Men who read fiction written by women

[KiwiKola]

Why is this so attractive?

I find it attractive too. What is tedious and unattractive is the way some people like to deny objective truth. Men and boys read less than women and girls. And men and boys generally DON’T read fiction written by women! This is a very odd thread to find such vociferous NAMALT-wry!

Actually written by women or authors with women's names?

First author that springs to mind is Robert Galbraith but there are others.

I would say 1 in 5 books my DH reads is by a female writer, he mainly sticks to the same authors.

Could it be because many of the best novelists in history are women?

It is attractive isn't it OP. And how depressing that it's unusual enough to be noticeable when it happens.

I think a lot of comments are misunderstanding the OP. She's saying, it's appealing when men read women authors. Because most don't, depressingly.

Some amusing responses here but yes it's because fewer men read fiction and when they do they don't read women. They especially don't read women who aren't crime writers.

So it is noticeable when they do read a lot of female authors and it makes them more attractive.

I do OP. Why shouldn't I?

Mrs Gaskill, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Maeve Binchy (short stories can't take her novels) and Bev Allen this year alone.

Or that the gender of the writer is not relevant to the quality of their prose?

Th OP is making me feel weird now because I quite often read fiction by men, even though I am a woman

So many distractions and other ways to hit dopamine receptors.

I read a lot of books written by men. I’m very confused about your post. Are you saying it’s a bad thing? If you are then it says far more about you than them

You sound like someone who needs a tl;dr for a 4 line paragraph

I REALLY don’t understand why people seem to be being confused by @KiwiKola’spost. Maybe they should read more?

Why wouldn’t they though? I’m an American Lit lecturer and most of the department are male. I can’t imagine they’d get very far without reading and teaching Didion, Woolf, the Brontë sisters, Austen, Morrison, Angelou, Shelley, Dickinson, Silko, Plath…

I wouldn’t have married someone who didn’t, tbh, any more than I’d have married a man who didn’t have female friends.

Why are people so determined to pretend this isn’t a “thing”? Is it being perceived as a criticism of men-which of course isn’t allowed?🤣 Men overwhelmingly choose to read books by other men while women read men and women authors equally. I think I read that the top women authors only have 20% male readership. It’s not feminists feministing. It’s statistical fact.

I've noticed recently both my husband and I seem to be gravitating towards reading fewer male authors, although we both still do read plenty of them. I don't think he differentiates when choosing books, he just seems to go by reviews or recs from our local bookstore.

I'm not on x any more, but there used to be a very funny account called men writing women (or something similar) which was full of descriptions of women getting ready for nights out thinking things that no woman has ever thought, like, 'I will now place my apple like breasts with their pencil eraser nipples into my sheer push up bra that I wear to showcase my goods.'

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat

There is definitely a subset of people (and they aren't only men) who dismiss anything labelled as women's fiction (or, even worse, romantic fiction) as pure fluff for the girlies.

I find women do this just as often.

To be fair, Evelyn Waugh WAS a woman.

She was married to the male writer Evelyn Waugh.

Yes, but only briefly. They were known, as I'm sure you know, as She-Evelyn and He-Evelyn.

From my experience my DH reads more non-fiction than I do, but he does happily read female authors, mostly classics such as Austen or Brontë. If I recommend a book to him he’d happily read it, male or female.

My teenage son will happily read books by either sex (although he doesn’t have time to read much at the moment admittedly) as do my younger daughters who are bookworms.

It's widely recognised that men and boys read far less books by female authors. That's why Jo Rowling was advised to use her initials when she started out.

DP only tends to read crime, thrillers and science fiction so reads women who write in those genres.

DS1 reads roughly 50/50 from men and women with science fiction and fantasy. Robin Hobb is his favourite with Becky Chambers and Adrian Tchaikovsky in close contention.

@MrThorpeHazell the sex of a writer is frequently relevant to how the female characters are presented. Far too many male authors bring the male gaze to descriptions of female characters. There are some funny pastiches of it, like "she bounced boobily down the stairs..."

Then there is all the sexual violence and vamps or victims lazy characterisation. Tropes like 'fridging' a female character just to provide motivation for male characters.

That's why my choices of authors tend to be women about three quarters of the time. Female authors rarely find it necessary to mention the breast size of a character.

Why did you ask the question if you already knew the answer?

I've not had the misfortune to see/read any of them myself, but I heard recently that 'national treasure' Stephen Fry has supposedly written at least a couple of works of fiction that include paedophilia in the plot lines - and I gather not mentioned in a condemnatory sense.

Interesting @KiwiKola , my 18 year old son mentioned the other day that he hadn’t read a book by a woman, either for pleasure or at school. He reads a lot, for context. He’s not anti women authors, so was raising the question! He suggested Frankenstein do that’s now on his tbr pile.

What a strange question to ask. Millions of women and girls have read Harry Potter books, for example.