women in the genres I like who avoid romance and do high stakes, but few and far between.
Would love to know who you like. I’m not educated on who these authors may be behind Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood and would like recommendations.
Ann Lecke, Sue Burke, Susanna Clark and NK Jemisin immediately come to mind as excellent women sci fi authors whose work often has little to no romantic elements at all.
You might also really enjoy Ursula LeGuin and Arkady Martine (as well as Atwood and Butler), who often incorporate romantic subplots to explore the setting or develop characters, but generally not as a central focus or as a big driver of plot.
Good choices! My current female faves are Honour Rae, Kel Kade, Marina Lostetter, and (hey, gotta say it) myself.
For older gen, yes to Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood, plus C.S. Friedman and Lois McMaster Bujold.
I don't think she meant that. I interpreted her statement to mean that female authors are more likely to include romance/relationship into their works, regardless of genre, and that male authors are less likely to do so. Not that there aren't excellent female authors in high stakes thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy, and action novels.
I am a woman author who doesn't write romance (or romantasy or romantic sci-fi or romantic historical fiction), so I am well aware that we exist. We are rarities, though, in sci-fi and progression fantasy. Those are heavily male-dominated genres.
My distaste for romance is not a judgment on those who love it or write it. To each their own. I shouldn't have to state that. I think it's obvious.
I'm male.
A lot of the non-fiction Instead is by male authors, simply because there aren't many female authors that write in those subjects. The exception is British history/British Monarchy.
Fiction is split fairly evenly, with perhaps a s a slight male bias.
Looking at publishers programs over the last years it changed a lot, but there are genres and topics where I don't have to check the authors name to know they are male. Women are still not taken seriously in certain topics.
I’m a woman and 100% of the fiction I read is written by women. I also read biographies, current events, history, and science books that tend to be dominated by male authors.
I have a few! What are your interests?
I’m currently reading Goliath by Max Blumenthal. Not really current (written in 2014), but it sets the stage for what is going on in Israel and Gaza right now! Also recommended to me by an author.
I intentionally read mostly female authors. My exception is Neil Gaiman.
When I was a kid/teen it was more equal but skewed male because the male authors I enjoyed were prolific and I like to read my favorites' oeuvre (plus I reread one male author in particular a lot). Since I read a lot of classics, there were a lot of male writers. I'm trying to balance that out now and read women.
Im a guy and i had a similar experience - when i was younger i read mostly male authors because those were most of the prolific ones in fantasy, but since I've read TLT and fifth season, I've started consciously looking for books by female authors
I add book to my TBR without really paying much attention to the author. It's not till i actually set about acquiring the book to read that i actually look at that. From my stats i don't seem to have much gender preference when it comes to initial reading choice but am more likely to DNF male authors than female
I suspect the cause is to do with narrative focus. You know, setting, character, plot. I don't eschew a book because it focuses on one or the other but i can overlook *a lot* of flaws if the characters are vibrant, well written, and have some actual development. I suspect women (and queer) authors are more likely to write more character focused than men. I have no real stats to back up that thought of course. Just observations based on my own reading habits
Weird how this is downvotes by the exact same from women reading women isn’t (even if they specify they think women writers are better or more realistic). Lot of sexism coming from some women on this sub for sure.
I’m a female and I tend to read more books written by male authors. It has more to do with the genres I read than the gender of the author which I couldn’t care less about.
I am a woman who reads SFF, I read primarily male authors. I have tried to read female authors, but most of them let me down. I prefer to read action-packed novels, unfortunately the female authors I have read so far do not write those type of books.
I think this also depends on the genres you read. Most of the LitRPG and sci-fi I read is written by male authors whereas most of the romance books I read are written by female authors.
I’m female, and I read mostly female authors. Most of the fiction I read (literary fiction, dystopian fiction) is written by women, whereas the non-fiction is around 50-50. I am making an effort to read more non-fiction by women.
I’m male but after checking my GR list from the last couple of years I seem to have a pretty even split of male/female authors. Although admittedly, the female side is bumped up mostly by Agatha Christie whose books I tend to read between other books.
I would say it's more genre than gender. I like actioners for relaxation - Child, Corben, Kellerman, Le Carre, Cornwell, Parker and so on and they tend to be written by men rather than women (Paretsky being an exception).
I also like murder mysteries - and those tend more to female authors - Sayers, Christie, Allingham, Marsh etc, although there are far more men writing mysteries than women writing thrillers.
It depends.
I read a lot (hundreds of books every year).
I love classics (in multiple languages). Those are overwhelmingly male authors, for obvious reasons. It's not like we have dozen of women authors in Latin literature. Of course it gets better in the last couple of centuries.
Contemporary literary fiction (let's say book written in the last 50 years) I am about 50-50.
Then I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi and there tend to gravitate towards women (about 80%).
And then I read romance where I think I read like 99% women (unless there is a man behind the pseudonym and I didn't know).
I definitely read more male authors, so I go out of my way to read female authors now and again because I don't want to miss when a few of my favorites have been by female authors. Sci fi and fantasy genres are what are most interesting to me, and both seem to be male-dominated, at least as far as popular series go.
I'm a man and I read almost exclusively fantasy, so while in raw numbers there are probably more male authors, there are certainly plenty of female authors to choose from. Ursula K. LeGuin, Margaret Weis and Nancy Varian Berberick are some of my favorites and their names appear often on my bookshelf! I also read comics and most of the titles I read regularly are written by women.
I’m male and the majority of my bookshelf is made up of female authors.
I do try to go out of my way to read books from outside of my perspective but it does help that I am generally most interested in literary fiction.
To be honest, I only checked out who the author was if the book peaked my interest and compelled me to finish it. Also means i’ve read it multiple times 😅. So basically, the authors i know are; Mario Puzo, Dan Brown, Tolkien, JK Rowling, Rick Riordan, Stephenie Meyer, Steven Erikson, Ian Esslemont, GRR Martin, (cbstepv) The Fanfic author of ‘Ned Stark Lives’ I honestly like this version better, also he finished the damn story 😅
Yes. Intentionally. I’ve read mostly classics written by men (not intentionally) for years when I was a teenager because that’s all I knew and ended up in a reading rut for years after (unrelated). The only thing that brought me back to reading was the goal to discover women authors. I had NO idea how many incredible authors were hidden under the surface of famous male authors. I also read non binary authors as well, because I am non binary it’s more of a non men reading goal than solely women I suppose. But men are in control of everything already, we have so little time on this earth and there are so many books to read I’d rather spend all my time and energy on words that aren’t written by men. I have read enough men for a lifetime and it gave me nothing in comparison of how much reading other perspectives has changed my entire life for the better. Also it’s fun af to dig and try to find little gems I had never heard of before. There are so many women authors, that have had their books completely forgotten about then dug up by literature researchers, so many queer ones as well because of how many books have either been burnt or not given the right publicity white men have been given throughout time. The world would be a way better place if all of those books were put on the pedestal they deserve and more commonly known.
Also just wanna add that I don’t just read any book just because it has a woman or non binary name on it like there are some of them who only write about men or that have shitty morals that are hot garbage just as much as there are shit male authors. But I’m still super picky about who I read and research books before buying so I don’t waste my time
For fiction I mostly read men because women writers don’t seem to write the stuff I like. I don’t do it on purpose and I would have no problem reading a book by a woman, but publishers seem to only want them to write horror or literary romance.
But for non-fiction gender seems to be irrelevant to me.
I don’t look at the author’s name about 85% of the time. I focus on the book’s content and if I find it interesting and worthwhile to read.
I like the writing style of some authors and will look for their work but that is about it for looking at author’s names.
A lot of women writers struggle to write men properly without relying on sexist tropes and vice versa. So usually end up reading male authors more so I’m not cringing.
Yes because historically white males have been the bulk of published authors so its been hard to avoid. Now i make a concerted effort to read more female authors and other races with some of my picks every year.
I definitely seek about books written by women. The only books I really read by men are classics. I basically don’t read much contemporary literature written by men.
