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Sex and Reading: A Look at Who's Reading Whom
What do men and women want when it comes to books? Are they reading their own gender? And what do they think of books written by the opposite sex?
This year the #readwomen movement inspired us to take a closer look at where readers fall along gender lines. There's a lot of well-documented press about the fact that women's books tend to have "girly" covers instead of gender-neutral ones, and the VIDA count shows us that traditional book reviewers are predominantly male and books being reviewed in "top tier" publications are mostly by men.
Together with the stats team, engineers, and designers, we looked at a sample size of 40,000 active members on the site, 20,000 men and 20,000 women, to determine what they were reading and what they were liking.
So, enjoy this infographic! Let the debate begin. And as the year draws to a close, what's your 2014 reading list breakdown look like? Mostly men? Mostly women? About even? Take a look. You may be surprised.
Coming soon: For our next infographic, we'll take a genre-specific look at reading books—along gender lines. First up, literary fiction!
This year the #readwomen movement inspired us to take a closer look at where readers fall along gender lines. There's a lot of well-documented press about the fact that women's books tend to have "girly" covers instead of gender-neutral ones, and the VIDA count shows us that traditional book reviewers are predominantly male and books being reviewed in "top tier" publications are mostly by men.
Together with the stats team, engineers, and designers, we looked at a sample size of 40,000 active members on the site, 20,000 men and 20,000 women, to determine what they were reading and what they were liking.
So, enjoy this infographic! Let the debate begin. And as the year draws to a close, what's your 2014 reading list breakdown look like? Mostly men? Mostly women? About even? Take a look. You may be surprised.
Coming soon: For our next infographic, we'll take a genre-specific look at reading books—along gender lines. First up, literary fiction!
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Comments Showing 201-250 of 565 (565 new)
V.W. wrote: "Dana wrote: "If the book is good, I'm open to anything, but I generally always prefer books written by women when I'm done, not out of prejudice, but I prefer their way of telling their stories, I ..."Precisely. Equality will never ever exist until that mentality changes.
V.W. wrote: And that's fine. But a man saying exactly the same thing would be called out at sexist and misogynist in many places, including universities. As we see above, women are reading far more books written by men then the other way around.
It is a difference if you're part of a group which has all the advantages of ages of human history, or if you're not... because then society will adapt to your opinions. Like making books by women look more "girly", so even less men will pick them, so you can make them even more "girly", and so on and on.
Its the book that matters,if the book is good be it male or female both gender author works for me.
Saurabh wrote: "You could have used the title as "Gender and Reading" instead of "Sex and Reading"Or are you in hunt of eyeballs?"
Or Sexes and Reading
I just checked my read books out of curiosity -and I sincerely don't pick books based on the author's gender. Last female author book was a year ago this week. It looks like I read about 1 female author book a year and I read at least 20 books a year. But probably 90% of all my books are sci-fi/fantasy, the other 10% is split between Westerns and Crime fiction. Anyone know if those ratios equal out to the ratios of females vs. males writers in those genres.
Robert wrote: "It's much easier to make massive generalisations about how bad everything everywhere is for women and how all men love raping than actually live in the real world. "Just like the massive generalisations you are making about radical feminism. And this blog.
There is nothing in this graphic about hating men. I see something about men and women more likely to read authors of their sex. I see something about men and women both rating female authors higher. I see something about women liking books written in 2014 better than men do. Where in the world is the male bashing?
If you have baggage from other sites, please leave it at the other sites.
Kidgreg wrote: "I just checked my read books out of curiosity -and I sincerely don't pick books based on the author's gender. Last female author book was a year ago this week. It looks like I read about 1 female a..."Same here. Since I stick mostly to Fantasy and Sci-fi, not to mention like trilogies and series (which makes the amount of different authors don't add up to the amount of books I've read), my quota automatically hangs heavily to the Male author side of the balance. I've, however, never consciously picked up something with giving any attention to the Author at all. I'm in many ways a coverart+back blurb person. I usually don't even read the reviews.
Now think of those of us who like romances more. Wouldn't they read more female authors simply because of their genre preference comes with a majority of female authors? Or is that because publishers might be picky about what they publish of whom? Or something else alltogether?
I think its an interesting question ^-^
I'm not surprised that only 24 of 94 books read so far this year were by men. Or that men comprise the bulk of the classics I've read -- 16 out of 18 (not including one female author whose book I could not finish). I have made more of an effort the last few years to read more male authors, but the majority of my favorite authors are female. It's not so much about gender, as the fact that they write the sort of mystery or suspense I like most.
