tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post29830058596391884..comments2024-03-29T08:55:34.078+00:00Comments on ImageNations: Reviews, Statistics and WomenImageNationshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06021414643103601330noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-80771230389282954312011-02-24T07:53:46.702+00:002011-02-24T07:53:46.702+00:00@Stefania, I have been following you, Stefania, fo...@Stefania, I have been following you, Stefania, for at least two years and I know this. I have read your reviews on the classics and the contemporary with equal relish. I don't consider 30-20 or 22-29 as a bias. In fact statistically it could even be that there is no significant difference between the two. One can hardly read at a ratio of 1:1, unless the effort is consciously taken. Though I know of a blogger who read at such a ratio and said it was purely accidental. And it can happen. But to keep it that way for many years is impossible.ImageNationshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06021414643103601330noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-18940729543139547992011-02-24T07:46:33.453+00:002011-02-24T07:46:33.453+00:00@Myne, I agree that content and genre counts. Beca...@Myne, I agree that content and genre counts. Because men would not want to be found reading romance, probably. Personally, I read only two novels from Danielle Steel and Perfect from Judith McNaught and decided not to read any book from these writers. Why? I found the story lines impossible to happen especially in relation to where I was coming from. In Perfect (which I read almost fifteen years ago) a man who has been wrongly accused abducts a woman who later falls in love with him but turns him in to the authorities, he was imprisoned for 15 years and was released when they found he is innocent. He couldn't do anything/was unhappy and returned to the same woman who had him imprisoned... I was like me I wouldn't do that. lolImageNationshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06021414643103601330noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-30670154317756603692011-02-23T22:11:14.341+00:002011-02-23T22:11:14.341+00:00Very interesting discussion.
I don't have ge...Very interesting discussion. <br /><br />I don't have gender bias, but lately I have been reading a lot of fiction written by women, because of my PhD that is on women's writing. As a woman, I feel attracted by women's writers, but it hasn't been always like this for me. During high school I was reading many classics, so a lot of male French, Russian and Italian writers.<br />Last year (2010) I read 22 male writers and 29 women writers. The year before the statistics are inverted (30 men and 20 women).Stefania - The Italian Backpackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02208023950547260256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-40280334898000144892011-02-23T22:03:27.659+00:002011-02-23T22:03:27.659+00:00@Nana, I think that is the bottom line. Until the ...@Nana, I think that is the bottom line. Until the early nineties, most of the literary fiction published were by men. And when it comes to genre, while women would deliberately pick up thrillers written by men, men would not pick up romance by women. It is just what it is. It takes conscious effort to break through this. I know it took you a while to try AHTM :)Mynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07595087387069634003noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-36645095793935160082011-02-23T12:16:30.329+00:002011-02-23T12:16:30.329+00:00@Amy I have been thinking about all the responses ...@Amy I have been thinking about all the responses on my way to work. This is what i think. like you are correctly saying, the population from which we are randomly selecting from is itself biased. Hence, our random choice, where the probability of each selection is equal, would also be biased. Had each writer (male or female) had the opportunity of being published then we would have a fairly well distributed population and our sample would not be skewed.<br /><br />I agree with you on this.ImageNationshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06021414643103601330noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-12431524942043596742011-02-23T12:06:18.915+00:002011-02-23T12:06:18.915+00:00I'm not sure if we are necessarily biased beca...I'm not sure if we are necessarily biased because as you say we just randomly pick books sometimes -but I do think we are some! I think a lot of it though (especially before) is in terms of who actually got published. And it still affects where books get shelved, the covers that get chosen, and that kind of thing. And those factors affect which ones we just randomly pick up as well.Amyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18102250492155489672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-4127318402193101552011-02-23T07:43:32.940+00:002011-02-23T07:43:32.940+00:00@Amy, are you and Myne then suggesting that consci...@Amy, are you and Myne then suggesting that consciously we are biased? I can't bring myself to checking the gender of authors before purchasing. There are some books on my wishlist whose author's gender I cannot decipher because of the foreign name. I go for books I would love to read. May be I should pay more attention :) but that would be difficult.ImageNationshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06021414643103601330noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-90722641618527940722011-02-22T22:47:00.256+00:002011-02-22T22:47:00.256+00:00@Myne Whitman... You have a point here and thanks ...@Myne Whitman... You have a point here and thanks for your in-depth analyses.ImageNationshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06021414643103601330noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-43142582620689902392011-02-22T22:28:12.121+00:002011-02-22T22:28:12.121+00:00I think Myne makes a really great point that it is...I think Myne makes a really great point that it is how we are raised culturally. It is more likely that women will read books with male characters / watch tv shows or movies with all male cast than the other way around. In large part because we are raised expecting to have to do so because it is the way that things are. <br /><br />I think when we look at newer lit it is sometimes easier to be less skewed as the classics are more men and less women. Sometimes just paying attention helps too :)Amyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18102250492155489672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29803016.post-25533587647202098852011-02-22T19:37:51.012+00:002011-02-22T19:37:51.012+00:00Interesting stats there Nana, I know when the VIDA...Interesting stats there Nana, I know when the VIDA finding raged across the literary world and it was intriguing to say the least. As you must have found out too, all the major prizes - Nobel, Booker, etc, are also skewed against women. What I think is that most of us are sexist by nature if not upbringing, and this is even more so for men. So while a girl child wouldn't mind playing with trucks and guns, a boy child will hardly play with dolls. Think about the connotations of sissies and tomboys, and which is more harmful?<br /><br />I was listening to Debbie Macomber, a women's fiction author, bestseller, who started writing in the seventies for romance houses. She said in those days, it was even more marked, women could mostly/only come in through the publishing door through romance. Now women are publsihed more widely in literary fiction, but the bias remains. The literary/ARTS sector is a man's world at the end of the day. A commenter on some article on the Guardian UK said it may remain so until it is discovered there was a female philospher/thinker in the days of Plato, Socrates, et al..Mynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07595087387069634003noreply@blogger.com