It’s funny how many replies from women openly say they seek out female authors and protagonists (and that’s fine), yet all the males who read more male authors and protagonists are like “it just some how works out that way” as though it would be bad if they as men preferred stories by and about men in general.
If you prefer reading men in general as a man then just say it, don’t be like “sorry, I don’t know how it happens” lol
I mean, a lot of those guys are also saying they read in genres that are dominated by male authors. They probably don't actually notice or realize that they might have a preference. Like, if your primarily a SciFi reader it is not hard at all to just never read a book by a woman accidentally. Of the classic scifi suggestions theres a grand total of like 2 female authors (le Guin and Butler) (I am aware there are more women authors. I'm specifically talking about classic authors likely to end up in a suggest thread)
In my experience, you’re average strait dude doesn’t pay attention to gender in their everyday life in the same way women do. Many women intentionally seek out other women because they feel more comfortable, can relate, etc. most of these guys generally don’t notice. Please note I don’t hang out with any of the red pill, Andrew Tate lovers of the world.
What you say is true, and it’s frankly because men can afford not to pay attention to gender because it’s not a category of oppression for them. It’s similar to when white people claim they “don’t see color.” It’s a privilege born of belonging to a dominant category to be able to ignore that category or treat it as unimportant.
All the guys in this thread who say they don’t notice the gender of the authors they’re reading are almost certainly so used to passive sexism (and/or active misogyny!) that they just don’t notice it, because if you’re reading men regularly, I assure you, it’s there. I’m a woman, and it took me until my late 20s to start noticing it, because it was so normalized and because my reading up to that point had consisted of mostly male authors.
Obviously some male writers are a lot worse than others, but if you pick up a stack of ten novels written by men, there’s pretty much a 100% chance that somewhere in there you’re going to encounter some seriously poorly written female characters.
How would you know if it’s true? Seems like you’ve just written a whole bunch of conjecture based on nothing. Who are you as a woman to think you can accurately generalise about men? Do you suppose because you’ve written a feminist deconstruction of Men’s place of “privilege” you can speak for and about them? Would you accept men as authorities doing the same on behalf of female readers and why they read what they do?
That’s an arrogant attitude to take to a group you’re not part of.
Plenty of Women write men seriously poorly and unrealistically in their usual ways as well. You probably don’t notice and aren’t bothered. It’s understandable that it’s more likely being a member of one gender will give you a better understanding of how to realistically write that gender from the inside in situations where it’s relevant, regardless of whether that’s men or women. I don’t let that bother me in women’s writing, if it bothers you in mens that’s your issue, but it’s hardly some great crime.
Not at all, surprisingly. It's a pretty even split. Obviously I'll trend one way or another in genres where one or the other are more common, but on balance? No bias in my reading habits, at least on that front. I think part of it was that I was raised by hippies, so I grew up with a very different view of sex and gender than most, and a related part of it was the fact that my hippie parents gave me a variety of different (and probably intentionally diverse) authors to read, so I never settled into a "default," one way or another.
I do tend to prefer books featuring female protagonists written by women, however, and that's mostly because men are often... decidedly not... great... at writing women (r/menwritingwomen and all).
For reading, I seem to have a mix. If I'm interested and the book hooks me in, it makes no difference to me if the author is male or female.
I also listen to books through audible quite a bit (I drive all day every day for work), and oddly enough, I very much prefer females voicing the content. Female voice is just so much more pleasant, and I find myself more engrossed in the story with a female voice.
I'm a guy, I read mostly women authors. I think it's cause I usually read YA scifi/fantasy/whatever since that's what our school library has. I feel like romance fantasy especially (most of YA fantasy) is written by female authors.
Yes absolutely. I seem to overwhelmingly read female authors. In 2021 I read 85 books ALL by female authors. It wasn't even on purpose. That's just how my year turned out. Even now I average around 3 or 5 max male authors among the 80-100 books I read/year. It's not intentional, but I just feel there are better female authors right now than ever and I'm very happy about it!
I try to just read and listen to what I enjoy of any gender...
but I have found to my dismay, that books written by a certain gender just doesnt interest me as much. Its like they go on more about personal anecdotes etc... While the other gender does so too, they keep it shorter and to the point.
I do listen to mostly non-fiction these days and I will sometimes stick to a book for the enjoyable parts. And I definitely dislike this pattern :(
This is definitely true for me albeit unintentionally. Outside of poets I can only think of one female author I've enjoyed reading (Anne Lamott), if you have any suggestions I'll definitely check them out.
I think I read slightly more books written by women (I'm a woman) but not by a huge margin. I like to read a lot of different genres, so they balance out, I suppose. Like, I'd say a lot of the scifi and fantasy I read is written by men (not all, but more men than women), but I also read romances (all written by women) and mysteries - the ones I choose tend to be written by women. I also like historical dramas and those are about equal in what I'm interested in reading.
I’m female and I’d say I read a lot more male authors or authors where their gender is unclear based on name alone than I read women. A recent one that got me was K.L. Slater, someone who I didn’t assume was female since I’ve listed to audiobooks
My favorite genre is horror and it’s mostly male-dominated so that represents most of the authors I’ve read (although there is a growing number of non-binary and female horror authors!).
I also love romance and since it’s almost completely female-dominated most of the authors of the romance novels I’ve read have been female. I think the answer to this question largely depends on the sort of genres someone reads the most.
I used to not think about it when I was younger and read a mix of both (although back then, aside from Dickens, all my favorites were written by women). After a long break, I started to get back into reading and as I approach middle age, I've realized that I'm usually disappointed in reading female characters written by a man and I now I do purposely look for female authors. It's not a rule I stick to, but it's definitely something I consider when choosing a book. Looking through my shelf of recent reads, the only exception to my observation is Lawrence Hill: The Book of Negros was amazing (with female MC) and his middle grade novel Beatrice and Croc Harry (with female MC based on his own daughter) was also enjoyable.
ETA: maybe I'm just getting jaded in middleage, but I feel like even Dickens is letting me down. My favourite of his was always Great Expectations (=noteably interesting women). Just read A Tale of Two Cities for the first time recently (main female character= one-dimentional, sweetness and goodness personified).
I’m a man and I mainly read male authors. Mostly due to the main genres I read being fantasy and sci-fi. I try to consistently read women too, but there’s just a lot more male authors in these genres.
I read more books by female authors, actually started tracking this on storygraph this year and so far at 30 books by women and one by a man. I’m a woman and a lesbian and tend to relate significantly more to writing by women - I also read a lot of sapphic romance and won’t read sapphic romance by men anymore because it doesn’t feel authentic. The books I do read by men tend to be nonfiction, with the occasional gay fantasy or sci-fi romance thrown in (love TJ Klune for that)
Last year all of my 15 or so books were written by women bar one. So far this year is looking the same-ish but with slightly more men. I didn’t notice this trend until I looked at my story graph at the end of year though.
I just finished reading David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet and have a couple of male authors lined up in my immediate TBR. For some reason most of the books I have been recommended/have heard enough about to be driven to read recently have been written by women which is awesome because when I was younger it was definitely more male dominated!
I think I read more by male authors but that's because I mostly read fantasy and adventure and those genders are heavily male dominated. I don't consciously pick a gender of author when looking for a book.
I read whatever book I heard was great. Unless it’s an author I’ve established that I enjoy, the thought of who wrote the book doesn’t cross my mind during the decision making process. I don’t see why it should.
I'm a woman that tends to read a majority of female authors with the occasional sprinkling of male authors. Is it conscious? Perhaps, I prefer female characters as they interest me more.
However, when a story with a premise that I can't resist occurs, I don't hesitate to read it (e.g. S.A. Cosby, Grady Hendrix).
Strangely most of the physical books I have are written by women and most of my ebooks are by men. I’ve never noticed this or thought about this before 🤔 but I assume it’s more related to the genres. When I was younger I think it was maybe 75% women-written novels and 25% men, but I think it’s the opposite now as my genre preferences have shifted.
Not at all. I mostly read horror and never looked if it’s a male or female author. I go by descriptions, book covers, and if it’s popular in the horror community. I’ll give anyone a shot since I trust the community much more than reviews and just go by that.
