Monday, April 26, 2010

Are Publishers Anti-Male?

Well, after the discussion under my last post, here's an interesting article on the Huffington Post claiming that there's anti-male bias in publishing. Thanks to Sam Jordison via Twitter.
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2 comments:

Sheenagh Pugh said...

"This NPR piece three years ago came to the conclusion that women read more fiction than men by a 4-1 margin. Articles like this madden me because I think they miss the big picture, or perhaps are even ignoring it purposefully."

Yes but... marketing stats don't come out of thin air and all he has to set against them is anecdotal - many of my best feiends are readers" stuff. I think it's he who is wilfully ignoring the fact that in fiction, men don't buy as many books as women. Now that can't all be down to books being targeted or marketed to women. Martin Amis? Philip Roth? Nick Hornby? There is loads of laddish stuff out there if that's what they want.

8:01 AM
Elizabeth Baines said...

Mm. The thing that strikes me is that while more women write and read fiction than men (and boys see reading as girls' stuff)it is the books you quote that sit at the top of the pyramid in terms of hype, critical attention, prizes and the public consciousness etc. It's the same old thing we see in teaching, where there are more women than men in the profession, but it's the men who get the headships, and while cooking has been done mostly by women in society, it's men who've got the top chef jobs. Etc. Any activity being more valued when it is done by men.

8:21 AM

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