I am not interested in the least if the author is a man or a woman (and honestly, based on the name alone I am clueless sometimes and I need a picture to figure it out). I choose a book thinking on the description, the cover and my book friends' opinions.
stats are so easy to manipulate and misunderstand. more info is really needed to appreciate this.
Jay wrote: "They're really reaching deep into the stove with that firepoker to stoke the "battle of the sexes" flame, aren't they?"Yep.
Andrea wrote: "The gender of the author is interesting, but as we have seen it can also be deceiving (e.g.Robert Galbraith). What I would like to know is do genders read books with the same gender as the main ch..."
I read based on my mood atm in which I pick up the book, the phases of the moon...etc. wink* In other words, unless it's a new book in a series I have read most of already, I don't give a damn about the main character's gender.
Brenda: "I never pay attention to the gender of the author, but I do admire an author who can do an amazing job of writing from the point of view of the opposing sex (for example the Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley)."
Flavia de Luce...isn't that the one where the title character is like an Imperial Roman version of Nancy Drew?
I don't care at all except for the only style I hate: those soapy romantic books and others Harlequinlike..they are all written by woman (or by men pretending to be women...)...means actually that even if I'm a woman I slightly prefer books written by men :-p
Andrea wrote: "The gender of the author is interesting, but as we have seen it can also be deceiving (e.g.Robert Galbraith). What I would like to know is do genders read books with the same gender as the main characters..."i do. i prefer my military sci-fi and ya dystopia to have female bad ass chicks. now not all of my favorites have the female as the main lead and sometimes she shares it with a male, but the majority of the ones i read and REALLY like do.
also i love mysteries and 90 % of them are female sleuths.
of course my romances are from a woman's perspective. every now and then it will give the man's POV in the story as well but it's rare.
now i don't know if the majority is male or female authors that i read. i don't pay attention to the authors in that way.
The authors gender makes absolutely no odds for me, I really do not care. Not even subconsciously.
I'm a female and all my main characters are males
I'd just like to comment that the title of this article is totally and completely misleading. The article is about gender and reading.
I do pay attention as to whether or not the author is female or male. I believe I am surrounded by the views of men in our culture, either in movies, politics, music, TV, etc., etc. If you pay attention you'll notice that men are mostly the arbiters of culture in this country and the world. I do read male authors but I always notice that it is a male perspective that I am reading and as I am a woman, that perspective is different from my own because of the gender of the author. There's nothing wrong with that but I deliberately choose in my reading to read female authors to get a break from the constant male point of view.
BTW, it's interesting to note that men also prefer to read books by their own gender. The men I know rarely read books by female authors.
Robert wrote: "Arnav wrote: "Why is EVERYTHING these days phrased in gender terms? These very analyses make people think in those terms and thereby calcify those boundaries."Because radical feminism (hating men..."
Robert wrote: "Arnav wrote: "Why is EVERYTHING these days phrased in gender terms? These very analyses make people think in those terms and thereby calcify those boundaries."
Because radical feminism (hating men..."
Robert,
You are showing your ignorance of radical feminism. Gender matters in EVERY WAY, in how we perceive the world, how we behave in the world. Think about it.
It is not the author's gender, it is the content. J.K. Rowling is one of my favourite authors, but I hate romance novels as a rule.
Robert Gilbraith is actually not a man. Apparently you've been living under a rock.... that's JK Rowling's pseudonym. Last I checked, she's a woman.
I tend to read females more often than not, I'd say 75-80 female, the rest male. I think it's because I read so much YA and it seems like more women authors rule that camp(I have no clue how true this is, jut seems to be the case) This last library trip I grabbed 8 books and all happened to be by men(Chaos Walking trilogy(3) the first 3 Nicholas Flamel books, Zot!(Graphic Novel) and Avatar: The Search(also GN). I only realized this because I opened this post haha.As far as picking books, I honestly only look at the author's name to see if it's one I'm familiar with or not. It plays no part in whether I get the book or not.
I don't know that it really matters that much. Gender has nothing to do with quality that I've noticed. I seem to read more males than females, but that's only because most of the apocalyptic books I've read that have been written by women are pretty bad. That doesn't excuse the guys, however, as they're capable of turning out some right baloney, too. The opposite is also true, of course. For every Angela White racist-laden trash, there's a Catt Dahman waiting to give us plot and action in spades.
If the author is a familiar name, I'm more likely to check out a book or discard it, depending on what I thought of their last offering.