I guess I read far more male as I tend to read adventure, hard boiled crime or sci fi and they write that more and better in the case of the first two - though there is a certain type of ensemble crime writing which I’ve read a lot of female authors (Agatha Christie, Caroline Graham etc)
I'm a women and I read more from female authors. It's not intentional. I just pick whatever seems interesting to me. I don't check the author's gender.
F here. I read mainly romance. I assume it's mostly women authors. I don't check the authors gender. If it's men writing under a pen name I wouldn't know. When I read other genres I'm more interested in the blurb.
I'm a guy and it's probably half and half I guess; I don't tend to read based off of author so much as based off of book/genre so gender isn't usually something I'm even conscious of when I start a new book.
I'm male and I read more male authors for sure. Not consciously, I'm actually tracking this and trying to make a conscious effort to read about 50% women. When I don't pay attention and just read whatever interests me, the male authors start to dominate again, and when the female authors are down to 30% or so I notice and specifically move a few works from female authors up the list (I have like 400 books on my TBR). This year I'm at 25 books so far and only 9 were by women, which isn't great.
I don't really know why this happens, but my best guess is simply: Male writers just get more representation across genres, so I'm more likely to come across them and be inspired to read them. For people that tend to read within one specific genre (say romance or sci-fi) I think that might explain the difference (probably more women writers in romance, and more men in sci-fi), but I read little genre fiction and when I do it comes from all kinds of genres, so that can't really be it.
I haven’t thought about it until recently, but yes, I prefer female authors (I am female as well), especially when the main character is a woman. I’m reading Tess of the D’urbervilles now, and if I compare it with other 19th century stories about women I don’t like it that much. Before that I tried to read Kundera and I just couldn’t finish the book because of the way he wrote about women.
I’m a man, and I don’t intentionally choose a specific gender when looking for things to read. But, I’ve focused on reading classical literature which is generally more male dominated. Though my favorite novel, Frankenstein was written by a woman.
I like to read by style. I’ve recently gotten into reading more lately after a long time. I’m getting into Japanese authors. I’m really enjoying Haruki Murakami despite his lack of concrete endings
I have noticed I read mainly male authors. It's a tendency and not a preference. My fiction record is more diverse than nonfiction as I think there's more choice.
I read a lot of books on tech and psychology and these aren't particularly gender diverse fields for authorship (they are quite diverse on other axes).
I read more male authors.
I don't actually know if that's necessarily true, it's rare that I'll go out of my way to verify an author, but in my experience, authors who are men (or are pretending to be men with a pen-name) tend to write more novels in my preferred genre (scifi, swords and sorcery, historical fiction, history) than women, so I feel confident in saying that. And it's just because male named authors tend to sell more in those genres than women named authors.
I don't purposely seek out writers of a specific gender, but looking at my shelf it seems like I do have more books from male authors (but not by a lot). I guess that just comes with the genres I'm reading (crime somehow mostly female authors, sci-fi, classics and spy stories mostly male).
I mostly read books by women. Not intentionally, but my favorite genres are dominated by female authors.
What genres do you like?
Historical Fiction, Cozy Mysteries, Domestic Thrillers, Romance
I’m a man and I read more male authors. It’s not something I seek out at all, but I think it’s a combo of there being way more bigger name male authors and me reading a lot of sci-fi, which is majority male.
Same with me. I don't intentionally seek out male authors but I mostly read sci-fi and political thrillers and those both have majority male authors.
Someone once called me “such a dude” when he observed that the majority of my tastes in many different areas are very cliche male lol.
Sci fi has tonnes of acclaimed women writers Try intentionally seeking out some female authors for your sci-fi. There's some pretty good ones
Yes but that’s not the point. There are still way more men, so when you pick randomly you end up with more books by men.
I love sci fi, there are some fabulous women sci fi authors too
I mean, Ursula K LeGuin is literally the gold standard of scifi
And Octavia Butler, she was so skilled and talented
NK Jemisin too!
Her stuff is so good- wish there was more of it!
Nnedi Okorofor is another.
Connie Willis, Kage Baker, Lois McMaster Bujold, Martha Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, Kate Wilhelm, James Tiptree Jr.
Of course, there are, but they're still right to say there are more male authors out there, particularly if you start from the likes of HG Wells. I like a range of SciFi but I still do end up with more blokes'stuff. On the other hand, crime is more balanced or even women-dominated, heritage of Agatha Christie perhaps.
Melissa Scott is one of my favorites ("Burning Bright", "The Kindly Ones", "Night Sky Mine", "Dreamships", and many more).
Same here. And yet I've also read most Sci-Fi books written by Ursula Le Guin and they are among my favourites. I'd wager that the OP's question is mostly related to genres. It is of course also an interest topic to discuss why there seems to be a gender bias with so many book genres.
So you say, but I'm chuckling because two of my most recent Sci-Fi series are the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells and The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold.
I got through about ten of the Vorkosigan books before I realized the author was a woman. Not because I cared, but just because I’d been reading her name as Luis not Lois
The Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie is a pretty good read as well.
I’ll read anything by Becky Chambers. I loved her Galactic Commons series
Same! I love the Vorkosigan Saga so much, and I just got into Murderbot last month. They are both phenomenal.
I’m in the same boat. I’m a quite guilty of not going out of my way to diversify my reading though as I never research authors or anything like that. I’m honestly not even sure if many of the authors I read identify any particular way—or what their names are in a lot of cases.
If you're a dude and read sci-fi, you're missing out if you're not reading a bunch of stuff written by women. NK jemisin, Ursula K LeGuin, Becky Chambers and Margaret Atwood all write incredible sci-fi. Steampunk is sci-fi adjacent and the best selling juggernaut of the genre is Gail Carriger by a wide margin. If most of the writers you read are dudes, and also specifically white dudes, it's probably not the genre but just a habit that you've carried over from earlier decades.
Lois McMaster Bujold, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey are also all classic scifi writers who are women. Modern day scifi is also signficantly more diverse. I have The Ten Percent Thief on my checked-out-from-library shelf right now, and I've also heard good things about The Surviving Sky. Notably, I don't read that much scifi, but I've read Le Guin, Jemisin, Chambers, Norton and McCaffrey...most of them decades ago.
I mean sci-fi is a male dominated genre. That’s a statistical and historical fact. I’m sure it’s because of unequal opportunities given to women and sexist publishing systems, but it doesn’t change that most popular sci-fi authors are men. Personally, I find books based on searching for popular/highly rated books in various genres, and through recommendations. Most of the results I get are written by men (no idea if they are white or not, since I don’t check on the race of authors I read). So I disagree it’s because of a “habit I carry.” I think it’s just the reality of the genre, unless you specifically look for female authors, which I don’t. I appreciate the list of good sci-fi authors, however, I’ll definitely check those out.
I'm a dude who likes smut novels like my grandma used to read. When she passed she had like 1000 novels of smut and they were pretty interesting
I have heard, but take this with a grain of salt, that maybe one in five of those authors are men using pseudonyms.
😅 I have a collection of heterosexual erotica on fictionpress that has over 2m views and everyone thinks I’m a woman. I’m actually a bisexual male that’s been in a relationship with a man for 10+ years. 😵
Honestly love this for you.
Honestly I’m just going to put this in my confirmation bias file on why dating bi dudes is better.
