Sex and Reading: A Look at Who's Reading Whom

Fuck gender, it's all about the story

I wrote about this interesting analysis on my website (www.vweisfeld.com), because, as a genre author (crime, suspense), I think it's a big problem.Even J.K. Rowling hid her female identity behind initials until she was a hit! Nice job!

As an Asian and a non-English native, I sometimes still cannot tell the gender of the authors of (Western) books I've read/gonna read just from reading their names, especially if they're only initials + last name.

Sylvain Reynard and Brodi Ashton for example. I used to think the former were female and the latter were male.

My point is, when I pick a book to read, I don't really pay attention to the author's sex. :)

I really hate it when people use "sex" when they mean "gender". Shame on you Goodreads, you should know better.

Robert wrote: "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. "

But isn't that like not calling yourself christian because some christians hate gays, not calling yourself american because some americans hate blacks and not calling yourself human because a lot of humans say a lot of hateful things about other humans?

If you don't like what other feminists say, because you don't think it's feminism, then tell them. Then call yourself feminist and say the right things, so people will see that that is feminism and that the majority of feminists is for equal rights and will not allow others to steal that word away for their hate.

V.W. wrote: "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. "

I would really like to have some statistics abour that... Because all the scientific articles about feminism i read (mostly psychological), there isn't much that seems even in the slightest radical.
So i don't know where you see that "mostly" coming from. I perceive it to be the opposite, so how to know whos subjective perception is more right?

While I guess this infographic is mildly interesting, and perhaps even says something about general reading trends, I really wonder if that 'something' is particularly important or relevant. Speaking only of myself and my own circle of friends and acquaintances, I can't recall a single instance when I or someone else chose to read or not read a book based on the gender of the author. I am highly obsessive about keeping track of the books I read, and classify my shelves on Goodreads in various ways ... but 'author gender' is one classification that never occurred to me, and nor will it ever be a useful classification as far as my own reading proclivities go.

I think a more useful way to understand the gender disparity among readers and authors would be to look along genre lines. Certain genres are dominated by one gender, to the extent that writers of the opposite gender have to adopt pseudonyms or gender neutral names just to be taken seriously by their potential readers. But perhaps an analysis of why female fantasy writers gain commercial success only if they agree to let themselves be pigeonholed into the YA market is a bit beyond the capabilities of such a simplistic infographic.

Niklas wrote: "Instead of "Men are 2x as likely to write a 500+ page book in 2014", should't we say "Men are 2x as likely to write a 500+ page book and have it published in 2014"?"

Here here

As far as I am concerned, the gender of the author doesn't matter when I'm trying to choose a new book to read. I like to read different genre of books, but the majority of the books I've read are written by men. This year, of 50 books read, 10 are written by women. I suppose this is related to the genre of book I'm reading and not to the gender of the author.

Hmm...an interesting infographic, but I think there should have been better representation of all the books we read, not just the new stuff. I read constantly, but I haven't read a single book published in this year. Focusing on how many 2014 books were written and read by men and women doesn't give a full picture.

Ellie wrote: "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."

Clearly you are having the wrong kind of sex if it impedes re..."

"A man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl simply isn't giving the kiss the attention it deserves" -Albert Einstein

Auntie J wrote: "I really hate it when people use "sex" when they mean "gender". Shame on you Goodreads, you should know better."

It's funny, I hate it when people use the word "gender" when they mean "sex".

Gender is your individual expression - identification as male/masculine, female/feminine or something else, and association with a (social) role or set of behavioral and cultural traits, clothing, etc.

Sex is your biological sex.

Of course, the world seems to ignore these distinctions, and people assume they are the same thing, when they are not.

So Goodreads technically got it correct in their title since they are talking about sex identity and not gender expression. However, they got it incorrect as far as their data is concerned. Their data source is presumably what people selected on their Goodreads' profile/author profile, and Goodreads always uses the term "gender" when editing or displaying profile data, even if what they really should say is "sex".

Michaela wrote: "If you don't like what other feminists say, because you don't think it's feminism, then tell them. Then call yourself feminist and say the right things, so people will see that that is feminism and that the majority of feminists is for equal rights and will not allow others to steal that word away for their hate."

Well said!

Michaela wrote: "V.W. wrote: "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 consu..."

I can dig up lots of info on it since I follow such topics on the Net, or provide links where you could do your own reading, but this thread, and GR in general is about writing and reading, not sexual politics and I have no intention of getting into that kind of discussion here.

I would add that I don't have a particular axe to grind regarding US or UK laws or society on this subject since I live in neither country or even in Europe as a whole. I base my statements only on what appear to be reliable reports and statements that I have found.

I read both male and female authors, provided the protagonists are strong characters. It doesn't matter whether the main characters are male or female.
The top authors I like being Tess Gerritsen, Lee Child and Jonathan Kellerman.

