We all grew up with James Bond, Indiana Jones, Superman, and hundreds of other male heroes from books and films. We’ve learnt to love them despite their portrayal of every woman as a helpless ‘damsel in distress’, who falls at the feet of any man with a cold steely gaze and/or gun. In today’s society it’s beginning to feel like that kind of sexism has been left in the past, with new heroines such as Katniss Everdeen and Lisbeth Salander, despite the fact that James Bond still seems to be able to sleep with every woman he looks at. Maybe sexism in fiction is no longer an issue, but what about in the real world?
This may seem like a pretty odd suggestion after J.K Rowling and her enormous success with Harry Potter, but why are more male writers still reviewed in almost every literary magazine in the UK and US? And why are women’s books branded as ‘chick lit’, yet men’s books with very similar plots have been called ‘romances’? In a recent survey, Vida found that the London Review of Books featured 527 male authors and critics on their pages in 2014, compared with just 151 women (the New York Times had a pretty similar ratio.) This doesn’t make sense when female writers such as Hilary Mantel and Donna Tartt have been dominating the best sellers list over the past couple of years, and two thirds of books are bought by women. One half of the literary world is given so much more media coverage than the other. Why is that a thing?
On to the issue of ‘chick lit’. There are blogs and discussions on the internet saying that only women can write this specific genre of not-quite-romance. Apparently, whatever a man writes is far too sophisticated to be branded in such a way. An article in the Express Tribune made a pretty good point: ‘Take the example of Jodi Picoult. The American author has so far penned 23 novels on a wide range of subjects, from mercy killings and school shootings to childhood leukaemia and stem-cell research. And yet, critics consistently dismiss her work as being ‘beach reads’ or ‘chick lit’, labels that weren’t given to John Green’s ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ when it was released. What is the difference? On Amazon you get ‘fiction’ or ‘women’s fiction’, because what women write just isn’t quite on the same level as real fiction apparently. Thanks Amazon.
Maybe I’ve taken particular offence to this because it seems to reduce my chances of becoming successful as a writer, but the fact that there is such a huge divide in any industry between men and women shouldn’t be ignored. I’ve only covered one small part of the issue in this article, but that doesn’t mean it’s the only industry in which you will find sexism. All I’ll say now is well done to Hilary Mantel, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, and anyone else who has struggled up the male-dominated ladder to reach the respect they deserve today.
Edited by India-Jayne Trainor
Sources:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/may/16/women-fiction-sign-sexist-book-industry