Hmm, I think it depends on how we're defining genre. It's hard for me to come up with female authors who are non-genre (which in its broadest sense seems to just mean non-lit fic) because I as a rule am bored silly by literary fiction. But I can name a to of women authors I like in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror/speculative/mystery/thriller/historical/humor. Hell, I'll even admit to a few romance writers (well, they're kind of on the line, anyway).
I also think a lot of the division between male/female writers in the literary genre is mostly arbitrary, down to marketing and our own prejudices- I've read a lot of strong arguments that the same book about a person dealing with a change in life and reflecting on where they've been and where they're going and the relationships with people around them is considered the Great American Novel when it's written by a guy, but is dismissed as domestic/women's lit when it's written by a woman. And let's not even touch the issue of the way that "womanly" things are still considered bad and shallow. (But "Memories of My Penis" is considered deep literature). And I think that's a hard thing to escape, especially when it's as all-encompassing and subtle as it is.
I've often felt a disconnect between myself and those "girly" things (chick lit! obsession with designer shoes! fashion magazines! Interior design!), but I've come to realize that it's not me that's disconnected from the experiences of other women...it's a disconnect between what culture tells women they should be and what I as a woman actually think and experience. And what they think we should like and how they think we should define ourselves is so ridiculously narrow and shallow.
So I think in reality it breaks down to something like this: there are some people, both male and female, who genuinely like ::feminine-coded thing here:: while also liking other things. But ::feminine coded thing:: is what women are supposed to like/it's acceptable to like, so you have a lot of women trying very hard to fit that mold (and this isn't to say they're faking, because you can definitely nurture certain interests over others), and on top of that, you have whole industries dedicated to ignoring that women really like X bit of culture (or worse, actively trying to discourage them from liking X bit of culture) and shoving *one* type of feminine identity as the end all and be all. (and also treating it as non-normative). And then when something feminine coded fails, they all go, "see, no one wants girly stuff".
Yeah, lit fic is a difficult proposition with me. It's gotta be *really* good. Most of them are just sorta okay. I've definitely read way more female sci fi authors.
the same book about a person dealing with a change in life and reflecting on where they've been and where they're going and the relationships with people around themi
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't read it either way. But you're probably right.
it's a disconnect between what culture tells women they should be and what I as a woman actually think and experience
Hmm, that's interesting. I've always seen most women as this sort of great faceless mass of hair-clothes-makeup-omgboys!-screech and then later kids-SUV-boring-boring-uninteresting-gettingdrunkontheweekend-omg!manicures! But there have to be other types of women out there, right? They're just not being marketed to.
But it bugs me that I can't find any female non-genre writers to read. I...don't want to read about people's trials and tribulations unless it's really interesting and well-realized. And I tend to favor magical realism. So...who are the female magical realism writers? And don't say Isabel Allende because I read one of her things and it was...okay.
Some contemporary and classic female magic realists: Kelly Link, Karen Russell, Amy Bender, Mary Gaitskill, Louise Erdrich, Angela Carter, Toni Morrison, etc. There are tons more.
Kelly Link has all her stuff downloadable and free at her website.
I think it's more than there are other women than the hairclothes-makeup-kids-SUV-boring women that aren't being marketed to. I think it's that "hair/clothes/makeup/kids/suv" is what's being *marketed to women*. And that even the women that superficially fit that mold have more going on usually, actually have an inner life beyond that ...the ones that are nothing but that are fairly rare, I think. Which is not to say all of them are interesting! There are plenty of boring people in this world who have no ambition, no passion. But that's not a gendered thing. It applies equally to the guys.
It was something I had to think about a lot when I started working at Girl Scouts, because I was working with a lot of women that seemed to fit the stereotypical mode that I felt so disconnected from. and I kind of had to realize that these were just parts of their lives, and didn't define them. That we actually had a lot in common, a lot of shared experiences *as women* and that a lot of the differences came not from the girly things but life choices, same as everyone else. I worked with women who had the 2.5 kids and the minivan and had married young and had the house and the picket fence and they liked the chick flicks and they cooed over the teenie bopper singers and they were happy with their lives as they were, more or less. And at first that was totally alienating, but as I said, I came to realize that it was all just the trappings. That I actually genuinely connected with a bunch of them regardless. And that for all they fit columns A B and C they also had things in their lives that didn't fit the feminine mystique.
On the magical realism front, I can't really help you because I don't read a lot of it.....well, the kind that's all very abstract and post modern and dream-like, anyway. There was one book I remember reading in my freshman year of high school that I really liked and it was by a female author, but I don't remember the title. It was about masks and a maze and mythology. Hmm. It's not usually classed as magical realism, but you might like : Judith Merkle Riley, who wrote historical novels with the fantastic woven in. (It's kind of like she took the world views of the people she was writing about at face value. ) The Master of All Desires was one of my favorites. Have you read Kage Baker? She's definitely not a magical realism author, but....well, other than the Company novels, she wrote several books set in a fantasy world that were kind of like magical realism inverted. (They are just really hard to describe). She wrote beautifully, too.