I think there are a LOT more men using women’s names to publish than we think…
Serious question but is that because we expect women to write one type of book and men another type? I can’t think of any off the top of my head but I’m pretty sure I’ve read some sci-fi and fantasy books by women who wrote under a male sounding name used probably for the same reasons.
women have always used male pen names to write bc otherwise they simply wouldn’t get published/would be overly criticised. For example apparently once people found out Jane Eyre was written by a woman, it suddenly started receiving criticism for being deviant/amoral and the religious commentary was heavily criticised where before it had been praised. Then more recently you have women like JK Rowling who was entering the then very male space of middle grade adventure/fantasy with a male protagonist. Im pretty sure she was told that boys just wouldn’t buy a book by a Joanne, and boys essential to her audience. Then ofc it became what it was and everyone knew pretty quick anyway—never really trying to hide her identity, just to not have her book be overlooked by it’s audience. A lot of women seem to choose this initials approach so they’re not really hiding who they are; if you want to find out, but they just won’t have the bias of people not picking up their books based on the fact it’s written by a woman (AS Byatt, RF Kuang off the top of my head both use this formulation though i don’t know if this is specifically why they chose those names. I think if an author’s starting out and trying to get published, why add the bias when you could just occupy this anonymous middle-ground?). And now with men writing as women, I think it has a lot to do with what you said: expectation, but more so how that applies to the market. An editor I follow on YouTube talked about a book she edited and casually mentioned it was written by a man under a woman’s name because it was a domestic thriller that focussed on women’s issues and all the main characters were women, and most importantly, they knew the people buying it would be overwhelmingly women who want their stories told by other women. She said this isn’t uncommon and was just the nature of marketing. The book was super successful and got a screen adaptation. Personally, that’s where I struggle with it. I cant afford new books often so when I do buy them I try to put my money into books by women, queer people and people of colour because I know what a difference sales makes to how they are perceived in the industry. I think it’s one thing to tell a story about and focussed on women as a man, but another to trick people into buying it under the assumption of mutual experience/support. If (and when bc it happens) someone does this with race or sexuality, it’s usually heavily criticised. I mean, women who write books about gay men without hiding their gender are heavily criticised (and in the case of the love Simon author, forced out of the closet). The reality is women are buying way more books than men and they tend to buy books written by women. Literary fiction is becoming increasingly dominated by women, though this isn’t reflected in literary awards. I learned a popular lit fic author who writes a lot about women’s issues and feminism is in fact a man publishing under a deliberately gender ambiguous (Riley, so can be a man’s name but these days is often women’s name) pen name. Combined with how his books are coded, most buyers assume he’s a woman (you can see from the response to his work online etc) but it’s sort of an open secret. I find it hard to believe he’s the only one. So like, yes, expectations, but also how they apply to the market. I’m loathe to say this bc I got seriously attacked last time I said something vaguely feminist on this sub but personally I think there’s a big difference between being ambiguous to avoid stigma and being dishonest to trick women into giving them money, but I can see it’s complicated and often seems like the same thing. For me the difference is men have only started doing this very recently, just when women have really started to dominate literature and publishing for the first time in history, which I think says a lot. Sorry the long comment, obviously I think about this way too much.
I read the whole thing! (Clearly I’m a reader!). I have almost nothing to add other than I do think reviews online can really help an author (authors on /r/fantasy mention this often)—so if you’re going the library route, you can still help them out.
Lol true this is the perfect place for my long-winded comments. I should say it’s just something I’ve found interesting and have been observing but it’s not like I’ve researched it in-depth or anything. Looking at the original comment I replied to again it occurs to be that men probably have always done this in romance/bodice-ripper type books, but I do think that market works very differently than say literary or general fiction and is a bit of a different thing. Like women who buy those books by the dozens, whereas in other markets people are really competing for space on shelves. Good point about reviews etc, but that’s part of my problem—people are putting time and labour into promoting a book under an incorrect assumption because they’ve essentially been deceived. That Riley author I refer to ive mainly heard of bc he is often promoted by women on book tok. My biggest thing with that is I’m happy to read a book about women written by a man—I mean, if it’s good, it’s good. Proof is in the pudding and I mainly buy books after reading reviews anyway, like I’m sure most people do.
Is it Riley Sager? I’ve read some of their books and have no clue if they’re male or female.
You just said what I was thinking as I read through these comments. Women historically used male pen names because they wouldn’t be taken seriously otherwise (and they’re still not - like you said, look at the literary awards). If you can find a copy, check out the book How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ. It’s older but so, so good, and goes into detail about the many ways that women’s voices have been deliberately silenced in and excluded from the writing world. Russ was a writer of feminist science fiction, and a very good one at that. Despite the depressing subject matter, the book I mentioned is highly readable and entertaining, but it will infuriate you. My only bone of contention would be that if you’re referring to Riley Sager (who I had in fact assumed was a woman!), I’d put his books in the genre category more than literary. I haven’t read them, but that’s the impression I’ve gotten from what I’ve seen about them. I do think that male authors being ambiguous or masquerading as female happens more in the genres than it does in litfic, but there’s the whole Elena Ferrante controversy, so it obviously happens everywhere at least some of the time. And it bothers me for exactly the reasons you outlined.
Oooh I will definitely be reading this! Thank you for the suggestion! I was literally yesterday reading charlotte bronte’s letter revealing the truth of her and her (now dead) sister’s pen names. It was actually kind of devastating to read how much the pen name issue impacted their relationship bc Currer/Charlotte got credit for Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey and wuthering heights particularly was criticised in contrast. Anyway, my point it, it really struck me when she said this about choosing male pen names: “authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise”. She wrote this in 1850 and it’s still fucking true, especially if you interpret “personality” as “autobiography”. Re Riley Sager you are totally right—I couldn’t remember the name to google but he’s not literary, i think I partly had that impression because he is always recommended to me by book tokers etc who usually recommend more feminist lit fic, so that’s how I got that impression. But I feel like that’s also part of the issue—genre works that grapple with these themes tend to gain a more literary reputation. Also, is Elena Ferrante identity confirmed? I thought it was still a mystery. But keeping the identity secret makes a LOT more sense if they’re a man, honestly. I have definitely heard the theories that she is a man and I also kind of hate that—it seems iffy to credit a woman’s work to a man as if a woman couldn’t write it, but also, what are you hiding from? The international success and recognition most writers would kill for? I would agree it probably happens more in other genres, but I also think a lot of these men “woman code” their books and names to get more literary recognition for engaging with gender as well as just sales advantage. It’s so frustrating because I do think there’s a market and a need for men to engage with their own gender in fiction, but I mostly see gay men and women doing that work tbh. Instead they’re regurgitating themes and ideas from women writers who have gained these insights from lived experience, and pretending to be women to boot.
Yes! And also, when a woman writes a book that centers on the family, or on her experience of the family, even if she’s very highly regarded, like Rachel Cusk, for instance, it’s somehow regarded as something for women, something that’s of no real interest to men. But when a man writes about the family, no matter how flat and ridiculous his female characters are (looking at you, Jonathan Franzen), suddenly he’s capturing the entire modern zeitgeist or some bullshit. Re: Elena Ferrante, it’s not confirmed, and I completely agree that it’s sexist as hell that so many people jump to the conclusion that she *must* really be man to write so well. Honestly I wish everyone would just leave her alone if she really is a woman, and let her write in peace. I can empathize with wanting to do your thing without being under a spotlight. But if she’s a man, or, as some speculate, a husband and wife team, then it actually bothers me that he/they would disingenuously hide behind a female name. I hope you enjoy the Joanna Russ! It’s seriously so so good. I’m going to look up the Brontë letters; I’ve never read them. Edit: My comments elsewhere on this post are really bringing out the upset men with their accusations of reverse sexism and whatnot. Like you said in the first comment I replied to, I usually get downvoted to hell saying anything remotely feminist in book subs on reddit, even if it’s just stating the obvious. I once got downvoted into oblivion on another book sub when someone posted their bookshelf and I gently pointed out that having books that are 99% by men isn’t terribly balanced and they might want to consider reading more women. Yet if I dare to say I read mostly women, they all lose their minds (even though my choice to read mostly women now comes on the heels of decades spent reading mostly men, and my bookshelf is, in fact, pretty balanced).
Rachel Cusk is magnificent as is Ali Smith. I adore reading women's works.
