The Republic of Heaven

It's an interesting question which came up at home over Easter recently. Do pink book covers alienate people and the like. Anyway, my mother's written a rather interesting blog over at the Guardian about it. Right here.

As long as the book was a serious piece of literature and can use that fact to explain to people thats why I'm reading a pink book....

I wouldn't have a problem with it.

None of my friends ever see me when I read anyways

Sure, I'd read a pink book (once I'd read the blurb to ascertain it's not a Barbie Adventure book...unless it was a really good Barbie Adventure book).

I've read a pink book (Stargirl). I don't see why a girl would be put off a pink book.

Many girls rebel against pink because it's been forced down their throats constantly all their lives. I'm not one of them (especially because pink was never forced upon me), but I can completely accept where they're coming from. So that's why a girl would be put off by a pink book.
*curbs impending gender rant*

I personally wouldn't have a problem reading a pink book. I already read paperbacks that are older than me, have had the cover art scratched off and replaced with an unskilled ballpoint pen drawing of the protagonists, and have packing tape sealing at least all four edges of each cover and sometimes the entire front and back surfaces. A funny color wouldn't be at all odd compared to that.

I actually attended an interesting talk based on "Why Johnny can't read" this weekend. The head of the panel was Tamora Pierce, a popular author who writes young-adult-aimed adventure fiction with little gender bias. Discussion turned towards why boys in particular are seen as being less literate tha girls, and this topic made me think of that. The idea is that an average girl will read a book with a girl or boy protagonist, but an average boy won't read a book with a girl protagonist, so their choices are significantly reduced. It may possibly be the same thing for cover colors, and now I want to see if anyone's done studies on such things.

His Dark Materials has, or at least begins with, a female protagonist - and there aren't more male sraffies than there are female, are there? Sufficient enough males have read and liked the books enough to seek out the fansite, at least.

Bloomsbury (?) seemed to think that boys were less likely to read books *written* by a female author, which is apparently why it's JK and not Joanne on the covers of the books. Would anyone change their mind about reading a book based on the gender of the author? I'm not sure if any sraffies here would (as we're kind of asking a biased group on the forum), hmm...

His Dark Materials has, or at least begins with, a female protagonist - and there aren't more male sraffies than there are female, are there? Sufficient enough males have read and liked the books enough to seek out the fansite, at least.

I know at least one teenage male who has directly told me, after reading HDM, that "it was okay, but really too girly for me." I think that after he gave the series a chance, I have reason to value his opinion more. So it's not a trivial issue at least.

Bloomsbury (?) seemed to think that boys were less likely to read books *written* by a female author, which is apparently why it's JK and not Joanne on the covers of the books. Would anyone change their mind about reading a book based on the gender of the author? I'm not sure if any sraffies here would (as we're kind of asking a biased group on the forum), hmm...

I probably wouldn't read a sci fi written by a woman. I don't think I know of any sci fi writers, so I'd be sceptical. I'd read it if it had really good reviews and stuff. That's the only genre though, or else I wouldn't be put off by a woman.

Bloomsbury (?) seemed to think that boys were less likely to read books *written* by a female author, which is apparently why it's JK and not Joanne on the covers of the books. Would anyone change their mind about reading a book based on the gender of the author? I'm not sure if any sraffies here would (as we're kind of asking a biased group on the forum), hmm...

I probably wouldn't read a sci fi written by a woman. I don't think I know of any sci fi writers, so I'd be sceptical. I'd read it if it had really good reviews and stuff. That's the only genre though, or else I wouldn't be put off by a woman.

what about it do you think puts you off female sci fi writers?

Bloomsbury (?) seemed to think that boys were less likely to read books *written* by a female author, which is apparently why it's JK and not Joanne on the covers of the books. Would anyone change their mind about reading a book based on the gender of the author? I'm not sure if any sraffies here would (as we're kind of asking a biased group on the forum), hmm...

I probably wouldn't read a sci fi written by a woman. I don't think I know of any sci fi writers, so I'd be sceptical. I'd read it if it had really good reviews and stuff. That's the only genre though, or else I wouldn't be put off by a woman.

what about it do you think puts you off female sci fi writers?

Just that there aren't any that I've ever heard of so I can only assume that either a) women's books are so bad they don't get published and b) the ones that do get published can't be that great because I've never heard of any. I tend to only read sci-fi that's really famous and I've read good stuff about anyway, because there's so much utter balls out there. If i ever hear of something that interests me and it's by a woman then I'd read it, but I wouldn't pick up a woman's sci-fi novel on a whim.

Maybe there aren't any famous female sci-fi authors because people don't read sci-fi written be females (à la Retty) and so they never get the chance to be famous. It's the CIRCLE OF LIFE.

Although she's true in that there aren't as many sci-fi female writers anyway to start with. To be honest, right now I'm trying to think of any sci-fi books I've read and the only one I can think of was written by a woman. It was Crisis on Conshelf Ten, by Monica Hughes.

Bloomsbury (?) seemed to think that boys were less likely to read books *written* by a female author, which is apparently why it's JK and not Joanne on the covers of the books. Would anyone change their mind about reading a book based on the gender of the author? I'm not sure if any sraffies here would (as we're kind of asking a biased group on the forum), hmm...

