{"id":9134,"date":"2021-07-28T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9134"},"modified":"2021-07-28T06:37:57","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T10:37:57","slug":"shunning-books-by-women-what-fb-users-said","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9134","title":{"rendered":"“Shunning” Books by Women? What FB Users Said"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"reading\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post <\/a>based in part on findings of research done by Nielsen Book Research. As you may know, the Nielsen organization is \u201ca leading global data and analytics company that provides a holistic and objective understanding of the media industry.\u201d This particular research was for a new book by MA Sieghart, titled The Authority Gap<\/em> (reviewed here<\/a>), which explores the social conditioning and unconscious bias that belittles and undermines women. Half the population is a lot of people to not take seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author investigated the many guises in which bias occurs, but of most interest to me were her findings on how authors are treated. Much past research has dealt with women authors\u2019 difficulties, which culminate in reduced readership. Using the Nielsen research and other sources, Sieghart found considerable evidence that these difficulties continue and that men \u201cshun\u201d books by women. I actually think this may be less prevalent in the crime and mystery genre, but the research was dealt with best-selling authors, all genres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m gratified that my post it received abundant Facebook likes from both men and women. But in the comments, sharp differences emerged. In general, women cited specific experiences they\u2019d had; many men denied the problem and questioned the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several women (teachers) said prejudices against women authors begin at an early age, and others said they identify themselves with initials, not their names, as a result. One woman said, \u201cA while back, a large writers\u2019 group I belong to researched this from several angles, and concluded that in most genres, male authors significantly outsold female. Possibly the roughest moment was a friend\u2019s husband admitting to his writer wife that he too avoided books by women because he assumed they wouldn\u2019t interest him.\u201d That \u201che assumed\u201d is what author Sieghart is trying to get at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some men said they don\u2019t pay any attention to the author\u2019s gender. I hope that\u2019s true. But if all that interests them are stories about former Navy SEALS with advanced martial arts skills who like to blow things up, following their preferences will naturally lead to one type of author. One said he didn\u2019t know any women who write the action thrillers he prefers (a woman author responded by suggesting one of her books). Sieghart’s point is that readers who read books by only one gender (however that happens) miss out on understanding a lot of what goes on in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, several men didn\u2019t bother to read my post, much less The Guardian<\/em> article it was based on, both of which described the research. One skeptical man asked, \u201cIs this based on any factual research?\u201d Similarly, men wrote, \u201cI don\u2019t take much stock in people\u2019s surveys or stats,\u201d and \u201cI think these surveys\/polls are utter nonsense.\u201d The Nielsen research wasn’t a poll; it was an analysis of actual buying patterns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mysteriously, one man said he didn\u2019t see that the problem is about gender. \u201cMost crime fiction is written by women, so are you suggesting men don\u2019t read crime? They certainly do.\u201d No, the post did not suggest anything like that at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ad feminem argument also surfaced: \u201cOne issue is that society conditions men to expect female authors to spend most of the time excoriating men. So why bother?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, this clincher: \u201cWho cares? Move on. Write because you love writing.\u201d Not because you want to be read or because it\u2019s important to you that your books bring in the income that will let you eat, put a roof over your head, and buy shoes for the kids. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Heartening, by contrast, was some men\u2019s unqualified support for women authors, like: \u201cThere are way too many high quality female authors to ignore. Especially in the mystery genre.\u201d And \u201cI love English mysteries, and many of the best writers are women.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two weeks ago, I wrote a blog post based in part on findings of research done by Nielsen Book Research. As you may know, the Nielsen organization is \u201ca leading global data and analytics company that provides a holistic and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"\"Shunning\" Books by Women? What FB Users Said - women gave evidence from their experience; men doubted the research. ","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1288,174,268,256],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-culture","category-first-draft-blog","category-politics","category-social-media-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2nk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9134"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9136,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9134\/revisions\/9136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}