Back to the aligning to gender-identity thing, the real thing that started me questioning all this i s my own relationship to sci-fi/fantasy...how much I liked it, how much I thought of this as kind of transgressive , how reluctant I was to tell people what I was reading...especially when I was a teenager(I used to go to the scifi fantasy section of the library and pretend to use the computer across from it while furtively looking for whatever book I wanted. And some of my defensiveness (only part, though) goes back to my mother, who always would ask what I was reading and would get kind of "oh, you're reading one of THOSE books, aren't they kind of ridiculous?" at me when I'd tell her. Except here's the thing I realized as an adult: my mom is the one that introduced me to genre stuff! She's the one that got me reading it as a small child....and more than that, all the books I raided from my parents' bookshelves in that genre? Were all hers. Which made me realize that all along, she's been as big a genre-addict as I am, and is probably the reason I'm such a genre-addict, but she herself couldn't admit it, either.
Oh yeah, I like Kage Baker, I keep meaning to read more but there are so many of those Company books and you never find them all in once place at one time. :( But her style is really brisk and fun. Also now I'm sad because I didn't realize she'd died. Boo.
That's creepy about the 'trappings' thing, but I'm glad to know there's more going on there than it looks like. I mean I see these people around but I have no idea what goes on in their lives, beyond the surfacey stuff. It's nice to know that there's, well, more to know. Although it comes across as sorta Stepford-y.
Honestly growing up it never really occurred to me that there might be something weird about reading science fiction or fantasy, aside from the fact that nothing I did really fit in a 'normal' category. And I mean a lot of those writers *were* women, and initially I wanted to be a fantasy writer. That never seemed weird to me. I guess to me, normal is weird, and weird is normal. For what that's worth.
Well, a lot of that may have been my own personal neuroses. But in this case, the neuroses was not being able to not care what my peers might think. Still. I was...hmm. I was very aware of being weird, and so when I went from the small artsy charter school full of unusual kids to the big high school , with its very firm unspoken rules of what was acceptable and what was not acceptable....well, I already knew I didn't fit in, and I guess I was trying to minimize what i could.
Kage Baker is awesome. I fell in love with the company novels, but more recently, I've been astounded by the fantasy world books. Anvil of the World was very good, but I recently read The Bird of the River and just was stunned by how good it was. And in looking up titles of things, I realized that both Judith Merkle Riley and Kage Baker both died in 2010 of reproductive-system cancers. (Ovarian and uterine, respectively).
I hung out with the theater kids for a while. But yeah, I'm there with the 'trying to minimize' thing, though that wasn't really until later. It's frustrating because you expend so much energy on it, so it's impossible not to foster some resentment.
I guess I should look for more of her stuff, huh? I've never even heard of Bird of the River.
I agree with you strongly on all these points! Especially this:
I've often felt a disconnect between myself and those "girly" things (chick lit! obsession with designer shoes! fashion magazines! Interior design!), but I've come to realize that it's not me that's disconnected from the experiences of other women...it's a disconnect between what culture tells women they should be and what I as a woman actually think and experience.
Yes! Huge agreement. Lots of things are, as you say, "coded" for women or coded for men.
And god help us when the women like the manly things. How much the popularity with women of various male-coded fiction disconcerts people (especially the producers/publishers/whatever) always kind of amuses me. (Well, better to laugh than cry.)
Though I don't think I've ever seen it as obvious as it was from the Stargate folks when SGU came out, and there were complaints from fans about the depiction of women. It was kind of like "Good riddance! Stupid girls, watching our show."
I also think a lot of the division between male/female writers in the literary genre is mostly arbitrary, down to marketing and our own prejudices- I've read a lot of strong arguments that the same book about a person dealing with a change in life and reflecting on where they've been and where they're going and the relationships with people around them is considered the Great American Novel when it's written by a guy, but is dismissed as domestic/women's lit when it's written by a woman. And let's not even touch the issue of the way that "womanly" things are still considered bad and shallow. (But "Memories of My Penis" is considered deep literature). And I think that's a hard thing to escape, especially when it's as all-encompassing and subtle as it is.
I've often felt a disconnect between myself and those "girly" things (chick lit! obsession with designer shoes! fashion magazines! Interior design!), but I've come to realize that it's not me that's disconnected from the experiences of other women...it's a disconnect between what culture tells women they should be and what I as a woman actually think and experience. And what they think we should like and how they think we should define ourselves is so ridiculously narrow and shallow.
So I think in reality it breaks down to something like this: there are some people, both male and female, who genuinely like ::feminine-coded thing here:: while also liking other things. But ::feminine coded thing:: is what women are supposed to like/it's acceptable to like, so you have a lot of women trying very hard to fit that mold (and this isn't to say they're faking, because you can definitely nurture certain interests over others), and on top of that, you have whole industries dedicated to ignoring that women really like X bit of culture (or worse, actively trying to discourage them from liking X bit of culture) and shoving *one* type of feminine identity as the end all and be all. (and also treating it as non-normative). And then when something feminine coded fails, they all go, "see, no one wants girly stuff".