I probably wouldn't read a sci fi written by a woman. I don't think I know of any sci fi writers, so I'd be sceptical. I'd read it if it had really good reviews and stuff. That's the only genre though, or else I wouldn't be put off by a woman.

what about it do you think puts you off female sci fi writers?

Just that there aren't any that I've ever heard of so I can only assume that either a) women's books are so bad they don't get published and b) the ones that do get published can't be that great because I've never heard of any. I tend to only read sci-fi that's really famous and I've read good stuff about anyway, because there's so much utter balls out there. If i ever hear of something that interests me and it's by a woman then I'd read it, but I wouldn't pick up a woman's sci-fi novel on a whim.

i suppose that's fair (although, cf. jaya's point re: cycle), but do you think that the fact that it's written by a woman would make it different from something written by a man?

That's always something that's interested me - whether I can tell if a book has been written by a woman or a man [if you don't know]. I've concluded that there are few books which give it away, unless you take the subject matter and demographics into account rather than the writing style. (e.g sci-fi books tend to be written by men and teen romance novels tend to be written by women).

I think partly it's to do with that until a couple of hundred years ago women didn't really get the chance to write anything classed as literature anyway, and it's only comparitively recently that women have been able to write about whatever they want. You wouldn't find any female penned sci-fi dating back to the days of The Time Machine, would you? (uh...would you?) Maybe sci-fi is just one of the things we haven't managed to break into yet. Even though it's rapidly changing, Physics and Maths fields are often still dominated by men.

Bloomsbury (?) seemed to think that boys were less likely to read books *written* by a female author, which is apparently why it's JK and not Joanne on the covers of the books. Would anyone change their mind about reading a book based on the gender of the author? I'm not sure if any sraffies here would (as we're kind of asking a biased group on the forum), hmm...

I probably wouldn't read a sci fi written by a woman. I don't think I know of any sci fi writers, so I'd be sceptical. I'd read it if it had really good reviews and stuff. That's the only genre though, or else I wouldn't be put off by a woman.

what about it do you think puts you off female sci fi writers?

Just that there aren't any that I've ever heard of so I can only assume that either a) women's books are so bad they don't get published and b) the ones that do get published can't be that great because I've never heard of any. I tend to only read sci-fi that's really famous and I've read good stuff about anyway, because there's so much utter balls out there. If i ever hear of something that interests me and it's by a woman then I'd read it, but I wouldn't pick up a woman's sci-fi novel on a whim.

i suppose that's fair (although, cf. jaya's point re: cycle), but do you think that the fact that it's written by a woman would make it different from something written by a man?

I would assume not as I can't see any difference in any other genre, but then I'm still left wondering why if women are just as good, do I never see any sci fi by women authors in the shops. Maybe there are just hardly any women writing sci fi? I don't know why that would be, but I can't think of any other genre where there's such a discrepancy between the sexes. It's like I always wonder why there are practically no female composers. Are they bad, or just not interested?

I would just like to point out that sci-fi was rather pioneered by a woman, even if there are not a lot of sci-fi females now. Frankenstein may not be very scientific sounding now, but it was when it was published. We've also got Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake, and Monica Hughes, whom Jaya mentioned, was both prolific and quite good, and of course there's The Time Travellers Wife, which was certainly not devoid of sci-fi elements.

You know, I think really the discrepancy between the genders in this case is really more a matter of marketing than anything else. The publishing companies tend to publish the female works as novels with a sci fi element, and the male works as sci-fi with a perhaps a bit of a novel. They're marketed totally differently, because ridiculous as it is, the demographics are quite different. Most women don't read sci-fi (I know, lots do, but even more don't) and lots of men who read sci-fi are put off by women writers.

Oh, and I have on more than one occasion read pink books.

Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale

If you're going to class that as sci fi then you've put me off women's sci fi for life . But those aren't the sort of books I'm talking about, I wouldn't class any of them as sci fi either. I mean space ships and robots etc.

oh, come on, frankenstein was a damn good point.

i'd read a pink book. as long as the pages and the ink weren't pink too. that would be mightily cruel on the eyes. if hdm had a flashy magenta cover, and if i hadn't been read the first book in school, i honestly might have avoided picking it up, but given enough encouragement i could be persuaded to find a book jacket and read it anyway.

oh, come on, frankenstein was a damn good point.

Thank you, I thought so too!

I do see your point about robots and spaceships, though, Blossom. That is rather a different type of sci-fi, and one which I don't read a whole lot of at all. The greats of it, Asimov, and Herbert, and Verne, and Wells, and Wyndam, are all male certainly.

Although, I wonder, of the rather less greats, of the pulpy sci-fi paperback sort of books, how many of the authours are actually women with a male pseudonym? I think of harlequin-type romances for example, and I'm pretty sure (not certain, as I've never actually read one, but I'm pretty sure I heard somewhere or other sort of sure) that quite a few of them are written by men but published with a female name, just because they sell better. I'd imagine that the knife cuts both ways.

I feel compelled to mention Ursula Le Guin here too.

And Doris Lessing! I knew I was forgetting someone important when I was writing before, but I thought of her eventually. A true grande-dame of Sci-fi, and she won the Nobel!