Purely anecdotal evidence, but I work in a bookshop and this is largely true, most fiction readers are disproportionately buying books written by a member of their gender marketed at their gender. The people buying the classics seem to do this less (especially women reading famous hundred year old books by male authors) though both genders are still more likely to buy classic authors of their gender.
Imo this will continue for a very long time until we live in a very different society and gender divisions fall away much more.
well that’s socialized behavior, not “biological reality”
they seem to imply people are just intrinsically much less likely to enjoy the contents of literature from the opposite-gender, which is ridiculous considering how many men have historically raved over books written by women only because they *thought* they were written by men (but were actually women using male pseudonyms)
I think a distinction has to be drawn between people actively disliking a work because they know it was written by the opposite gender vs relating more to a work of fiction written by their gender that emphasises how it feels to live as their gender (Hemmingway, Mishima, Wilde on one side and Austen, the Brontës, and Atwood on the other) and also the high barriers to entry for any woman looking to become a truly respected author that led many of them to pretend to be men. Most men like great works written by women and vice versa, they just feel more comfortable reading things in their comfort zone written by people they relate more to; the lower brow the books are, the more stratified this divide seems to get. The divide also increases the younger a person is
Somewhat interesting side note, the number of men and women reading ‘high brow’ stuff is roughly the same, but (like the article says) i see a lot less men than women reading low brow pulp stuff (presumably men looking for low brow stuff go elsewhere) so as a percentage of their reading population men seem to buy more fiction written by women than the other way round (but like i said earlier, the women who read high brow stuff read much closer to a 50/50 split than the men who do). The divide also seems to decrease the older the customer is too, before having a rebound when they’re getting really ancient, I don’t really know the implications of that but it seemed worth mentioning.
the claim that it’s a biological imperative of some kind is weird but the rest of the argument is just true in my experience and I don’t see why people on here are getting so het up about it
You can’t just handwave away the claim about biology as “weird”, it’s fucked up and signals all kinds of regressive bullshit, so that’s why people are upset by it. I don’t think it would attract this kind of response if it pointed to sexist marketing and culture or even simply stated the observation without attributing a cause.
Why are people on the site that has a huge amount of trans people upset at the “leftist” magazine using the same bullshit claims that right wing politicians are currently using to persecute trans people, so mysterious
Purely anecdotal evidence, but I work in a bookshop and this is largely true, most fiction readers are disproportionately buying books written by a member of their gender marketed at their gender. The people buying the classics seem to do this less (especially women reading famous hundred year old books by male authors) though both genders are still more likely to buy classic authors of their gender.
Imo this will continue for a very long time until we live in a very different society and gender divisions fall away much more.
well that’s socialized behavior, not “biological reality”
they seem to imply people are just intrinsically much less likely to enjoy the contents of literature from the opposite-gender, which is ridiculous considering how many men have historically raved over books written by women only because they *thought* they were written by men (but were actually women using male pseudonyms)
I think a distinction has to be drawn between people actively disliking a work because they know it was written by the opposite gender vs relating more to a work of fiction written by their gender that emphasises how it feels to live as their gender (Hemmingway, Mishima, Wilde on one side and Austen, the Brontës, and Atwood on the other) and also the high barriers to entry for any woman looking to become a truly respected author that led many of them to pretend to be men. Most men like great works written by women and vice versa, they just feel more comfortable reading things in their comfort zone written by people they relate more to; the lower brow the books are, the more stratified this divide seems to get. The divide also increases the younger a person is
Somewhat interesting side note, the number of men and women reading ‘high brow’ stuff is roughly the same, but (like the article says) i see a lot less men than women reading low brow pulp stuff (presumably men looking for low brow stuff go elsewhere) so as a percentage of their reading population men seem to buy more fiction written by women than the other way round (but like i said earlier, the women who read high brow stuff read much closer to a 50/50 split than the men who do). The divide also seems to decrease the older the customer is too, before having a rebound when they’re getting really ancient, I don’t really know the implications of that but it seemed worth mentioning.
Jacobin just made an assertion and left it at that - idk
They also frame it as biological rather than social. It would clearly be a social phenomenon.
the claim that it’s a biological imperative of some kind is weird but the rest of the argument is just true in my experience and I don’t see why people on here are getting so het up about it
You can’t just handwave away the claim about biology as “weird”, it’s fucked up and signals all kinds of regressive bullshit, so that’s why people are upset by it. I don’t think it would attract this kind of response if it pointed to sexist marketing and culture or even simply stated the observation without attributing a cause.
Why are people on the site that has a huge amount of trans people upset at the “leftist” magazine using the same bullshit claims that right wing politicians are currently using to persecute trans people, so mysterious
It might be largely true as a function of marketing. In my case it isn’t really.
my worms thank you