Robert wrote: "Arnav wrote: "Why is EVERYTHING these days phrased in gender terms? These very analyses make people think in those terms and thereby calcify those boundaries."Because radical feminism (hating men..."
Someone can't get laid....
Recato Cristiano wrote: "Ahsan wrote: "I do like sex." I am still a virgin at 37 and very proud of it. Not sure what people see in sex as recreation. I am not a rabbit."What has that got to do with the authorship or selection of books?
I'm female. Of the 195 books I've read, 61% (119) were written by male authors and 39% (76) were written by female authors. Miss Elizabeth, or whoever made this infographic, I hope you realize that you're responsible for countless readers feeling like they have no choice but to draw these percentages from their bookshelves with no real purpose. That's downright malefic.Wait, was it just me?
I dont care about the sex of the author, what matters is whether the book is well written and a pleasure to read.
I dont care about the sex of the author, what matters is whether the book is well written and a pleasure to read.
I think this statistics are probably meaningless and the real 'gender split' (if it even exists) is in the genres men and women read; because I really doubt a significant number (I'll give the benefit of the doubt that there might be readers who only read their gender because of sexism or something) of readers choose their books based on the gender of the author.Things like the #readwomen campaign sounds so silly to me. Just read, damn it. I wish there was a sphere of human life in which this ridiculous gender politics weren't shoehorned to fix some manufacture 'problem'.
Andrea wrote: "The gender of the author is interesting, but as we have seen it can also be deceiving (e.g.Robert Galbraith). What I would like to know is do genders read books with the same gender as the main ch..."I think that is a good point, Andrea. Wish I caught it sooner.
I know I always look for characters that I either can identify with or who I want to be able to identify with, so me being a dude, I find it very difficult to do that with female characters.
Also I'll admit, being a straight up guy, I can't deny that I love the hot, sexy, woman warrior types, like Red Sonja, which again is highly likely to be in male written books. I'm know these factors play a big part in the books I read. So even though I don't actually look at the author's gender, it's a given for me that a male writer is going to have the characters that I look for in a book.
The books that changed my life have all been written by men. Most female authors write for genres I don't care about like YA and Romance. I like classical lit and detective fiction and the latter is mostly male-oriented with a few notable exceptions (Paretsky is one of my fave female authors on the genre). For classics, it was only this year that I read Bronte (Jane Eyre) but all of the classic lit I read in the past are all by male. I read an Austen novel once but never got to finish it. Overall, the reason why I have read more male authors than female has less to do with the gender and more to do with the genre/content I prefer. Right now I am loving a female author (Eliza Victoria) and I cherish it when it happens because it's often rare I come across a writer of my own gender whose sensibilities I share with, literary-wise. I like Virgina Woolfe as well.
People read what they relate to. Why is this such a mystery? And why do people talk about this as though it needs to change?Also, I would think limiting your study to books published this year would skew the results. Even my father (who reads 99.9% male authors because he likes good manly westerns and Clive Cussler adventures) read Mockingjay this year. He couldn't stand the wait for the movie!
Personally, I'm female but I read mostly male authors because they tend to write with a stronger voice than most female authors. But then, I mostly read books from the 19th century anyway.
I really don't pay attention to authors names much. Sometimes my friends will be like oh have you read so and so's book and I will be like what was the title? This actually happened with the hunger games books.
I enjoy books by both genders, but tend towards reading male authors more. Since I enjoy books with lots of action, that does move more into the male dominated genres, while female authors focus more often on relationships between the characters. I don't mind that, it's just that I prefer the action-packed novel to the touchy-feely stuff. My own writing is a combination of both, so hope I can appeal to both genders!
Faye wrote: "People read what they relate to. Why is this such a mystery? And why do people talk about this as though it needs to change?Also, I would think limiting your study to books published this year wo..."
Exactly. All too often there is the implied suggestion that everyone should have a balance closer to 50:50 no matter what genre they read or the reason for their choice of authors.
Val wrote: "I find it very difficult to read while having sex(and don't say none of you were thinking that when you saw the heading."
Okay, I truly wasn't thinking that. Thanks for the chuckle though.
I read two Mary Shelley novels this year, and neither of them were _Frankenstein_. Of the 136 books I've finished this year, 31 were written by women or had women contributors.
I'd be more interested to see the correlation between the main character's gender and the reader's. I feel like there would be a more pronounced gap.
I read across several genres/categories. Each year I might read, say, a literary fiction book, a non-fiction, a realistic fiction, a fantasy, a memoir, a classic etc.; the point is: it's a mix; therefore, my guess is I read close to 50-50, although I'm curious to know for sure. I've never consciously paid attention to the sex of the author when choosing a book because I've never believed men write better than women and vice versa.