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the same book about a person dealing with a change in life and reflecting on where they've been and where they're going and the relationships with people around themi
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't read it either way. But you're probably right.
it's a disconnect between what culture tells women they should be and what I as a woman actually think and experience
Hmm, that's interesting. I've always seen most women as this sort of great faceless mass of hair-clothes-makeup-omgboys!-screech and then later kids-SUV-boring-boring-uninteresting-gettingdrunkontheweekend-omg!manicures! But there have to be other types of women out there, right? They're just not being marketed to.
But it bugs me that I can't find any female non-genre writers to read. I...don't want to read about people's trials and tribulations unless it's really interesting and well-realized. And I tend to favor magical realism. So...who are the female magical realism writers? And don't say Isabel Allende because I read one of her things and it was...okay.
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Kelly Link has all her stuff downloadable and free at her website.
"Haunting Olivia" by Russell is available online here. http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/06/13/050613fi_fiction
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Free. Free is good. Yes.
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It was something I had to think about a lot when I started working at Girl Scouts, because I was working with a lot of women that seemed to fit the stereotypical mode that I felt so disconnected from. and I kind of had to realize that these were just parts of their lives, and didn't define them. That we actually had a lot in common, a lot of shared experiences *as women* and that a lot of the differences came not from the girly things but life choices, same as everyone else. I worked with women who had the 2.5 kids and the minivan and had married young and had the house and the picket fence and they liked the chick flicks and they cooed over the teenie bopper singers and they were happy with their lives as they were, more or less. And at first that was totally alienating, but as I said, I came to realize that it was all just the trappings. That I actually genuinely connected with a bunch of them regardless. And that for all they fit columns A B and C they also had things in their lives that didn't fit the feminine mystique.
On the magical realism front, I can't really help you because I don't read a lot of it.....well, the kind that's all very abstract and post modern and dream-like, anyway. There was one book I remember reading in my freshman year of high school that I really liked and it was by a female author, but I don't remember the title. It was about masks and a maze and mythology. Hmm. It's not usually classed as magical realism, but you might like : Judith Merkle Riley, who wrote historical novels with the fantastic woven in. (It's kind of like she took the world views of the people she was writing about at face value. ) The Master of All Desires was one of my favorites. Have you read Kage Baker? She's definitely not a magical realism author, but....well, other than the Company novels, she wrote several books set in a fantasy world that were kind of like magical realism inverted. (They are just really hard to describe). She wrote beautifully, too.
Back to the aligning to gender-identity thing, the real thing that started me questioning all this i s my own relationship to sci-fi/fantasy...how much I liked it, how much I thought of this as kind of transgressive , how reluctant I was to tell people what I was reading...especially when I was a teenager(I used to go to the scifi fantasy section of the library and pretend to use the computer across from it while furtively looking for whatever book I wanted. And some of my defensiveness (only part, though) goes back to my mother, who always would ask what I was reading and would get kind of "oh, you're reading one of THOSE books, aren't they kind of ridiculous?" at me when I'd tell her. Except here's the thing I realized as an adult: my mom is the one that introduced me to genre stuff! She's the one that got me reading it as a small child....and more than that, all the books I raided from my parents' bookshelves in that genre? Were all hers. Which made me realize that all along, she's been as big a genre-addict as I am, and is probably the reason I'm such a genre-addict, but she herself couldn't admit it, either.
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That's creepy about the 'trappings' thing, but I'm glad to know there's more going on there than it looks like. I mean I see these people around but I have no idea what goes on in their lives, beyond the surfacey stuff. It's nice to know that there's, well, more to know. Although it comes across as sorta Stepford-y.
Honestly growing up it never really occurred to me that there might be something weird about reading science fiction or fantasy, aside from the fact that nothing I did really fit in a 'normal' category. And I mean a lot of those writers *were* women, and initially I wanted to be a fantasy writer. That never seemed weird to me. I guess to me, normal is weird, and weird is normal. For what that's worth.
Reply
Kage Baker is awesome. I fell in love with the company novels, but more recently, I've been astounded by the fantasy world books. Anvil of the World was very good, but I recently read The Bird of the River and just was stunned by how good it was. And in looking up titles of things, I realized that both Judith Merkle Riley and Kage Baker both died in 2010 of reproductive-system cancers. (Ovarian and uterine, respectively).
Reply
I guess I should look for more of her stuff, huh? I've never even heard of Bird of the River.
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I've often felt a disconnect between myself and those "girly" things (chick lit! obsession with designer shoes! fashion magazines! Interior design!), but I've come to realize that it's not me that's disconnected from the experiences of other women...it's a disconnect between what culture tells women they should be and what I as a woman actually think and experience.
Yes! Huge agreement. Lots of things are, as you say, "coded" for women or coded for men.
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Though I don't think I've ever seen it as obvious as it was from the Stargate folks when SGU came out, and there were complaints from fans about the depiction of women. It was kind of like "Good riddance! Stupid girls, watching our show."
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