Michael wrote: "It's funny, I hate it when people use the word "gender" when they mean "sex".

Gender is your individual expression - identification as male/masculine, female/feminine or something else, and association with a (social) role or set of behavioral and cultural traits, clothing, etc.

Sex is your biological sex.

Of course, the world seems to ignore these distinctions, and people assume they are the same thing, when they are not.

So Goodreads technically got it correct in their title since they are talking about sex identity and not gender expression. However, they got it incorrect as far as their data is concerned. Their data source is presumably what people selected on their Goodreads' profile/author profile, and Goodreads always uses the term "gender" when editing or displaying profile data, even if what they really should say is "sex"."

Correct.

Thanks for clarifying this!

goodreads should do one of these but not focused on gender but on age and genres

I don't usually pay much attention to the author, unless it is an author I know I am a fan of...which usually happens to be male. But after reading this I was intrigued to know just how many books by men I've read this year, which was a whopping 64 books, while only reading 27 by female authors. And none of which were published in 2014. Anyway, I disagree with this to an extent, because I feel that the female reading selections in here do not apply to me and what I read. However, I find all of the math and statistics to be really interesting.

Daniel wrote: "Fuck gender, it's all about the story"

YES YOU ARE SO RIGHT!!!!! Reading should be gender neutral.

I was curious to compare the stats to what I read in 2014, so there you go:
The average rating in 2014 was 3.6, 3.8 over the years.
I read 18 books, 13 by men (average rating 3.7) and 5 by women (average rating 3.0).
I read 2 books published in 2014 (average rating 3.0) vs. 16 from previous years (average rating 3.6).
The 2 books I read in 2014 with 500+ pages were written by women.

I liked the stats, but now I feel I'm a dot outside the curve :-)
I choose books because of the genre, abstract, comments, and very rarely by the author (although there are a couple of authors I really like), but there may be a subliminal message in the way I choose books I never realized before.
P.S. I'm a woman.

just from my own experience, this year I decided I prefer books written by my own gender and not by men. Looking at my Yearly Reading Challenge in fact, I only read two books that were written by men. I think the factor is that there's a more relatable feeling (I like heroines I can relate to)

The author's gender matters less to me than the protagonist's. If the protagonist is female, the chances are greater that I'll pick the book up than if the protagonist was male.

(That said, most of the authors I've read thus turn out to be female)

I don't think the gender matters as much as the content. It makes sense that women are writing about the kind of topics that appeal to women and therefore they would feature more on my bookshelves. If I come across a great romance or young adult romance book written by a man, I'm game but the fact is there seem to be alot more women writing about topics I enjoy.

This is a weird division. Books by men or books by women, and even books for men or books for women.

Books are books and these are gender-less and when I pick a book I never check if it is by a female write or a male writer. How does it matter. Books are either good or bad. Books either are of your interest or these are not. Books are for you or for you not. Please keep it simple!

I definitely do not read books based off of if the author is a man or a woman. I honestly do not care. If it sounds good I'm reading it regardless.

I really don't mind who writes the book if i like it, i like it.

Goodreads, thank you for the very interesting information! I never paid any attention to authors' gender before. I have read a lot of good crime stories by women and by men just the same. I think the style is more important.
I would have liked to be part of the study as well!

I quite like these results, the difference isn't all that big except in the first year of publication but that can change soon enough. I am a big fan of gender neutral covers though, it will only add to make the results even more equal. Personally I read both, it takes some time to get used to some male authors and their style but when I do I can like them just as well as female authors.

Jacinta wrote: "How about some analysis on whether we prefer authors from our own country? For example I generally prefer to read a British or Australian author over an American author which may be a reflection o..."

I agree, I for one never read author from my own country which is a shame but I just haven't found one I like. Its strange really since I don't mind fiction from my own country when it comes to TV or movies. Maybe its just a quirk.

Erin wrote: "Ellie wrote: "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."

Clearly you are having the wrong kind of sex if..."

That was a good quote. The one from Einstein.

i don't really pay attention to the author. Unless the book was really good then i might look at the author so i read more of their books. i only remember books by the title so if you asked me if i read a book and you said the authors name instead of the title i would most likely have no clue who that author is.

Honestly, I never even check the author's name when first picking up a book. The two things that draw me in are 1) the summary of the book 2) the cover 3) blurbs and reviews. The author's name will only come into play once I've read a book if I absolutely loved or hate it so that I can either look for or avoid that author's books. Gender really does not matter to me! And often there are names when I have no clue whether it's a man or a woman. So yeah, pretty infographic to look at but not really relevant imo...

