Women in Horror Month Author Showcase – Jaime Johnesee: The truth about women in horror
Today’s Women in Horror Month Author Showcase is by Jaime Johnesee.
Bimbos in horror
Women in the horror genre have it rough. Granted, things aren't as bad as they used to be. Nobody has sent me a manuscript back with a note saying "Why don't you try romance, honey?" but there still exists a gender gap. There are still people who automatically prefer a male name on a horror book to a female one. We need to ask ourselves why that is.
Why are we still somehow thought of as less than men in this genre? Is it because we are supposed to be the fairer sex? Is it because the genre itself tends to portray women as either something to ogle, something to brutally murder, or something to bungle up our hero's journey? I think it's a bit of a combination, really.
Not too long ago, an amazing female author (whom I highly respect) posited in a group we are in together that perhaps there were fewer women reading horror because of how it portrays women. I wondered about that, and so I grabbed a selection of horror off my own shelf here. I was surprised to find she was right. In a shocking amount of the books I looked at, women were written either as sex objects, simpering victims, or the inept cause of the hero falling into a trap and getting caught.
85% of the books I randomly selected were by well known male authors and portrayed women this way. Now, there were some books that had the women limned as the heroine and some that depicted women as victims, but ones that fought back and were more realistic. I think that we need to change the way the horror world sees women if we are to close that gender gap within the genre.
Most of the female horror authors I know are not the sort I’d want to tangle with down a back alley. Most of these amazing women have lived through the worst hells imaginable. They write horror so beautifully because they have lived the worst horrors you can imagine and came out the other side.
The sad truth of this world is that women are victims of violent crimes much more so than men. It stands to reason that we would be portrayed as such in horror books and movies, but you know what they tend not to capture? How these women fight. How they punch, and claw, and bite, and fight with every ounce of their being. Do some lie on the floor, mewling and allowing themselves to be murdered, sure. Most often though, these victims fight back. They aren't simpering nobodies with great, heaving breasts; they're someone's wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend.
Maybe if we could get women readers to see that female characters in horror aren't all depicted as big-breasted sexpots trying to destroy men, we could attract a whole new following of fans to this genre. There are so many amazing books out there written by women and men that showcase strong and wonderful female leads. Let's start closing the gap by showcasing those instead.
Jaime Johnesee worked as a zookeeper for fourteen years before deciding to focus on her passion of writing. Although her books have been received with critical acclaim, Jaime has just begun and is a force to be reckoned with in the years to come.
Website: www.JaimeJohnesee.com
Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Jaime-Johnesee/...
Publisher: www.VisionaryPressCoop.ws
Natasha Ewendt is the author of This Freshest Hell, a vampire novel released in 2013 by Lacuna Publishing. Based in Port Lincoln, South Australia, she is also a journalist and copyeditor and is reluctantly addicted to coffee and The Walking Dead.
Bimbos in horror
Women in the horror genre have it rough. Granted, things aren't as bad as they used to be. Nobody has sent me a manuscript back with a note saying "Why don't you try romance, honey?" but there still exists a gender gap. There are still people who automatically prefer a male name on a horror book to a female one. We need to ask ourselves why that is. Why are we still somehow thought of as less than men in this genre? Is it because we are supposed to be the fairer sex? Is it because the genre itself tends to portray women as either something to ogle, something to brutally murder, or something to bungle up our hero's journey? I think it's a bit of a combination, really.
Not too long ago, an amazing female author (whom I highly respect) posited in a group we are in together that perhaps there were fewer women reading horror because of how it portrays women. I wondered about that, and so I grabbed a selection of horror off my own shelf here. I was surprised to find she was right. In a shocking amount of the books I looked at, women were written either as sex objects, simpering victims, or the inept cause of the hero falling into a trap and getting caught.
85% of the books I randomly selected were by well known male authors and portrayed women this way. Now, there were some books that had the women limned as the heroine and some that depicted women as victims, but ones that fought back and were more realistic. I think that we need to change the way the horror world sees women if we are to close that gender gap within the genre.
Most of the female horror authors I know are not the sort I’d want to tangle with down a back alley. Most of these amazing women have lived through the worst hells imaginable. They write horror so beautifully because they have lived the worst horrors you can imagine and came out the other side.
The sad truth of this world is that women are victims of violent crimes much more so than men. It stands to reason that we would be portrayed as such in horror books and movies, but you know what they tend not to capture? How these women fight. How they punch, and claw, and bite, and fight with every ounce of their being. Do some lie on the floor, mewling and allowing themselves to be murdered, sure. Most often though, these victims fight back. They aren't simpering nobodies with great, heaving breasts; they're someone's wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend.
Maybe if we could get women readers to see that female characters in horror aren't all depicted as big-breasted sexpots trying to destroy men, we could attract a whole new following of fans to this genre. There are so many amazing books out there written by women and men that showcase strong and wonderful female leads. Let's start closing the gap by showcasing those instead.
Jaime Johnesee worked as a zookeeper for fourteen years before deciding to focus on her passion of writing. Although her books have been received with critical acclaim, Jaime has just begun and is a force to be reckoned with in the years to come.Website: www.JaimeJohnesee.com
Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Jaime-Johnesee/...
Publisher: www.VisionaryPressCoop.ws
Natasha Ewendt is the author of This Freshest Hell, a vampire novel released in 2013 by Lacuna Publishing. Based in Port Lincoln, South Australia, she is also a journalist and copyeditor and is reluctantly addicted to coffee and The Walking Dead.
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Carolyn
(new)
Feb 10, 2014 05:55AM
I was thinking about this yesterday (when I should have been reading proofs--drat!). I've written in a number of genres. Horror was always my first love, but it took me a while to figure out how to write THE DARKLING, which was finally published last year. After much discussion, I convinced my agent to send the book out under a male pseudonym. It was a smart move, though I make no secret that R.B. Chesterton and I are the same writer. One of the biggest reasons I felt a pseudonym was important is my audience. I write a successful humorous mystery series at St. Martin's. Many,many of my readers told me flatly they didn't read horror. Because of the very things Natasha talks about. My books are more gothic or creepy than torture porn (which is fine, but not my cup of tea). And once I convinced a few readers to try the new horror story, they loved it. "Oh, this isn't what I was expecting." So I have to wonder how we are limiting our audience by the perception that in horror, women are only sex objects, victims or cannon fodder for the creature/killer. I think we are missing a huge audience that would love our stories if they weren't turned off by the perception of what the genre is. Horror is so much more than one thing--but how do we get the word out?
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