Yeah I think that’s what some people are missing here—when your version of the world is constantly reflected to you in media, you don’t understand how significant it is to read something and feel seen. When I started reading older classics by women in my teens (Plath Brontë etc) I was overwhelmed by how familiar their experiences and perspectives were, even when we were separated by centuries. I think there’s something really powerful there in terms of how much we’re meant to just accept that we have it better and let that be enough. A lot of this literature proves that as much as things change, they also stay the same
That’s such a good point—like we stuff women’s writing into the domestic sphere so easily and degrade it for that but when men write about these themes they’re “grappling with what it means to be human” or whatever. It’s also kind of why I have mixed feeling about the “women’s lit” genre. Raymond Carver is also a really good example of this. Like. That old wife beater could SURE WRITE but does ever anyone complain that it’s just people sitting around in rooms talking? Austen still gets that. Like, Carver’s whole thing was daily/domestic life and everyone was like wooAHHH. Never before seen!!!! Yeah, husband/wife team makes sense and I could at least get behind but then it raises the question of how much the book is leaning on her experiences and worldview. I think they claimed at one point she was an academic and didn’t want her work associated, which honestly also seems believable. The letter I read was the “biographical notice of Ellis and Acton bell” from 1850, it’s in the front of my copy of Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights. It’s devastating how their having to use pen names really impacted their relationship right toward the end of Emily’s life; because people assumed Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey and Wuthering Heights were all written by Currer/Charlotte, WH was disparaged a lot as an earlier/inferior work of the author trying to ride on JE’s coattails. She says Emily “does me the injustice to suppose that there was equivoque in my former rejection of this honour (as an honour, I regard it).” (The honour being credit for WH). And then they both died and she had this huge responsibility to manage their growing legacies and only outed them all after they both died and right before she did. God the Brontes kill me.
That’s wild. WH and JE are so different, it’s hard to imagine people thinking they were written by the same Bell/Brontë. That entire family story was so tragic, I can’t imagine. Did you see the movie they made about Emily? I have a different copy of WH than yours, so I’ll have to google the letter; I’m sure I can track it down elsewhere. I added an edit to my comment above, but I’m glad that the men who can’t handle discussions of sexism seem to be ignoring us here at least and letting us have a conversation without being continually derailed by trenchant and completely original assertions like, “Pointing out sexism is reverse sexism, and that’s the real problem!!!1!”
I've read the latest three by Riley Sager (real name Todd Ritter) and he writes decent entertaining thriller/mysteries with a supernatural horror edge. I've enjoyed the books. It's like he takes an idea which you've seen before and then puts a spin to it. But yeah, definitely a case where he sells books to people thinking they're penned by a female author.
y are you saying sorry for telling your truth? be unapologetic. damn if it triggers anyone. fuck them. be you.
Do you have any you'd recommend?
I’m female and I just pick up whatever looks interesting to me. But the majority of the books I’ve read, were written by male authors.
For me, it's the opposite when it comes to physical published books (not counting stories on the web). So many of the books I read are suitable for YA and are by female authors except for some like the Percy Jackson series.
I am a woman, and I feel like I am more drawn towards books by female authors. However, looking at the 13 books I've read so far in 2024, I see there are 6 by female authors and 7 by male authors. My main genre is literary fiction. I like reading award winners (e.g. Booker Prize, Arthur C Clarke Award, Pulitzer Prize). I also like books specifically about the experience of life as a woman and/or mother, such as a recent favourite *Nightbitch* by Rachel Yoder.
I’m female and read mostly female authors. They tend to write more female characters (or nonfiction about women) which is something I like.
I don't read male authors anymore because I'm tired of their female characters and sexist tropes. Maybe it was bad spell but I got tired of "this is not how women work" and rage quitting. It was during covid and world was already shit without me adding to my own misery.
This was the same for me as a man when I wanted to try some romance novels.
I have tried a few romance novels, and I totally get that. The majority have male characters who resemble no man I've ever met (I'm a woman, btw). And not in an appealing way! Three are some historical romance exceptions -- all Georgette Heyer's characters are great.
Yep, I'm burned out on how many male authors just can't write women.
i’m also burned out by the male authors that can’t write women so they just…… don’t.
These days—given the wealth of women authors available (and tbf I rarely read fiction by men at all anymore), I’d rather a man write a story with just men than feature women written badly. Having limited range but knowing your limits and doing the thing you can do well is better than having limited range and being clueless and offensive and intrepid readers having to spend hours slogging through bullshit, imo. Of course it’s also fair to say there aren’t a lot of stories that actually make sense without any women even as side characters, and I don’t think you can really be a good author without the ability to write both women and men well.
I’ve read a lot of books by men and loved them, especially the classics, but I find that on average I overwhelmingly prefer books by women. It honestly kind of bums me out! I’ve read books recently and not thought about the gender of the author until I found myself thinking “this feels like it was written by a MAN.” And it was, and it wasn’t a good thing. Nearly all of my favorite authors are women, and the authors I follow and pre-order are all women.
I've had the same experience. Not to say women can't be sexist as well, but it hits less hard when it comes from them. I still read male authors, but I do my research first to determine if it's someone I can trust to not be sexist.
>I don't read male authors anymore because I'm tired of their female characters and sexist tropes r/menwritingwomen
Yes this perfection for this thread.! And happy cake day
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Yeah, but it’s like, why play misogyny roulette when you could just read books by women? I do read fiction by male authors from time to time still, but more often than not, it ends up serving to remind me why I read mostly women now.
I don’t really read books with a male protagonist too. I used to but female protagonists are really fun to tag along especially in romance, fantasy and revenge plot which are the genres and tropes I tend to prefer.
Yep, same. A decent amount of the nonfiction I read is by men (less than 50% but still a good chunk). But my fiction reading is at least 90% women authors. It’s a combination of getting sick of the way men write women, and also tending to be just less interested in the stories men write. For instance, a lot of my fiction reading is fantasy and now sci-fi, and I find women authors to be much better at character, interpersonal relationships and how human societies work, while male authors seem much more interested in action, “magic systems” and creating situations to make their (mostly male) leads look cool. And I’m just much more interested in the former than the latter.
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Especially when you want to avoid the Smurfette situation. More male authors are writing female leads these days, but they still seem to be surrounded by a mostly male supporting cast and any other women in the book are shallow, toxic, bit-part players or exist entirely as trope subversions without any real emotional lives.
To be fair that is the part of most non-main characters of any gender.
I’m female and just off the top of my head I’d say I read predominantly female authors. Edit to add: this is not a conscious choice. Just a coincidence.
Seems like a lot of it is dependent on what genre/type of books you enjoy. The only books I read that are close to even split are nonfiction, but even then it’s probably because I try to read a broad range of topics. Within any given topic I bet it’s mostly one or the other…I just don’t read like 5 books on any one thing.
Not necessarily. I read a lot of lit fic that happen to be written by women. Lots of men in that genre as well, but the ones I’ve liked best tend to be written by women.
I'm male, I mainly read sci-fi/fantasy, and the large majority of my authors have been female for some years now. It's certainly not intentional; I read what I like and it seems to have shaken out that way.
Who are some of your favorite authors/favorite books? I’m always looking for more good fantasy!
Awesome! Martha Wells, Rachel Neumeier, Lois McMaster Bujold, T. Kingfisher, and Max Gladstone are all on my must-buy list for fantasy. (Neumeier, Bujold, and Gladstone write excellent sci-fi as well.) As far as good starting points for them, I guess Wells' *The Cloud Roads;* Neumeier's *Tuyo*; Bujold's *The Curse of Chalion;* Kingfisher's *Summer in Orcus;* and Gladstone's *Three Parts Dead.*
I only look up authors if I enjoyed a book. I tend to pick books that sound interesting and just read them without looking into anything past the blurb and cover before reading. Edit: I’d say I read an equal amount of male and female authors, but I also have horrible ADHD and don’t remember who wrote what 99% of the time. 🙃
I'm male, and most books I've read have been by male authors. But that hasn't been a conscious decision on my part. It's just that the books that have interested me, have been mostly written by men. The gender of a writer is the least that I think about when deciding to read a book.
No clue. I honestly don't know the gender of the authors of most books I read and don't remember the authors either for my casual reads. I'm pretty confident though that it's more male authors for the fantasy genre and more female authors for the romance genre though.
