In one of the reviewing groups I belong to, we’ve been talking about the gender of writers. Someone found statistics that show that in the more prestigious publication, the majority of the authors are male (publications like the New Yorker). The majority of the people in our review group are female. In all review groups I’ve belonged to, in fact.
So we’re talking about why that might be. If, from where we are, it seems like more writers are female, then why is it more published authors are male? And we came up with a lot of theories along the lines of the nature of self-confidence, social influences, different definitions of success, etc, etc.
And someone posted a link to a site I’ve seen before, but always have to play on when I see it again The Gender Genie.
I’ll be honest here, I resent this site. Because before it, I always thought I was a versitile writer who could get inside the head of a character regardless of gender. But every time I pasted a bit of work, it came back ‘female’ regardless of who I thought my POV character was.
But I had to play again today. So I decided instead of using bits of my stories, I’d take the guest posts I’ve done from my characters and see what it had to say about those.
Yesterday’s post from Rae…scores very high as being written by a male.
My most recent post from Scott. Very much female.
My Max/Lexi post…female but not by a big margin.
So, I guess there’s a whole handful of questions here, especially since I know most of my followers are female, but suspect the ratio of female to male actually reading is closer to even…
But…what do you think it indicates? Any of it. All of it. Whatever.
Notice how once again, I managed to link to the character posts because they’re still my favorite?
Update: The conversation is growing. Make sure you check out Angeline’s thoughts on the matter as well
What a fascinating link – I’m totally hooked now! What was interesting with me (clearly female) is that my blog posts tended to come back male, some of them were male by a huge margin. But my fiction came back as female. Only just mind. I guess that suggests I write in quite a masculine way. I wonder what that means? (People have also said I run like a man, and I also have massive man hands!)
As for more writers appearing to be male, I read a piece about this once (sorry, can’t remember where so I can’t reference it) that suggested that more women writers write in specific genres (largely romance and chit lit, but also fantasy etc), and so we tend to see more male writers in the general fiction section which is, on the large part, more visible in general society than specific genres are.
Does that make sense, or am I just rambling now? Anyway, fascinating post.
I tested it out with several of my blog posts and the vast majority came out male. Good on them for that, I suppose.
I have an alternative theory though. Most of the “female” aspects of my writing seemed to be passive words, whereas the majority of my “male” words were direct, clear and concise.
If anything I think this just shows that publishers like writers with an active voice over writers with a passive voice (for obvious reasons).
Why this site assumes passivity is the domain of women I haven’t the foggiest idea…
Interesting observation Brad. Perhaps the tool was designed by men who like their women to be passive!
Oooh. I have to go and try this. I’m sure I’ll come up girlie no matter what I put in.
Great post.
I honestly thought since yours was often female that mine would be too. Entered part of what I wrote yesterday for MarNo, which is a scene with two girls and two boys talking about the new boy to the village (about whether he is cute or not). And it came out on the site as Male. Most fiction I tried came out Male, in fact, except the first person thing from Ephram’s pov where he thought he was being girly cause of the topic (lol). My blog posts came out mostly female, though the recent glbtq one was male (very very much so on the scale). Interesting.
Then again, I’ve had people online think I was male. Guess it’s a good thing I can write a convincing voice since most of my main characters are male.
What I find interesting is so many males are published but the books I’ve been reading recently are predominantly female. The ones who I see promoted on blogs the most are commonly YA(or other genres) with female authors. So, maybe there won’t always be a male dominance. I think only one fiction book I’ve read so far this year was written by a man. But it’s interesting to think about sometimes. I try not to worry too much though, statistics aren’t always the best source or indication for current and near future trends.
I don’t think we can be genderless behind the keyboard. In fact, that’s part of the fascination of writing, trying to think and act and talk like both sexes. I think playing both parts is probably a way to ‘complete’ ourselves at human beings as well as writers.
@angeline – I have to wonder if your blog posts come out differently than your fiction because of the way so many of us approach blog posts. More of a ‘just the facts, ma’am’ kind of thing.
@Brad – you may be onto something. Women do tend to be less direct (except I call it subtle instead of passive 😉 than men. But I think there’s more to it than just ‘passive voice’ and I know my writing..very rarely direct.
@Kate – let us know 😉
@Dawn – that’s very interesting. I wouldn’t have guessed that about your writing and it throws wrenches in my theories ^_^
@Richard – again something I hadn’t specifically thought of. I do think a lot of us use writing in part as a way to experience things we can’t normally, but I hadn’t approached that from a gender angle.
I do know that recently I’ve preferred to write from a male perspective…my excuse is that it means spending less time exploring the character’s feelings because they aren’t, why should I? But I’m probably selling my characters and a gender short with that thought process…
Interesting. I posted some sections of my work in progress; some were male, others female (a couple female by a large margin).
Checked some blog entries. All were close; most were male.
Interestingly, if you look at the keywords, “her,” “hers,” and “she” are feminine, but male pronouns don’t track as masculine. Any book/scene written with a lot of female characters/pronouns are going to track as a female writer. So even if it is from a male PoV, if the majority of the action/description is by or about a female character, it tracks as a female writer.
My main characters are female, hence the genie’s confusion.
Perhaps that is the issue: male writers don’t write about or focus on the female characters as much; they are described less and act less than the male characters.
Just a guess.
What an interesting site! I put several pieces of fiction through it and the results were definitely thought provoking. The pieces that were told from a male POV came back as male and the ones told from a female POV came back as female.