Reading Habits: Gender Parity

   The last couple of years have seen an increase in discussion regarding diversity in the genre community, from heroes other than straight white males to visibility of women authors. Yesterdays article "Women's fantasy fiction: join the quest for a world unknown to bookstores" in the Gaurdian highlights some of the inherent misogyny at work, references the Twitter side of the discussion (which prompted the article, in part, to some criticism of the said paper's representation)...and the comments are full of wonderful recommendations (always a bonus as usually such articles call the tiresome trolls out of the woodwork to rave about biological imperatives and washing up). There have also been a number of reading challenges asking folks to take a good hard look at their own habits, how they may be influenced by marketing and SWM dominated fandom chat...and amend by purposefully countering the lack of representation. This has sparked quite the furor on certain blogs and comments sections, nigh on screaming rage at the audacity of these uppity femmes demanding attention. Which really only goes to highlight the necessity for such a discussion.

So I thought I'd have a quick tally. I've roughly broken down by genre. Women (W), men (M), unknown (U) and co-authored by both men and women (B). The figures are number of books: number of authors.


Fantasy:
Books:
W- 76:22
M- 57:20
U- 1:1

YA/Children
W- 23: 5
M- 3:1
B- 1:1

Classics/Odd/SF
W- 20:17
M- 44: 28

Urban/Horror
W- 74: 12
M- 13: 8
B- 4: 1

Totals
W- 196: 58
M- 116: 57
U- 1: 1
B- 5: 2

These are the books immediately visible on my bookshelves, not including those lent out, lost under the bed, borrowed, non-fiction and other myriad reasons for not being available for counting.

An even parity between gendered authors is nearly achieved, with a slightly more women authors which increases greatly when viewing total books. I seem to be a third more likely to read a book written by a woman.

However, let me add some context. I'm poor, and whilst I'm far more likely to buy books than, say, clothes or other such items, my purchases are dictated by price to a certain extent. Most books are bought from cheap shops such as the Works, or charity shops, online promotions and auction sites. I usually reserve full price purchases for favoured authors or books I've heard a lot of good things about and have been tempted by for awhile. These are nearly always women (based on story attraction, gender noted due to above).

In fact up until about five years ago nearly all my books were written by women. Gifts of books tend to be written by men (giftee's shopping influenced by known genre preference and marketing visibility?), and if I like them I will be more likely to read more of the same author, or authors who have been favourably compared. And most comparisons are to men authors. This time also saw more of my time spent online in reading/writing communities where there is more recommendations of men authors.

Do I begrudge? Yes, of course. I'm a woman and a writer and when my publication time comes I want equal visibility and oportunity to my fellow men writers. As a reader I want to have the best books pushed under my nose, not limited by ridiculous and harmful traditions.

But this is changing in light of critique, and now my wishlist is very much dominated by women. Again. :D

So how falls your parity?