I never considered reading a book according to it's author gender, but looking to my book list this year most books I've read were written by women. So I think these statistics are true :D

Couple of weeks ago I went through my read list with over 100 books and found out that I haven't read a single book that was written by female author. It didn't feel right to me that I was sexist, so I began thinking why was that. It made sense to me because I saw that almost all of my read books were either horror, science fiction or political satire and I honestly couldn't think of any female author within these genres. If anyone have some recommendations I would be thankful.

A good story is a good story and that's all there is to it! Book covers on the other hand are a completely different topic!

I will read any book regardless of who writes it as long as it catches my attention.

Fascinating! I find that about two thirds of the books I read this year were written by women (a bit more if you count "Robert Galbraith"). Would love to see stats for different genres - I seem to read plenty of crime novels and sci-fi by female authors, but fantasy mostly by male authors. Hmmm...

I have never come across a male author I enjoy to read. I can not even make it 1/4 through any male authors books to date. I try but just can't. On another hand do not mind movies that are made from male author's books.

Years ago, when I was only reading male authors I was surprised to find that one of my favorite writers was actually a female writing under a 'pen name'. You might be surprised, Jodi, to discover the same thing about one of your faves.

I rarely pay attention the author when I choose a book, but I do feel like I rather read something by a woman than a man based on the genres I read and most of the genres I read is majority of the time the authors are women anyways. I'm not opposed to reading something written by a man, if the synopsis looks interesting enough. I usually have some romance in my books and typically it is the women authors department.

Considering that my preferred genres are romance/erotica my experience is that women write much better books in these genres than men. I have read some male written romance novels but nothing compare with a woman's writing in my experience so far. I am open to keep reading male written books though. :-)

I like to believe I don't think at all about gender when considering a book or series, but somehow I HAVE wound up reading a lot more books written by men than women. I wonder how much of it is me and how much is the way I find books. Anyway, my most recent obsession is Patricia A. McKillip so maybe that redeems me some? Eh?

More women should write epic fantasy. From what little I've seen so far they're damned good at it. Recommendations are welcome =)

I've never paid attention to the author being man or woman, but now that I see this I'm surprised to see that out of my 51 most read authors, only 8 are women... I guess not all women like more women authors...
And out of the 41 I've read so far this year only 7 are women's and only one was published this year

I read book by only women now. Getting tired of all the dudes who can't write women to save their life. Also reading a majority of books with female protagonists because I'm getting tired of the male power fantasies.

Very interesting to read the comments here about gender. I look at the blurb, cover and also consider the reviews too. If a book doesn't have ANY decent reviews I won't even consider it to be honest. Even if it is free!

I have a writer friend ( I won't out him lol ) who actually writes as a woman to see if he gets more readers, as he firmly believes that women writers, (especially of erotica) get more readers.

Although I do note that male erotic authors ( particularly if they admit to being a Dominant male) get what looks like bigger street teams, and absolute fanatics. Not sure if that is a 50 shades phenomenon or not! As the book doesn't really give a true portrayal of the Lifestyle in any case. It is a sort of fairytale view of the Lifestyle, but there is nothing wrong with a good fairytale either.

Paul wrote: "It makes no difference to me if the author is male or female, a good book is just that."

Yes, exactly

I am a woman and lately I chose books by gender of the author. I prefer male! Female writers tend to write whiny characters and all those romances just really aren't for me. I particularly don't like books with one main female character with two males for her to choose. Like, what? Why?!

It doesn't matter to me the sex of the author, I just need to read a good book that's all

CJ wrote: "Interesting and it just happens to be, for me, not a more perfect time. I wonder if a certain book in a well-loved series is only hated because it is popular. I have been thinking of trying it thou..."

A lot of people make fun of Twilight, and yes, it can be seen as melodramatic and the female protagonist seems really weak since the two guys in the story are supernaturally strong. However, the story has some very good elements in it, some of which are unique. I tried to be vague below, but the points below may still spoil it for you...
Twilight Eclipse Breaking Dawn
I found it quite refreshing that the sex in the book was between MARRIED people! Quite unique, especially that that plot point was carried over to the screen. Bella really struggles with depression and overcomes it without her favorite guy. In many ways, many times, she saves them and brings peace. I also enjoy the strong Native American characters. I've always loved Native American mythology, and I liked the way they were treated in this story. So, yes, this is a love story, yes, there are cliches,and it's rather over-the-top in many ways, but I enjoyed the books and the movies. Book 2 is a downer, though. I recommend starting Book 2 when you have time to finish it quickly.

Gender is actually one of the big factors for me in choosing what to read--not that I avoid male authors, but I do make a specific effort to read books by women to make sure the majority of what I read is authored by women. This is mostly due to the fact that I read a lot of SFF, a genre dominated by men but populated by so many incredible female writers who just don't get the same kind of publicity. In that sense, I think it's important to be aware of who you're reading to work towards some kind of gender parity in the books you choose.