Rowling and the Conspiracy against Women Fantasy Writers
Submitted by mwilliams on Sat, 2008-05-24 21:26.Rowling bashing is still a popular sport, but apparently it’s merely a symptom of a far more insidious affliction—that of sexism against all female fantasy writers. “Bestselling female contenders remain unacknowledged while their male counterparts are robustly namechecked, absorbed reliably into the official history of the genre,” says Bidisha. Gasp! Could it be so?
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Possibly. Some female fantasy writers seem to prefer to use their initials and not their full name on the covers, possibly for a fear of gender bias.
She was told by her publisher to use "JK" for just that reason. Girls will read any book in the Teen / YA, but the fear is that teenage boys only read male authors. So this is at least in part quite true, at least in perception. Do teenage boys really discriminate? Do adult men? Not sure, but people believe the kids are jerks, at least, and act accordingly.
Ms Rowling is laughing her way to the bank really, I wonder how many of her critics are just a wee bit upset by that? ;-) If I were in her shoes, I would have to pay someone to care.
I would not doubt the sexism at all!. I mentioned it before on another post somewhere - but I did have an editorial comment on a short story I wrote back in the early 90's and said comment from male editor was "It's nice to see woman can be successful in the 'death business'" (said story was a parody of the 4 Horsemen with one being a female) However some female authors continued to perpetuate it. I have browsed a few female fantasy authors in bookstores and putthem down because of their "pouty heroine flinging her hair" or the " hot bodied man speaking gruffly" routine. It's like a bad romance novel set on another planet with a few dragons or beasties tossed in for flavor