Kidgreg wrote: "Is it just me, or does it seem like as far as marketing goes, that books are marketed more to women? Sometimes I get the impression that in the general media, that reading for pleasure is viewed a..."
That's sounds absolutely right. I don't know statistics, but in my personal experience, many more women than men read for pleasure. Also, I believe I read a statistic somewhere that 60% of GR users are female, 40% male.
Robert wrote: "Because radical feminism (hating men for being men and disguising it as a quest for equality) has never been more mainstream. There will always be somebody, somewhere who can look at this and use it as a tool to demonstrate how terrible men are.You're absolutely right, but this kind of thing is what people want now. Everyone loves the illusion of being oppressed."
You are completely misinformed about the actual definition of feminism. It means equal rights for women. That's it. If you're bitter because you may have met some women who bashed men, that's their problem; it has zero to do with feminism.
Caroline wrote: "Robert wrote: "Because radical feminism (hating men for being men and disguising it as a quest for equality) has never been more mainstream. There will always be somebody, somewhere who can look at..."I know what feminism is, thanks. But you do know the women who bash men do so in the name of feminism don't you? This is the problem. They would call themselves feminists.
I would like to live in a society where men and women are more equal than they are now. However, nowadays I don't feel comfortable calling myself a feminist because then I'd be grouping myself with people who say that all men are rapists and Father's Day should be banned for encouraging rape culture, or people who advocate a male holocaust in order to get men down to about 10% of the world population.
I have seen all these things on Twitter and Tumblr, posted by people who are probably functioning members of society, which makes it even more disturbing.
Robert wrote: "Caroline wrote: "Robert wrote: "Because radical feminism (hating men for being men and disguising it as a quest for equality) has never been more mainstream. There will always be somebody, somewhe..."If they post things like wanting to cause a gender based holocaust they can't be THAT functional!
Robert wrote: "I know what feminism is, thanks. But you do know the women who bash men do so in the name of feminism don't you? This is the problem. They would call themselves feminists. I would like to live in a society where men and women are more equal than they are now. However, nowadays I don't feel comfortable calling myself a feminist because then I'd be grouping myself with people who say that all men are rapists and Father's Day should be banned for encouraging rape culture, or people who advocate a male holocaust in order to get men down to about 10% of the world population.
I have seen all these things on Twitter and Tumblr, posted by people who are probably functioning members of society, which makes it even more disturbing."
Robert, I have no idea who these "feminists" are, but they sound more like extremely disturbed people than actual feminists. They do feminism a disservice with their hateful, misguided agenda. I am a feminist in the sense that I believe women should have rights 100% equal to men (equal pay for equal work, etc.)--because...why shouldn't they?--but bashing men is entirely wrong.
I really don't care about the writer's gender. I've never paid any attention to that. But, maybe, people use to think that female writers are going to write more girly books, but I'm not sure about that.
Generally i don't care what gender writes books, except in YA when i avoid female authors and the dreaded love triangles
I read mainly 60s and 70s SF. Except for Anne McCaffrey, these are all by male authors. And I haven't read any McCaffrey this year. But a couple by Vonda McIntyre.I also don't buy new books (the last were the final 3 Wheel of Time books).
So male authors this year of 95/97 books. But probably only a dozen authors.
25% of the books I've read this year are by females with an average rating of 2.83. The remaining 75% (male authors) had a rating of 3.56. The only books by female authors I didn't really care for were Allegiant and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. As for male authors, I didn't liek Dereliciton by Ray Garton.I don't choose books to read based on the sex of the author, but I will forgo an ebook for one I can hold and turn the pages of.
Caroline wrote: "Robert wrote: "I know what feminism is, thanks. But you do know the women who bash men do so in the name of feminism don't you? This is the problem. They would call themselves feminists. I would ..."
The problem is, the politically and socially active feminists mostly tend to lean towards the radical end as well as do the academics. So when government or organisations want to consult on female issues these are the people they hear from almost exclusively.
Of course equality of opportunity is right, but many feminist "experts" press for equality of outcome, which is an entirely different thing.
Outta the norm, I tend to read more male authors...The only time I pay attention to the sex of the author is in the urban fantasy genre. Too much romance with them. Anybother genre, I couldnt care less if a man or woman wrote it.
And that's fine. But a man saying exactly the same thing would be called out at sexist and misogynist in many places, including universities.