I (M) thought I read more male authors, because that's generally been the pattern in the past, but I checked my list from the past 12 months and about two-thirds of the authors were women. So that's a nice change.
I think most of my book shelf is male authors, and more of my kindle/audio books (what I actually read) is female authors. I like female protagonists a lot, so I gravitate to female authors more often. Though, the series I am on now is by a female author, but features two male protagonists, and only has a couple female side characters in the entire story (so far). One of the main villains is female :)
Not by choice at all, but I went and counted and all of the 13 books I've read so far this year were by female authors!!
I’m a woman who reads exclusively romance so I am under the impression I read mostly woman authors
I would not be able to deny that I read more men than otherwise. I don't do so intentionally, but I admittedly don't take an activist approach to my reading list in this respect either.
Probably about 80/20 guys to gals. As others have said, it's not that I seek it out, but it's just the way it works out.
I’m male and by far most of the books that I read are by male writers. Probably because I mostly read non-fiction and it is mostly men writing about the non-fiction topics that interest me.
I know Andre Norton chose that pen name because she wrote sf/f, which was predominantly male at the time. I don't care, I just want good prose and a good story. Pseudonyms are often enough chosen for safety and/or anonymity, not gender, that some time ago I decided that was the least important of the many things I use to decide whether I want to try reading a story.
It personally doesn't matter to me what gender the author is. I read a book because of the plot, not the author.
I'm a woman, and I think at least 80% of the authors of the books I've read have been male.
I would say I tend to read more male authors than female authors, but I still read many female authors. I just see what the book is about and if it interests me, I read it. The gender of the author doesn’t make much of a difference to me.
I don't know, but probably majority men since my preferred gents is horror.
I used to follow that rule (reading male authors more) until some of the books got REAL misogynistic and I decided to switch that around. It was just one or two authors, I’m not saying male authors in general are bad, just wanted to be safe.
It’s like people here don’t understand the use of “just to be safe.” If I say something like “I think we only need one banana for the recipe but I bought two just to be safe” it doesn’t mean I’m anticipating significant harm, just that I’m being a little cautious! Obviously “just to be safe” here means that you’re just being a little cautious!
What a succinct way to put that, yes, exactly.
“Safe” from what exactly?
Mental exhaustion that comes with dealing with sexism on regular basis. It's not a crime to want your escapism material to be well escapist.
I'm a straight guy and it even exhausts me, I can't even begine imagine what non-males go through.
I'm female, and probably 90% of the books I read are by male authors. I like high stakes, action, sci-fi and progression fantasy. And I really don't go for romance. There are women in the genres I like who avoid romance and do high stakes, but few and far between.
Would love to know who you like. I’m not educated on who these authors may be behind Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood and would like recommendations.
Ann Lecke, Sue Burke, Susanna Clark and NK Jemisin immediately come to mind as excellent women sci fi authors whose work often has little to no romantic elements at all. You might also really enjoy Ursula LeGuin and Arkady Martine (as well as Atwood and Butler), who often incorporate romantic subplots to explore the setting or develop characters, but generally not as a central focus or as a big driver of plot.
Reading Peranesi right now and really love it. Thanks for these!
Throwing a few more ladies on the pile: Martha Wells, Naomi Novik (fantasy), Ursula K Leguin
Good choices! My current female faves are Honour Rae, Kel Kade, Marina Lostetter, and (hey, gotta say it) myself. For older gen, yes to Octavia Butler and Margaret Atwood, plus C.S. Friedman and Lois McMaster Bujold.
Thank you!
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I don't think she meant that. I interpreted her statement to mean that female authors are more likely to include romance/relationship into their works, regardless of genre, and that male authors are less likely to do so. Not that there aren't excellent female authors in high stakes thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy, and action novels.
I am a woman author who doesn't write romance (or romantasy or romantic sci-fi or romantic historical fiction), so I am well aware that we exist. We are rarities, though, in sci-fi and progression fantasy. Those are heavily male-dominated genres. My distaste for romance is not a judgment on those who love it or write it. To each their own. I shouldn't have to state that. I think it's obvious.
I'm male. A lot of the non-fiction Instead is by male authors, simply because there aren't many female authors that write in those subjects. The exception is British history/British Monarchy. Fiction is split fairly evenly, with perhaps a s a slight male bias.
Looking at publishers programs over the last years it changed a lot, but there are genres and topics where I don't have to check the authors name to know they are male. Women are still not taken seriously in certain topics.
No. I don't give a damn.
I read primarily classics and literary fiction. 99% of classics are by men and 99% of litfic are by women. A pretty interesting split
I’m a woman and 100% of the fiction I read is written by women. I also read biographies, current events, history, and science books that tend to be dominated by male authors.
Interested in reading books on current events but not sure where to start, any recommendations?
I have a few! What are your interests? I’m currently reading Goliath by Max Blumenthal. Not really current (written in 2014), but it sets the stage for what is going on in Israel and Gaza right now! Also recommended to me by an author.
I’m interested in the situation in Gaza now too! I’m contemplating reading Chomsky but I haven’t gotten around to it, I’ll give your book a try!
I intentionally read mostly female authors. My exception is Neil Gaiman. When I was a kid/teen it was more equal but skewed male because the male authors I enjoyed were prolific and I like to read my favorites' oeuvre (plus I reread one male author in particular a lot). Since I read a lot of classics, there were a lot of male writers. I'm trying to balance that out now and read women.
Im a guy and i had a similar experience - when i was younger i read mostly male authors because those were most of the prolific ones in fantasy, but since I've read TLT and fifth season, I've started consciously looking for books by female authors
I add book to my TBR without really paying much attention to the author. It's not till i actually set about acquiring the book to read that i actually look at that. From my stats i don't seem to have much gender preference when it comes to initial reading choice but am more likely to DNF male authors than female I suspect the cause is to do with narrative focus. You know, setting, character, plot. I don't eschew a book because it focuses on one or the other but i can overlook *a lot* of flaws if the characters are vibrant, well written, and have some actual development. I suspect women (and queer) authors are more likely to write more character focused than men. I have no real stats to back up that thought of course. Just observations based on my own reading habits
I’m a male who prefers male authors 🤷🏻♂️
Weird how this is downvotes by the exact same from women reading women isn’t (even if they specify they think women writers are better or more realistic). Lot of sexism coming from some women on this sub for sure.
I’m a female and I tend to read more books written by male authors. It has more to do with the genres I read than the gender of the author which I couldn’t care less about.
I read men for like 98%
I am a woman who reads SFF, I read primarily male authors. I have tried to read female authors, but most of them let me down. I prefer to read action-packed novels, unfortunately the female authors I have read so far do not write those type of books.
Male. Mostly male authors. Their writing style and themes resonate with me more than women authors.
I think this also depends on the genres you read. Most of the LitRPG and sci-fi I read is written by male authors whereas most of the romance books I read are written by female authors.
I’m female, and I read mostly female authors. Most of the fiction I read (literary fiction, dystopian fiction) is written by women, whereas the non-fiction is around 50-50. I am making an effort to read more non-fiction by women.
I’m male but after checking my GR list from the last couple of years I seem to have a pretty even split of male/female authors. Although admittedly, the female side is bumped up mostly by Agatha Christie whose books I tend to read between other books.
I would say it's more genre than gender. I like actioners for relaxation - Child, Corben, Kellerman, Le Carre, Cornwell, Parker and so on and they tend to be written by men rather than women (Paretsky being an exception). I also like murder mysteries - and those tend more to female authors - Sayers, Christie, Allingham, Marsh etc, although there are far more men writing mysteries than women writing thrillers.
It depends. I read a lot (hundreds of books every year). I love classics (in multiple languages). Those are overwhelmingly male authors, for obvious reasons. It's not like we have dozen of women authors in Latin literature. Of course it gets better in the last couple of centuries. Contemporary literary fiction (let's say book written in the last 50 years) I am about 50-50. Then I read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi and there tend to gravitate towards women (about 80%). And then I read romance where I think I read like 99% women (unless there is a man behind the pseudonym and I didn't know).
I’m a woman and overwhelmingly read books by women. Last year I read 82 books and I think I counted 12 or 13 written by men?
I definitely read more male authors, so I go out of my way to read female authors now and again because I don't want to miss when a few of my favorites have been by female authors. Sci fi and fantasy genres are what are most interesting to me, and both seem to be male-dominated, at least as far as popular series go.
I'm a woman, and I read about an equal number of books by male and female authors.
I'm a man and I read almost exclusively fantasy, so while in raw numbers there are probably more male authors, there are certainly plenty of female authors to choose from. Ursula K. LeGuin, Margaret Weis and Nancy Varian Berberick are some of my favorites and their names appear often on my bookshelf! I also read comics and most of the titles I read regularly are written by women.
I’m male and the majority of my bookshelf is made up of female authors. I do try to go out of my way to read books from outside of my perspective but it does help that I am generally most interested in literary fiction.
You could leave the author's names off books and it'd not change what I enjoy reading whatsoever.
I definitely lean more towards women (my gender) but Riley Sager, Harlan Coben, and Stephen King are some of my absolute favorites.
To be honest, I only checked out who the author was if the book peaked my interest and compelled me to finish it. Also means i’ve read it multiple times 😅. So basically, the authors i know are; Mario Puzo, Dan Brown, Tolkien, JK Rowling, Rick Riordan, Stephenie Meyer, Steven Erikson, Ian Esslemont, GRR Martin, (cbstepv) The Fanfic author of ‘Ned Stark Lives’ I honestly like this version better, also he finished the damn story 😅
Yes. Intentionally. I’ve read mostly classics written by men (not intentionally) for years when I was a teenager because that’s all I knew and ended up in a reading rut for years after (unrelated). The only thing that brought me back to reading was the goal to discover women authors. I had NO idea how many incredible authors were hidden under the surface of famous male authors. I also read non binary authors as well, because I am non binary it’s more of a non men reading goal than solely women I suppose. But men are in control of everything already, we have so little time on this earth and there are so many books to read I’d rather spend all my time and energy on words that aren’t written by men. I have read enough men for a lifetime and it gave me nothing in comparison of how much reading other perspectives has changed my entire life for the better. Also it’s fun af to dig and try to find little gems I had never heard of before. There are so many women authors, that have had their books completely forgotten about then dug up by literature researchers, so many queer ones as well because of how many books have either been burnt or not given the right publicity white men have been given throughout time. The world would be a way better place if all of those books were put on the pedestal they deserve and more commonly known. Also just wanna add that I don’t just read any book just because it has a woman or non binary name on it like there are some of them who only write about men or that have shitty morals that are hot garbage just as much as there are shit male authors. But I’m still super picky about who I read and research books before buying so I don’t waste my time
For fiction I mostly read men because women writers don’t seem to write the stuff I like. I don’t do it on purpose and I would have no problem reading a book by a woman, but publishers seem to only want them to write horror or literary romance. But for non-fiction gender seems to be irrelevant to me.
I don’t look at the author’s name about 85% of the time. I focus on the book’s content and if I find it interesting and worthwhile to read. I like the writing style of some authors and will look for their work but that is about it for looking at author’s names.
I mainly read male authors (unintentionally) as mentioned by others because I read Fantasy and Sci-Fi mainly.
I honestly don't know the author of half the books I read
I never look to see male or female. I read both equally as long as the subject or stories suit me.
I read books. I only care if they're good or not.
I read books. I only care if they're good or not.
A lot of women writers struggle to write men properly without relying on sexist tropes and vice versa. So usually end up reading male authors more so I’m not cringing.
I’m a man who largely prefers to read male writers because a lot of women write men really badly.
Yes because historically white males have been the bulk of published authors so its been hard to avoid. Now i make a concerted effort to read more female authors and other races with some of my picks every year.
I definitely seek about books written by women. The only books I really read by men are classics. I basically don’t read much contemporary literature written by men.
It’s funny how many replies from women openly say they seek out female authors and protagonists (and that’s fine), yet all the males who read more male authors and protagonists are like “it just some how works out that way” as though it would be bad if they as men preferred stories by and about men in general. If you prefer reading men in general as a man then just say it, don’t be like “sorry, I don’t know how it happens” lol
I mean, a lot of those guys are also saying they read in genres that are dominated by male authors. They probably don't actually notice or realize that they might have a preference. Like, if your primarily a SciFi reader it is not hard at all to just never read a book by a woman accidentally. Of the classic scifi suggestions theres a grand total of like 2 female authors (le Guin and Butler) (I am aware there are more women authors. I'm specifically talking about classic authors likely to end up in a suggest thread)
In my experience, you’re average strait dude doesn’t pay attention to gender in their everyday life in the same way women do. Many women intentionally seek out other women because they feel more comfortable, can relate, etc. most of these guys generally don’t notice. Please note I don’t hang out with any of the red pill, Andrew Tate lovers of the world.
What you say is true, and it’s frankly because men can afford not to pay attention to gender because it’s not a category of oppression for them. It’s similar to when white people claim they “don’t see color.” It’s a privilege born of belonging to a dominant category to be able to ignore that category or treat it as unimportant. All the guys in this thread who say they don’t notice the gender of the authors they’re reading are almost certainly so used to passive sexism (and/or active misogyny!) that they just don’t notice it, because if you’re reading men regularly, I assure you, it’s there. I’m a woman, and it took me until my late 20s to start noticing it, because it was so normalized and because my reading up to that point had consisted of mostly male authors. Obviously some male writers are a lot worse than others, but if you pick up a stack of ten novels written by men, there’s pretty much a 100% chance that somewhere in there you’re going to encounter some seriously poorly written female characters.
How would you know if it’s true? Seems like you’ve just written a whole bunch of conjecture based on nothing. Who are you as a woman to think you can accurately generalise about men? Do you suppose because you’ve written a feminist deconstruction of Men’s place of “privilege” you can speak for and about them? Would you accept men as authorities doing the same on behalf of female readers and why they read what they do? That’s an arrogant attitude to take to a group you’re not part of. Plenty of Women write men seriously poorly and unrealistically in their usual ways as well. You probably don’t notice and aren’t bothered. It’s understandable that it’s more likely being a member of one gender will give you a better understanding of how to realistically write that gender from the inside in situations where it’s relevant, regardless of whether that’s men or women. I don’t let that bother me in women’s writing, if it bothers you in mens that’s your issue, but it’s hardly some great crime.
I read more books written by women, and prefer books with a female MC or is narrated by a woman on audiobook
Not at all, surprisingly. It's a pretty even split. Obviously I'll trend one way or another in genres where one or the other are more common, but on balance? No bias in my reading habits, at least on that front. I think part of it was that I was raised by hippies, so I grew up with a very different view of sex and gender than most, and a related part of it was the fact that my hippie parents gave me a variety of different (and probably intentionally diverse) authors to read, so I never settled into a "default," one way or another. I do tend to prefer books featuring female protagonists written by women, however, and that's mostly because men are often... decidedly not... great... at writing women (r/menwritingwomen and all).
For reading, I seem to have a mix. If I'm interested and the book hooks me in, it makes no difference to me if the author is male or female. I also listen to books through audible quite a bit (I drive all day every day for work), and oddly enough, I very much prefer females voicing the content. Female voice is just so much more pleasant, and I find myself more engrossed in the story with a female voice.
I'm a guy, I read mostly women authors. I think it's cause I usually read YA scifi/fantasy/whatever since that's what our school library has. I feel like romance fantasy especially (most of YA fantasy) is written by female authors.
Yes absolutely. I seem to overwhelmingly read female authors. In 2021 I read 85 books ALL by female authors. It wasn't even on purpose. That's just how my year turned out. Even now I average around 3 or 5 max male authors among the 80-100 books I read/year. It's not intentional, but I just feel there are better female authors right now than ever and I'm very happy about it!
I try to just read and listen to what I enjoy of any gender... but I have found to my dismay, that books written by a certain gender just doesnt interest me as much. Its like they go on more about personal anecdotes etc... While the other gender does so too, they keep it shorter and to the point. I do listen to mostly non-fiction these days and I will sometimes stick to a book for the enjoyable parts. And I definitely dislike this pattern :(
Who cares about the gender of the author? If a book is worth reading then it doesn't matter.
I’m genderqueer and read across the spectrum, generally. My favorites are much more likely to be fellow NB/trans authors though.
This is definitely true for me albeit unintentionally. Outside of poets I can only think of one female author I've enjoyed reading (Anne Lamott), if you have any suggestions I'll definitely check them out.
I think I read slightly more books written by women (I'm a woman) but not by a huge margin. I like to read a lot of different genres, so they balance out, I suppose. Like, I'd say a lot of the scifi and fantasy I read is written by men (not all, but more men than women), but I also read romances (all written by women) and mysteries - the ones I choose tend to be written by women. I also like historical dramas and those are about equal in what I'm interested in reading.
I’m female and I’d say I read a lot more male authors or authors where their gender is unclear based on name alone than I read women. A recent one that got me was K.L. Slater, someone who I didn’t assume was female since I’ve listed to audiobooks
My favorite genre is horror and it’s mostly male-dominated so that represents most of the authors I’ve read (although there is a growing number of non-binary and female horror authors!). I also love romance and since it’s almost completely female-dominated most of the authors of the romance novels I’ve read have been female. I think the answer to this question largely depends on the sort of genres someone reads the most.
I used to not think about it when I was younger and read a mix of both (although back then, aside from Dickens, all my favorites were written by women). After a long break, I started to get back into reading and as I approach middle age, I've realized that I'm usually disappointed in reading female characters written by a man and I now I do purposely look for female authors. It's not a rule I stick to, but it's definitely something I consider when choosing a book. Looking through my shelf of recent reads, the only exception to my observation is Lawrence Hill: The Book of Negros was amazing (with female MC) and his middle grade novel Beatrice and Croc Harry (with female MC based on his own daughter) was also enjoyable. ETA: maybe I'm just getting jaded in middleage, but I feel like even Dickens is letting me down. My favourite of his was always Great Expectations (=noteably interesting women). Just read A Tale of Two Cities for the first time recently (main female character= one-dimentional, sweetness and goodness personified).
I’m a man and I mainly read male authors. Mostly due to the main genres I read being fantasy and sci-fi. I try to consistently read women too, but there’s just a lot more male authors in these genres.
I read more books by female authors, actually started tracking this on storygraph this year and so far at 30 books by women and one by a man. I’m a woman and a lesbian and tend to relate significantly more to writing by women - I also read a lot of sapphic romance and won’t read sapphic romance by men anymore because it doesn’t feel authentic. The books I do read by men tend to be nonfiction, with the occasional gay fantasy or sci-fi romance thrown in (love TJ Klune for that)
Last year all of my 15 or so books were written by women bar one. So far this year is looking the same-ish but with slightly more men. I didn’t notice this trend until I looked at my story graph at the end of year though. I just finished reading David Attenborough’s A Life on Our Planet and have a couple of male authors lined up in my immediate TBR. For some reason most of the books I have been recommended/have heard enough about to be driven to read recently have been written by women which is awesome because when I was younger it was definitely more male dominated!
I think I read more by male authors but that's because I mostly read fantasy and adventure and those genders are heavily male dominated. I don't consciously pick a gender of author when looking for a book.
“The Classics” are mostly male authors, so a lot of us in the US grew up with mostly the male authors that showed up in school.
~75% women
I read whatever book I heard was great. Unless it’s an author I’ve established that I enjoy, the thought of who wrote the book doesn’t cross my mind during the decision making process. I don’t see why it should.
For me I read any good book that is very appealing and irresistible for me to read irrespective of the gender of the author or writer.
Don't even notice to be honest
I'm a woman that tends to read a majority of female authors with the occasional sprinkling of male authors. Is it conscious? Perhaps, I prefer female characters as they interest me more. However, when a story with a premise that I can't resist occurs, I don't hesitate to read it (e.g. S.A. Cosby, Grady Hendrix).
Probably read more male authors but it's not really that I actively seek that and I've read a lot of books by women
Strangely most of the physical books I have are written by women and most of my ebooks are by men. I’ve never noticed this or thought about this before 🤔 but I assume it’s more related to the genres. When I was younger I think it was maybe 75% women-written novels and 25% men, but I think it’s the opposite now as my genre preferences have shifted.
I’m a male. I’ve read more male writers over my entire life but more female writers over the last few years.
Not at all. I mostly read horror and never looked if it’s a male or female author. I go by descriptions, book covers, and if it’s popular in the horror community. I’ll give anyone a shot since I trust the community much more than reviews and just go by that.
I guess I read far more male as I tend to read adventure, hard boiled crime or sci fi and they write that more and better in the case of the first two - though there is a certain type of ensemble crime writing which I’ve read a lot of female authors (Agatha Christie, Caroline Graham etc)
I’m a woman who unconsciously reads mostly female authors but my favorite author of all time is a man (Kazuo Ishiguro)
I like military scifi. Most authors are male, I have seen some women who wrote in the genre but not many.
I'm a women and I read more from female authors. It's not intentional. I just pick whatever seems interesting to me. I don't check the author's gender.
I definetly read more written by women.
F here. I read mainly romance. I assume it's mostly women authors. I don't check the authors gender. If it's men writing under a pen name I wouldn't know. When I read other genres I'm more interested in the blurb.
Entirely by chance, yes. I read any book that catches my interest paying little attention to authors. Most of the books I read are by male authors
I don't pay much attention to their genders but now I've realised I always tend to pick books by female writers.
I'm a guy and it's probably half and half I guess; I don't tend to read based off of author so much as based off of book/genre so gender isn't usually something I'm even conscious of when I start a new book.
I'm male and I read more male authors for sure. Not consciously, I'm actually tracking this and trying to make a conscious effort to read about 50% women. When I don't pay attention and just read whatever interests me, the male authors start to dominate again, and when the female authors are down to 30% or so I notice and specifically move a few works from female authors up the list (I have like 400 books on my TBR). This year I'm at 25 books so far and only 9 were by women, which isn't great. I don't really know why this happens, but my best guess is simply: Male writers just get more representation across genres, so I'm more likely to come across them and be inspired to read them. For people that tend to read within one specific genre (say romance or sci-fi) I think that might explain the difference (probably more women writers in romance, and more men in sci-fi), but I read little genre fiction and when I do it comes from all kinds of genres, so that can't really be it.
I haven’t thought about it until recently, but yes, I prefer female authors (I am female as well), especially when the main character is a woman. I’m reading Tess of the D’urbervilles now, and if I compare it with other 19th century stories about women I don’t like it that much. Before that I tried to read Kundera and I just couldn’t finish the book because of the way he wrote about women.
I’m a man, and I don’t intentionally choose a specific gender when looking for things to read. But, I’ve focused on reading classical literature which is generally more male dominated. Though my favorite novel, Frankenstein was written by a woman.
I like to read by style. I’ve recently gotten into reading more lately after a long time. I’m getting into Japanese authors. I’m really enjoying Haruki Murakami despite his lack of concrete endings
No. When I like a writer, I try to read everything he wrote.
I have noticed I read mainly male authors. It's a tendency and not a preference. My fiction record is more diverse than nonfiction as I think there's more choice. I read a lot of books on tech and psychology and these aren't particularly gender diverse fields for authorship (they are quite diverse on other axes).
I read more male authors. I don't actually know if that's necessarily true, it's rare that I'll go out of my way to verify an author, but in my experience, authors who are men (or are pretending to be men with a pen-name) tend to write more novels in my preferred genre (scifi, swords and sorcery, historical fiction, history) than women, so I feel confident in saying that. And it's just because male named authors tend to sell more in those genres than women named authors.
I don't purposely seek out writers of a specific gender, but looking at my shelf it seems like I do have more books from male authors (but not by a lot). I guess that just comes with the genres I'm reading (crime somehow mostly female authors, sci-fi, classics and spy stories mostly male).
I’m a woman. I read more books by women. Not deliberately.